Court Upholds AP "Quasi-Property" Rights On Hot News

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "A federal court ruled that the AP can sue competitors for 'quasi-property' rights on hot news, as well as for copyright infringement and several other claims. The so-called 'hot news' doctrine was created by a judge 90 years ago in another case, where the AP sued a competitor for copying wartime reporting and bribing its employees to send them a copy of unreleased news. The courts' solution was to make hot news a form of 'quasi-property' distinct from copyright, in part because facts cannot be copyrighted. But now the AP is making use of the precedent again, going after AHN which competes with the AP, alleging that they're somehow copying the AP's news. The AP has been rather busy with lawsuits lately, so even though the AP has a story about their own lawsuit, we won't link to it."

Comments

I call it plagiarism

[alain94040]

Instead of this fancy legal term of "hot news", I use another term for what AHN is doing to AP: "plagiarism". According to nolo:

putting your name on someone else's work is still plagiarism and is unethical within artistic, scientific, academic and political communities

I guess the press is not one of those communities. I'm not a big fan of lawsuits: I was sued once by a company that wanted to put me out of business and they almost succeeded. Being right doesn't matter, it's whoever has the deepest pockets.

So in this case, I'd much rather have the community (the readers) shun AHN. It's important for everyone to know what is going on, and let the public make their own choices.

--
FairSoftware.net -- where geeks are their own boss

Re:I call it plagiarism

[Joe U]

At what point does this end though? You can't own a fact.

It's currently raining in NY (c) AP 2009?

Re:I call it plagiarism

[mysidia]

Instead of this fancy legal term of "hot news", I use another term for what AHN is doing to AP: "plagiarism".

That's a reasonable characterization. But since there is no law against plagiarism, and the effects of a court manufacturing such a sweeping law (contrary to free speech), would almost certainly get the ruling rapidly overturned by a higher court,

So by coming up with the "hot news" concept that seems specific enough, the ruling's likely to stand for a long time, or at least "long enough"

Re:I call it plagiarism

[mysidia]

Now that you've already posted it in public, it's not "hot" news anymore.

Re:I call it plagiarism

[hackstraw]

At what point does this end though? You can't own a fact.

You can sue over them though, as the Big sports associations have:

This one covers "Hot scores".

Back in 1996 this was apparently a controversial thing. Info here about owning facts here and on the same site here.

And there are still attempts to sue fantasy sports like this one, but I've never heard of this kind of suit being won by the plaintiffs.

Stranger things have been upheld in court.

Re:I call it plagiarism

[LingNoi]

That's a slightly different topic which is statistics.

Re:I call it plagiarism

[Zordak]

At what point does this end though?

It ends at the point you no longer have a competitive advantage from having the "scoop." If I remember the case right, the court correctly noted that the facts can't be copyrighted, and instead carved out a narrow common law right to "hot news" based on a three-factor test I don't remember. There's really not much of a slippery slope here.

Re:I call it plagiarism

[Bill Dodd]

I really see this as a similar situation to what you described as what happened to you. I've ready pieces from both AP and AHN and they are not the same. I see AHN more frequently making a referral to a source like "according to a BBC report" but not direct copying.. I really see this as the associated press trying to take out a competitor by litigation and maybe even "defamation by litigation" The only coverage from AP on this hasn't been balanced coverage, it's been been the chest thumping of a 800lb gorilla, very one sided indeed.

Re:I call it plagiarism

[Syberz]

Lemme get this straight... you can "own" the news now? So, whichever reporter arrives at the scene first is the only one allowed to cover the event?

Were not talking plagiarism in this case, the AP is saying that since they covered the news first, nobody else can. WTF?

Re:I call it plagiarism

[mcgrew]

If you reword it it's neither plagiarism nor copyright infringement. If you blockquote a portion of it it may or may not be fair use. But if you copy the whole thing word for word it's copyright infringement, and if you do that withoout attribution it's also plagiarism.

You can't own facts, nor can you really own literary works; you can only hold copyright, which gives you a limited time monopoly oon its publication.

Re:I call it plagiarism

[WNight]

No, copyright already protects expression, this "hot news" protection must go beyond that.

And your capitalism thing there sounds fairly communist. Only in a communism is does your amount of work matter. In a capitalism you're just as free to sell something for $1 or $1M, if you find it or spend your entire life making it. The price paid, and thus value given for your time, is totally dependent on value you provide to the customer.

Many things of high value fall into our laps every day. If, for instance, you told me that our office building was burning I could escape. But I don't "owe" you anything for this, or have an obligation to keep it secret.

This is what happens when we have judges throwing cases to the side they feel is most worthy, not the side favored by law or maximum societal benefit.

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[KrimZon]

Maybe they're like the NN equivalent of an AC on SD or something.

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[bennomatic]

AP = Associated Press, the biggest, baddest news syndicate out there.

That being said, you're absolutely right. The full, unabbreviated name should have been in there at least once.

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[Goobermunch]

The "AP" is the Associated Press. It's probably the largest news gathering organization in the world.

--AC

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[QuoteMstr]

It's the The Associated Press, a wire service.

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[keeboo]

It's " Associated Press" they're talking about.

This just in...

[fireman sam]

... I'm about to be sued by Associated Press for this hot news item. More at 11

Re:This just in...

[Cederic]

Any particular reason for precisely naming the film at 11?

Not that I'm knocking Scum, it's a fucking masterpiece; indeed it broke the system.

Who's the daddy now?

New Internet Rules

[cdrguru]

If it can be taken, copied, borrowed, whatever - it will be. It is not physically or technically possible to prevent this from happening.

That means you are left with civil court remedies, which generally take too long to get anywhere and the penalties may be wholly out of line with the benefits. Basically, you can drive your competitors out of a billion-dollary business and get fined a million dollars. Sounds like a great business plan.

Alternatively, civil court remedies can be wholly out of line the other way, where the benefit to the offender is $1000 and they have to pay a $250,000 fine.

We have spent the last 20 years educating the population that "borrowing" and "sharing" is good and fine and as long as it is on the Internet nobody is harmed. Can we not understand that this is going to carry over into all walks of life. If it is OK to share music across the planet at home then at work it is going to be OK to share web content, or any other content you can lay your hands on.

Plagiarism? Sure. But people buy term papers on the Internet all the time, so don't expect they will feel any shame about this sort of activity either.

Re:New Internet Rules

[merreborn]

We have spent the last 20 years educating the population that "borrowing" and "sharing" is good and fine and as long as it is on the Internet nobody is harmed. Can we not understand that this is going to carry over into all walks of life. If it is OK to share music across the planet at home then at work it is going to be OK to share web content, or any other content you can lay your hands on.

I think even much of the anti-copyright crowd is still against the idea of attempting to profit off someone else's work via plagiarism.

There's a difference between me emailing the text of an AP article to a few friends, and posting the same content on my website without attribution or permission, and raking in advertising dollars.

Re:New Internet Rules

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Plagiarism? Sure. But people buy term papers on the Internet all the time, so don't expect they will feel any shame about this sort of activity either.

That seems to be insidious and corrosive though. You better hope that any physician you get had better scruples than that. The same goes to your car mechanic or commercial airline pilot too. You don't want people that should have failed those tests to go on and get employment, which could have devastating consequences.

Re:New Internet Rules

[DMalic]

Agreed. I wouldn't use the term "still", though. There's a clear difference between redistributing material which was originally envisioned by someone else and trying to take credit for it. It's quite possible that taking a stronger stance against redistribution and the creation of derivative works leads to the proliferation of works which don't give credit because it would expose them to legal liability. See: the entire dungeons and dragons universe.

Re:New Internet Rules

[cpt kangarooski]

If you have too much sharing, then there is no longer a means for sales.

No, that's going too far. People sell copies of public domain works all the time. Go to any decent bookstore, and you'll find copies of Dickens, Hugo, Twain, etc.

Frankly, it's not for you or anyone else to judge how they choose to profit from their creations.

Well, to some extent it is. The people empowered the government to enact copyright laws meant to benefit the people. Copyright doesn't originate from authors, and is not meant to serve their interests, save as a mere means to an end. (Much like how a farmer might give his mule a carrot to encourage it to pull a cart to market, but wouldn't waste a carrot on the mule for no self-serving reason)

Ultimately, we set the rules, and we set them to benefit ourselves. The trouble we've been having lately is that our representatives, who are supposed to be acting in our interests, have been corrupted or confused, and are not only acting as dictated by third parties, they are often acting against the public interest. It's a problem that demands our attention.

I have no problem with authors profiting from their work. But if they wish to profit by means of a monopoly that prevents everyone else from using their work as we see fit, then there's a pretty big problem. Why would I ever give an author such power unless I gained more by doing so than I lost? Thus, how they choose to profit from their work becomes a question I, and everyone else, needs to judge, since apparently no one else has our interests in mind.

Thus:

If they want to sell very limited copies for money

If they want to sell very limited copies for money, it's ultimately up to everyone else to decide whether those limits ought to be enforceable, or even respected. You can apply DRM to a copy of Shakespeare, if you like, and I can break it, if I like. If you want a copyright, you'll have to convince me that it leaves me better off to grant you one.

It's not for people to overstep their authority simply because they can do it easily.

It's a factor. Copyright law must serve the public interest in encouraging works to be created and published, with as few restrictions on those works as possible, for the shortest period of time. That is, getting the most bang for our buck. But it also needs to conform to social norms. It's always good for the law to be obeyed not only out of respect for the law, but because people would be apt to engage in that behavior anyway. When law and norms conflict, people tend to follow norms. When people disrespect one law, this can breed disrespect for more; that's dangerous. And since the law is meant to serve the people, the people are usually in the right in these matters. Sometimes it is worth trying to change social norms -- the civil rights era is a good example of this -- but it often isn't -- such as Prohibition. I'd say that copyright is one of those laws where it needs to submit to norms, rather than the other way around. Thus, piracy amongst individuals, not acting for profit, really ought to be made lawful, since virtually everyone seems to do it anyway, while commercial piracy, which most people are opposed to, could remain infringing.

-it's nothing more than simple greed and dishonesty

I fail to see the dishonesty. As for the greed, sure. So what? Copyright is based upon greed. It incentivizes authors to create, by playing on their greed for the money that the temporary monopoly can direct toward them. And it exists because the public has a insatiable greed for more creative works, and for those works to be as unrestricted as possible, as fast as possible, so that they can be acquired for free, and freely used. Don't dis greed.

Borrowing and sharing is good, yes, if you have permission.

In the context of creative works, at least, it is always good, regardless of permission, except when it is self-defeating.

Re:New Internet Rules

[poopdeville]

You speak of tyranny of the majority only, and it is something this country has a long tradition of carefully and systematically resisting. The law is meant to serve all the people, and artists and creators are members of that broader group. The mob rule effect of jealous cheapskates does not outweigh the interests of the minority whose unique and deliberate act of creation is so desperately craved by the masses. That work was shared on the condition that a copyright permitted exclusive control of the doing and authorizing of reproduction, distribution, and adaptation rights. That simply cannot be ignored. The rights of the people include the right to hold and exclusively exploit a copyright. They are not required to make it available for distribution at all during the period of copyright, though it serves their interests to do so since they want to be monetarily reimbursed.

This argument would fly if it wasn't for the proven constitutionality of indefinitely many copyright extensions. We are already at 70 years after the death of the author. "Artists" and "creators" are long dead when their "rights" expire. And this is at our cost.

Re:New Internet Rules

[cpt kangarooski]

Public domain works are public domain, so there's no issue with a copyright owner staging a protest. It's irrelevant.

Not at all; the complaint was that without a copyright, sales were impossible: "If you have too much sharing, then there is no longer a means for sales." The sale of copies of public domain works disproves that.

It exists to permit a monopoly holder to engage in economic exploitation of their works in exchange for them providing their works to the public.

Well, not quite. It exists to provide the public with more public domain works. It does this by means of granting an author an economic monopoly temporarily, subject to various exceptions. You're confusing ends with means a bit.

As a result, customers must pay higher prices during the term and also must accept that the bargaining power rests with the one offering the work for distribution.

Well, the bargaining power within the monopoly, sure. The power to define the scope of the monopoly, though, that's ours. We just haven't really been using it as much as we ought to, lately.

but as long as the copyright is in existence, they have absolutely no rights except those they acquire through a legitimate act of law.

Well, it's more that they have all the rights in the work, but they've temporarily, and to a limited extent, ceded some of them. Remember, it's authors who get special rights derived from the rights that everyone else naturally has. Copyright is basically about controlling the free speech of others.

You can apply DRM to a copy of Shakespeare, if you like, and I can break it, if I like.

Shakespeare is public domain, and always has been in the United States.

I'll take that as agreement with my point; that merely because you want control over something doesn't mean that you get it; you have to get it from the rest of us.

Copyright is automatic and naturally vested in moral rights systems, and thanks to Berne and the laws passed in the US to conform with it, that aspect is present in the United States as well.

Yes, that is the system we've been suckered into, but you've misunderstood my point, I'm afraid. I'm saying that there is no natural right of authors to a copyright. Instead, there is a natural right of free speech which runs directly counter to such an idea, and which everyone else possesses as to a particular author's work. This is why I have a right to perform Shakespeare, if I wish, despite not being the author. There's no law that transfers Shakespeare's rights to me; there are laws that transfer control over my inherent right to authors, though. We call it copyright. The flow of rights is important to bear in mind. For starters, it helps to expose how much bullshit the whole "moral rights" idea really is.

We could abolish copyright in this country tomorrow, if we wished. I don't think we ought to, though massive reforms are clearly needed. Authors couldn't stop us, and would have no right to stop us, save that of ordinary citizens or aliens disagreeing with their government. Their copyrights exist at our sufferance, is my point, and the greed of authors and publishers has pretty much brought us to the point at which the public indulgence of authors is at its limit. It may not be pretty when it finally goes.

Entering the public domain is not a natural condition interrupted by copyright, but a transition and a distinction that only exists within a copyright system.

No, you're wrong there, I'm afraid. In the absence of copyright, all works are in the public domain, and in the presence of copyright, all works are in the public domain save to the extent that copyrights are granted. When a copyright expires, nothing special happens for the work to become a fully public domain work, save that the restrictions on it vanish. No rights in the work are granted to the public; rather, we're just finally free to use our natural rights in the work once more.

If it helps, imagine it lik

Re:New Internet Rules

[cpt kangarooski]

It does not. No one pays for access to works of Shakespeare in electronic form

And? The complaint was that sales were impossible, not that one specific kind of sale couldn't compete. Don't go changing the facts to support a failed argument.

and the sales of paper copies do not provide any revenue for the creator--which is the purpose of copyright.

No, the purpose of copyright is to promote the progress of science. It may accomplish this by the means of directing revenue toward the copyright holder, but that's not the objective in the least.

Too much sharing reduces the ability for the copyright owner to make sales that provide effective remuneration for his contribution.

In some cases, that may indeed be true. What's your point? No copyright system is ever going to ensure that authors et al have the ability to be remunerated for their work. I, for example, am a moon artist; I reshape, color, and decorate the moon into various creative works. But, unless copyright lasts forever, and anyone who ever looks at, or thinks about, the moon gives me all of the money they'll ever have in their lives, it's just not rewarding enough for me to actually do it. I'm not incentivized enough. Given how you've been proceeding so far, you surely must insist that these reforms take place so that my moon artistry is viable. I, on the other hand, would accept that while a creatively remade moon would be a great thing to have, it apparently would come at too dear a price. Even though society is harmed by lacking an improved moon, we're nevertheless ultimately better off keeping our money.

Now, the interesting thing is, it is likewise entirely possible that society is also better off if anything natural persons do which is not for commercial gain is noninfringing, even if this means that fewer big budget works will be created and published. If an author isn't making enough money, it is perfectly acceptable in light of the goals of copyright for that author to leave art, and take up an exciting career in TV and VCR repair, so long as there is just enough, or too much copyright.

Remember, except in circumstances where no copyright is the optimal amount, there can be too little of it. In that case, we certainly should try to get more works created and published, even though it costs the public in the form of greater restrictions. But where we have too much, we should reduce the incentives to authors because they are too costly; this is the land of diminishing returns. And in the middle, somewhere (probably quite close to 'no copyright,' because the returns start diminishing real fast), is the optimal amount, which is what we obviously want to get our implementation of copyright to.

If it helps, imagine how the world would be if there were: 1) no copyright; 2) copyright for a year; 3) copyright forever. Which do you think would be best? We know that the world can get along okay with no copyright, as that's how the world was for most of its history. Do you really think it'd fare well with eternal copyrights?

On the contrary, you are reading the copyright clause as if no comma exists.

Lack of a comma would be ungrammatical, and it certainly belongs.

The system of copyrights is enacted to incentive creators to create in quantity.

No, it is there to promote the progress of science. It does this, quite cleverly, by encouraging authors to create works, and then by placing those works in the public domain, where they of the greatest use to all. Restricted works are not all that useful. The restrictions impair their availability and use, what with people having finite budgets, works falling out of print, derivative works being unlawful to create without permission, etc. An unrestricted work is as useful as it can get.

If the goal were solely to further the public domain, the incentive rationale would not be valid at all.

No, the goal is solely to further the public domain. It's just that it's a process that occurs over time. We

Re:New Internet Rules

[cpt kangarooski]

No, the statement was that remuneration to the author (sales) would not occur with excessive sharing.

No, the statement was:

If you have too much sharing, then there is no longer a means for sales.

I don't see anything there indicating whose sales, or how remunerative the sales have to be. Just that sales are, in fact, possible. I myself have spent money on copies of Shakespeare, as have many others. The publishers find it rewarding enough to keep churning out copies. Shakespeare doesn't see a penny of it. Still, other than the fact that he's dead, nothing is stopping Shakespeare from printing his own copies. If he did, I'd buy one.

The whole situation is known to happen anyway. Night of the Living Dead is infamously in the public domain, and there are loads of different publishers that have released copies, but IIRC, a few of those editions are authorized by Romero himself. He seems to have not given up, as you suggest he would do in that situation. Some authors would, I grant, but the issue is whether the benefit to the public of a lessened copyright monopoly would outweigh the harm of fewer authors creating and publishing works. So long as the new copyright exception was limited to natural persons acting non-commercially (e.g. not using works as a draw for advertising, nor trading works for one another as might be the case with warez ratios, nor charging for access to copies), I think there would indeed be a net benefit. And in any event, file sharing of that general character is extremely widespread anyway. I'm not doing much more than accepting the reality of the situation, similar to people who advocate legalizing, regulating, and taxing marijuana, instead of persisting with banning it outright.

Having written the statement

Well, you are posting anonymously. I've got no problems with that, but it does mean that I've got to guess that all the posts have the same author based on writing style. Besides, it was poorly worded, as shown above, and wrong anyway, as demonstrated.

You do not have the right under free speech to reproduce the work of another.

Well, for the record, I am not Shakespeare. The fact that his work is in the public domain is irrelevant. Nowhere in copyright law does it say that the public has a right to reproduce copies of public domain works. The closest you can get is that for public domain works, there is no copyright holder to tell me that I cannot.

This isn't a big surprise. One of the foundations of traditional English law is that everything is permitted, unless specifically prohibited. The relationship between free speech and copyright is that everyone (being possessed of free speech) can do anything with any work, unless copyright specifically prohibits a particular act with a particular work. Expiration of copyright merely removes the obstacle that impeded the exercise of the underlying free speech right.

This can be seen elsewhere, too. For example, copyright never says that I have a right to read books. Nor does it say that copyright holders have a right to prevent people from reading books. Copyright law is remarkably silent on the entire issue of reading books. But, since I have a protected right to read books (it's implied in the First Amendment; freedom to speak would mean nothing without an audience's freedom to listen) and there's no right of a copyright holder to stop me, I can do it.

without anyone else having ANY right to access it

Well where the hell did that come from? I never said that the free speech right encompassed a right to forcibly gain access to a work, nor would I. If Alice creates a work and keeps it secret, Bob cannot compel her to reveal it. But when Alice shows it to Bob, access has been granted. At that point, copyright is the only thing that can prevent Bob from copying the work and sharing it with the world. If there is no copyright on it, for whatever reason, then we can all guess what will happen next.

As it happens, a goal

Re:New Internet Rules

[cpt kangarooski]

IT HAS BEEN CLARIFIED

Sure, but even as clarified, it's still demonstrably incorrect.

A work, when created, is solely, exclusively, permanently private, owned as to all applicable legal rights by its creator. Any use of that work is a legal injury.

No, I disagree. A work, having been created, may be kept private. But they often aren't, and once revealed to the public, it is no longer shielded by whatever privacy rights that were employed to do so. And while a particular party who infringes on those privacy rights might face legal action for his trespass, if the work gets revealed to the whole world, it's simply not possible to use privacy rights to hold the whole world to account. After all, they're not the ones who infringed, they aren't aware of the dastardly way in which the work reached them, and except in the most limited circumstances, no remedy can actually serve to make the author whole. Post-publication is the point at which copyright becomes useful, even if the publication was wrongful. Your attempts to unring the bell will not be fruitful; it's better to deal with it and move on.

The third party does not have a right to exceed the terms of his access; the public does not have a right through him to make demands; any breach is subject to damages.

There are no demands by the public here, but if a trade secret is sufficiently breached -- say, if everyone in the world was sent a copy of the secret recipe for Coke -- it just cannot be repaired. You can't have a trade secret that isn't secret.

The public has rights in works upon creation, but they're essentially moot, for a lack of access, which is one thing that the public doesn't have a right to compel. This might seem odd, but given that the author can't grant affirmative rights to the work (he, after all, relies on his free speech right to actually do things; copyright is merely the right to deny others the right to exercise their inherent rights), nor can anyone else, it's the only way that we can describe reality. Fatal flaws in your hypothesis have already been pointed out; I won't bother with getting into them yet again.

that is only one sense of the word natural

Well, for the idea of natural rights, I've seen no one better than Hobbes. Where you're coming from, who knows.

Absent a copyright, the works remain fully and immovably held by a private party.

Sure, as long as the work is kept as a deep dark secret. History teaches us that absent copyright, once a work is revealed to someone else, it tends to get copied and redistributed, and there is little chance of the author stopping it. No chance at all if we set aside odious examples of state censorship. Many of the great written works from antiquity, such as Plato or Virgil only exist because there was no copyright and a great deal of unauthorized copying and recopying. If this offends you, if you'd rather have those works lost to us, like so many other classical works are, then there's really little hope for you.

Me, I'm interested in promoting the progress of science. I wouldn't force an author to create a work, and I wouldn't force an author to publish a work, but beyond that, anything is fair game, and it's the public that makes the rules for its own benefit.

Re:New Internet Rules

[cpt kangarooski]

'Demonstrably' presumes a demonstration, which you have not achieved.

The Romero example; it's a public domain work, many publishers sell copies, and the author sells copies as well.

Of course, I advocate the legalization of otherwise infringing non-commercial behavior engaged in by natural persons. So while there would be some effect on the market for authorized copies of the work, whatever market remained would still largely be monopolized by the copyright holder. So really, the example goes a little further than it strictly needs to.

It's not the use of privacy rights, but simply the use of property rights.

There is no property. A copy is property, but that's not what we're talking about. A copyright is arguably property, but that too is not what we're talking about. A work isn't property. If it were, we wouldn't need copyright; ordinary personal property law would do nicely. The principle reason that a work can't be property is its inherent non-rivalrous nature. An author can share a work, but he can't actually dispose of it, nor can he recover it. You'll already be aware of this, as Jefferson was discussing it earlier. Frankly, creative works, along with inventions, and ideas generally, were practically designed by God to not be property. They can't help but spread, and unless they die due to inattention, they're pretty much impossible to contain or destroy.

Prior to copyright and its functional predecessors, works were not published as we understand the term.

There are no functional predecessors to copyright, save for systems of censorship and monopoly. There's a reason no one points to the stationers' copyright and says 'That was a good idea.' Copyright began with the Statute of Anne. Anything prior might have a similar name, but that's about it.

Further, while the definition of publication for copyright law purposes focuses on publication in copies, this is really little more than an accident in the evolution of the law. It's more accurate -- and on the list of issues to be addressed in the coming reform -- to think of publication as exposing the work to the public by any means. Public performance or display would do quite nicely. And given that widespread literacy is a fairly recent phenomenon, unfixed publication was pretty much the only way to exploit many creative works. Also, you are forgetting about newspapers.

nothing gave the public an intrinsic right to achieve access to them

And I've said all along that nothing gives the public an intrinsic right to access privately kept copies, period. The intrinsic right is to copy and distribute the works, should access to the copies be achieved through some means. Once someone starts doing this, though, access to the work by the public at large is generally going to occur.

A truly bizarre statement considering that the works that survived are ones of common cultural heritage that had all become sufficiently public by the acts of their creators so as to be preserved.

Well, no. Consider Alexandria, for example. The law of the city was that any scroll that arrived (and which was of interest) would be copied, to enlarge the collection of their famous library. We don't really know the provenance of all the surviving works of the classical world, but what with them being copied by one group and then another and so on, it's not really difficult to imagine that there were times that works were preserved and disseminated against the wishes of their creators.

There are even modern examples along these lines. Kafka wanted all of his works destroyed upon his death, but his executor wisely ignored that wish. Quite famously, Nabokov wanted his last MS destroyed, and after dithering over it for the last few decades, his family has finally decided to publish. Presumably everyone is happy about this other than Nabokov, who no one actually cares about.

And of course, there's Agrippa, which people have worked to preserve, lest it be lost, which is actually what is suppo

Re:New Internet Rules

[cpt kangarooski]

It does not suggest a functional method of maintaining the appropriate balance

Sure it does, especially given that I propose that his competition would merely be people acting non-commercially; no one else could perform the film in a theater for admission, nor sell copies on video, or provide downloads in conjunction with ads, or in exchange for other works. I daresay he'd wind up better off than he ultimately did.

A copy is precisely what we're talking about--if the work doesn't exist in physical form, the whole discussion is moot.

No. First, because despite your confusion on the issue, I've always maintained that the public's rights deal with intangible works. Not copies, which are perfectly ordinary personal property and can be treated as such. Second, the public has rights even as to unfixed works, if published (in the previously discussed broad sense of the term) to the public, such as improvised music or performances. The long term preservation of works is aided a lot by fixation, so the copyright system encourages authors to do so. If they don't, it is perfectly in keeping with the goals of copyright to open the field to anyone to fix the work instead. Of course, cf. with the copyright maximalists who, in order to "protect artists" who fail to fix their own works, prohibit others to fix the works, ensuring that the works are lost to the ages. Don't even try to tell me that that promotes the progress of science.

When literacy was low and printing presses were hard to come by, there was built-in protection.

Except, of course, that anyone who did happen to get a copy of a work could use it freely. I'd be shocked if this didn't routinely happen. Besides, the very idea of copyright didn't even exist in the short span of time when presses were rare.

A certain group of designated individuals, who gained legitimate access to the scrolls, had official permission to copy them for the library.

The legitimate access was gained because the local government simply ordered it so; the wishes of the authors or even the owners of the copies were utterly irrelevant. And that government was the source of the official permission. It is astonishing that you would cite this to support the idea that authors are the masters of their works. For your next trick, I'd like to request proof that black is white, or that war is peace.

People do not have the individual authority to make judgments on rights guaranteed by laws.

Such as the legally guaranteed right of a southern lunch counter to deny sit-down service to black patrons? The right of a distant Parliament to govern its colonies as it saw fit, without their involvement? Copyright is not nearly so vital an issue, but we've got to start somewhere.

The entire question of what operates outside the rule of law is moot. The rule of law is in operation.

Laws don't spring out of nowhere, though. Their origin and source of authority should always be borne in mind. No law just automatically has the power to rule, as it were. It must be earned. And a displeasing law is quite rightly subject to amendment or repeal. Copyright law, while an excellent idea, has become deeply offensive to the public it is meant to serve first and foremost. I'm all for the rule of law, so long as the law is deserving. I merely suggest that the time has long since come to replace the current copyright law with one that deserves respect and obedience. Again, the lesson of Prohibition should be heeded.

The weasel word there could not be more plain or more telling.

We also have the world's second through thirteenth, copyright laws (IIRC, Rhode Island didn't have one), but there's a good reason they're usually not brought up. The states really made a shamble of things during the Articles of Confederacy period, which is why we wound up quickly scrapping our first national government and creating a replacement, which is still the one that we have to this day. Most of the powers that Congress is vest

Message

[Hao Wu]

Let us all fight for our quasi-rights while living under this quasi-dictatorship.

Re:Message

[GMFTatsujin]

Can we instead quasi-fight for our quasi-right to quasi-party?

Re:Message

[Anonymous Coward]

This is making me feel a bit quasi...

Re:Message

[mpaulsen]

"Can we instead quasi-fight for our quasi-right to quasi-party?" That should be slashdot's quasi motto.

!plagiarism

[zobier]

Covering the same story is not necessarily plagiarism, copying it verbatim would come directly under copyright but AFAICT that's not the case at issue.

Anyway:

The AP has been rather busy with lawsuits lately, so even though the AP has a story about their own lawsuit, we won't link to it.

It made for a good joke but the AP doesn't seem to be covering this story (I was going to post the link but I can't find one).

Re:!plagiarism

[lastchance_000]

Maybe they sent themselves a DMCA takedown notice.

Re:!plagiarism

[dontmakemethink]

Another news service covering a story is legitimate news. I've many times seen or heard an article or broadcast claim "[other news service] is reporting that..." I think the problem is that AHN is leaving out the "AP is reporting that..." part.

The notion that advertising the original news service is as or more important than the news itself is not newsworthy to me.

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[poot_rootbeer]

That being said, you're absolutely right. The full, unabbreviated name should have been in there at least once.

Indeed. I'd quote the relevant passage from the AP Stylebook regarding the use of abbreviations, but they seem to have locked it up behind a paid-content wall.

Take THAT, thriving black market for standard news industry reference materials!

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Associated Press. (%Insert link to Wikipedia article.%) (%Insert random fact or two about AP.%) (%Insert funny comment to try and get modded up.%)

Ah, thank god for my Slashdot comment template engine.

it is not plagiarism

[jipn4]

The press isn't one of those communities because the press doesn't deal in the kinds of concepts you can plagiarize. If AHN copied AP text verbatim, you might say that they plagiarized the writing, but then they would get sued for copyright infringement. But they are merely stating the same fact as a fact stated in an AP news story, and it's a fact that, unlike a scientific experiment, didn't require creativity to observe--it merely required presence.

So, I don't think it's plagiarism.

Re:it is not plagiarism

[ethicalBob]

The problem with this is that AHN isn't present. They are merely lifting AP stories.

If they were at a new-event, there is no problem with them creating their own copy (words) and publishing. The entire news industry is based on exactly this.

The problem with AHN is that they are not sending reporters to stories, they are merely copying AP stories.

The Associated Press actually is set up for exactly this purpose (other outlets using their stories); but AP wire-service subscribers are held to certain rights and conditions as per the license/subscription agreement. This allows the AP to continue to operate (financially) and continue to produce those stories which AHN could not produce on their own (without hiring the staff to actually go to the location of these news-happenings).

Re:it is not plagiarism

[HTH NE1]

The problem with this is that AHN isn't present. They are merely lifting AP stories.

The problem with AHN is that they are not sending reporters to stories, they are merely copying AP stories.

I see what you did there.

But what if they weren't just getting their facts from AP stories? What if they also got facts from another hot-news source that had information the AP didn't? Shouldn't they be able to combine the facts from two stories in a new narrative to create a more complete story?

It seems other useful actions may run afoul of this, including providing a translation service. Are only the people who read a hot news item's original published languages deserving to be informed?

I read the news today, oh boy!
"Sir, I represent the Associated Press. I have a court order demanding an immediate halt to this unauthorized repackaging of our hot news item."

Re:it is not plagiarism

[artor3]

You have to consider what is best for society. If news is unprotected, then it's in everyone's best interest to copy the facts from another source. It's a prisoner's dilemma, and unfortunately greedy companies ALWAYS choose to defect, which means anyone who isn't a sucker will have to either defect as well (leaving us with no source for news whatsoever) or change the rules of the game (which the AP is trying to do).

More power to them.

Re:it is not plagiarism

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

But what if they weren't just getting their facts from AP stories? What if they also got facts from another hot-news source that had information the AP didn't? Shouldn't they be able to combine the facts from two stories in a new narrative to create a more complete story? It seems other useful actions may run afoul of this, including providing a translation service. Are only the people who read a hot news item's original published languages deserving to be informed?

Well, isn't the point that they're NOT doing these things? If they were, perhaps the suit would not have come up...

Re:it is not plagiarism

[ethicalBob]

But what if they weren't just getting their facts from AP stories? What if they also got facts from another hot-news source that had information the AP didn't? Shouldn't they be able to combine the facts from two stories in a new narrative to create a more complete story?

What you are describing is common and accepted practice for many end-user publications (often a staff-writer for a publication will get multiple versions of the story and write a story from the raw facts. This is especially true of weeklies where a nightly deadline isn't as critical, or a local perspective may be placed on a national or regional breaking news item.

Time is critical with breaking stories (print deadlines, television air times, etc.) - having a writer gather the same information, confirm the data with original sources and re-write it takes time and money. Time being the primary consideration with deadlines.

In this case AHN is attempting to act as a syndication service (the same as the AP), and is either copying or making minor edits and republishing the same story. They aren't tasking reporters to gather the story, they are taking content that another company has created, and repackaging it as their own. Its unethical as hell.

Newspapers, television, radio, and websites use AP syndicated stories all the time (in most cases licensed and legally), but they are not reselling the stories to other news outlets claiming to be the content creators...

Translation is not the same issue; but the AP translates most of their stories into MANY languages...

Re:it is not plagiarism

[Bill Dodd]

Even the AP isn't everywhere.. I would be willing to bet that the AP isn't everywhere either! AP has "reporters" in Bangalore, India writing on US events. Reuters reports on wall street from India. I wonder how many newspapers write reports based on what they see happening LIVE on CNN or BBC? Here is the real kicker: Even the Chairman of the Board of the Associated Press says that your location is irrelevant. http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2008-10-20-singleton_N.htm

Re:it is not plagiarism

[WNight]

Is the company misrepresenting themselves as being the original witnesses? Or are they just not pointing that out? AP customers should just say "Straight from AP - faster and more likely to be correct".

But the success of AP and their business model isn't relevant. It's a free market. If the current model isn't profitable let companies adjust. Nobody promises you you'll have the same job in fifty years, so why should we do that for companies?

Think about the hassle this law will cause. A whole new type of intellectual property with its own ever-lengthening duration. More laws, more lawyers. More corporate welfare, more stringent calls for further protectionism.

If you want to increase our tax burden and complicate our lives over this why not just create something like the BBC and we can do our own news collection instead of being at the mercy of corporate providers.

Re:it is not plagiarism

[WNight]

If we're trying to do what's best for society why don't we let the artificial news market die and simply setup an organization like the BBC.

If it can't be done profitably and yet we all insist on doing it then it sounds like a fit for a co-op, or government project. Not run for profit, but because we think free news is more valuable than some amount of tax money.

Maybe the AP is bloated. We'd never know if we simply gave them welfare (like our airlines, auto companies, farmers, etc... ugh!) We'll find out the value of the news when they and other companies compete while trying to claw expenses down. It's a global economy - if you can't do it there's someone hungry who'd like to try.

Some more analysis links

[Red Flayer]

As usual, I find that the decisions and writing of Judge Learned Hand to be some of the most insightful. From his extensive writings on free speech (which O.W. Holmes borrowed heavily from), to the present matter:

from Harvad Law (emphasis mine):

The Second Circuit was very hostile to INS for many years. Justice Learned Hand agreed with Justices Holmes and Brandeis and was quite overt in getting his colleagues to circumvent INS. An example of this deliberate resistance was Cheney Bros. v. Doris Silk Corp., 35 F.2d 279 (2nd Circ. 1929), involving two competing silk manufacturers. Plaintiff Cheney requested an injunction barring Doris from copying patterns used in dress design during the eight to nine month fashion season. Cheney relied on INS, saying its situation was analogous because the considerable expense involved in designing the patterns couldn't be recouped when the defendant copied the patterns with no similar expenditure and sold them for lower prices. Affirming the District Court's denial of an injunction, Justice Hand noted that because of the short season life of the patterns, design patent protection was impractical and they would likely lack the requisite originality to qualify. Nor did the patterns qualify for copyright protection because they flunked the conceptual separability test. Justice Hand said that, although it seemed unfair to not provide a remedy to Cheney, it was not up to the judicial system to extend a patent- or copyright-like monopoly in the absence of legislation authorizing it.

But this doesn't really matter anyway, since if you read on in the link I provided, you'll see that federal common law was abolished, so what matters is the specific state law. New York common law establishes strict criteria for the application of the misappropriation doctrine to "hot news" (see National Basketball Ass'n v. Sports Team Analysis & Tracking Systems, Inc. [warning: site is ugly as sin] for how a recent plaintiff's claim was found to be lacking)... and this seems to meet all of it. It made me chuckle, however, that in that link one of the biggest supporters of the defendant in that case was the AP.

At any rate, I think we need to have either sweeping federal law specifically creating this property, or we need to have no right to "hot news" as quasi-property. The problem with the latter is then there is no incentive to do fact reporting at all, since it would be impossible to recoup the costs of it. The idealist in me says "Boo to treating information as property" but the realist in me says "Yay to having paid reporters".

Meanwhile, the cynic in me says "It doesn't matter, we'll only see the news they want us to see", the paranoid in me says "We'll only see the news THEY want us to see", and the dadaist in me says "News? Art.".

Re:Some more analysis links

[Adrian Lopez]

The problem with the latter is then there is no incentive to do fact reporting at all, since it would be impossible to recoup the costs of it.

No incentive at all? So the fact that most national stories that papers do publish don't generally raise such an issue means nothing to you?

The incentive is there. Beat the other papers to the scoop, forcing the other papers to follow rather than lead.

Re:Some more analysis links

[Red Flayer]

The AP is not a newspaper, it is a newswire. There's a big difference.

It's common knowledge in news publishing that in-depth reporting is disappearing. There have been reporter layoffs coast-to-coast, and more papers than ever are simply paying their subscriptions to the AP or Reuters or another news service, then copyediting the AP article (and crediting the AP, of course). This alone is severely limiting the quantity of quality news (especially local news).

However, facts are facts. Since they cannot be copyrighted, this quasi-property status is all that keeps someone from grabbing the facts from the AP Newswire, and reporting on it themselves. This can be done as quickly as someone who is giving attribution to the AP, so the competitive advantage you allow for (which enables the profit) is moot.

If we work from your example, a publisher protects their profit by use of secrecy. This doesn't work for a newswire, whose very business model depends on others' having access to their reporting.

In essence, there are two levels of publication -- once by the AP to news outlets, and once by the news outlets to the public. No "hot news" provision means that the AP's customers (the news outlets) don't need to pay the AP, or even attribute stories to them. Thus, the AP can't pay reporters, and we have even fewer reporters to dig up the facts.

Eventually, all news outlets will be just like the blogosphere, with a dearth of quality reporting, and endless bloglink circle jerks.

I, for one, appreciate the value of the fourth estate.

Re:Some more analysis links

[Red Flayer]

Newspapers should drop the authors and go back to hiring journalists.

Ha. Newspapers are firing the journalists, because they can get basic news from the AP, or Reuters.

Authors are what sell print media, since that content is not available from the newswires... and they can keep the stories secret until publication.

News reporting is being outsourced to the newswires. Since all the papers get their news from the same sources, timeliness doesn't matter anymore... and the competitive advantage from timeliness doesn't outweigh the cost of a full staff of reporters.

FYI, most quality journalism is the in-depth reporting and analysis you ascribe to "authors" not to journalists. If I just want the news, I'll go online. I subscribe to three papers, for the following reasons:
(1) Local news -- but this is suffering, since small papers are laying off reporters
(2) Quality international reporting -- I pay for a daily that has more unbiased and varied international news than most US papers
(3) Sports reporting and analysis (and this one I'll probably cancel soon, since more & better info is available online)

Maybe I'm an outlier, or an edge case... but actual newsfact reporting is a waste of newsprint, IMO.

Re:Some more analysis links

[MichaelSmith]

The component which we will lose is local reporting on remote events. I read The Age for news in my region. For everything else I browse google news and select the best source.

The Age won't get much advantage from sending reporters to the USA. But historically they only did that because I couldn't buy the New York Times in Melbourne.

Re:Some more analysis links

[Adrian Lopez]

The news still has to be carried by one or more newspapers before the papers that don't subscribe to AP can relay the facts represented in AP news stories. That means the AP gets paid, just as it's been getting paid all this time. The "hot news" doctrine is as about as unnecessary as it is rare, and the AP can survive without it.

Re:Some more analysis links

[martin-boundary]

At any rate, I think we need to have either sweeping federal law specifically creating this property, or we need to have no right to "hot news" as quasi-property. The problem with the latter is then there is no incentive to do fact reporting at all, since it would be impossible to recoup the costs of it. The idealist in me says "Boo to treating information as property" but the realist in me says "Yay to having paid reporters".

Why? What convinced you that this is an actual, real, problem that will destroy civilization if unchecked? This "hot news" idea is bogus, and simply not needed. I really don't see why perfectly good existing laws have to be extended or modified every time some company wants to win a lawsuit.

People often bandy about the incentive argument regarding IP, without actually proving it. I'd like to hear at least once, somebody, rigorously proving that, truly, real fact reporting cannot happen unless those reports are somehow owned by those who report them. I just don't buy it.

Re:Some more analysis links

[Adrian Lopez]

Your assertion about the hot news doctrine being unnecessary has absolutely no basis in reality, unless you consider original journalism and fact-finding to be unnecessary.

The fact that the hot news doctrine is rarely invoked coupled with the fact that AP is still around suggests your objection is entirely without merit. The AP is doing fine without the hot news doctrine, so let's get rid of it for good.

Re:Some more analysis links

[Breakfast Pants]

I don't like your two choices. Why not give everyone in America X dollars to appropriate as they see fit to their favorite fact observer(s).

Re:Some more analysis links

[Breakfast Pants]

The fact that there have been few murders lately means that the prohibition on murder isn't needed. People who don't want to be killed are doing just fine without laws against murder, as evidenced by the fact that they so rarely have to be enforced; we should get rid of them for good.

Re:Some more analysis links

[ultranova]

In essence, there are two levels of publication -- once by the AP to news outlets, and once by the news outlets to the public. No "hot news" provision means that the AP's customers (the news outlets) don't need to pay the AP, or even attribute stories to them. Thus, the AP can't pay reporters, and we have even fewer reporters to dig up the facts.

Actually, given all that you wrote, wouldn't the demise of AP mean there would be more reporters to dig up facts? Because without AP, a newspaper wouldn't have the option of "simply paying their subscriptions to the AP or Reuters or another news service, then copyediting the AP article", and thus would be forced to keep their own reporters to get news.

Re:Some more analysis links

[Adrian Lopez]

I'm saying that your claim that journalism cannot survive without the hot news doctrine is absolutely ridiculous, given that it's survived all along pretty much without it. I don't care to get into arguments about nuclear weapons or, as with the poster below you, murder convictions. I only care about the claim that corporations should be granted an exclusive right to facts under the guise that their business model becomes impossible for failure to do so.

If I didn't explicitly address the cost of journalism it's because I addressed the hot news doctrine itself, which you claimed was necessary for news organizations to be able to recoup their costs. No need for the hot news doctrine implies no need for news organizations to rely on it to recoup their costs. It's straightforward logic.

Re:Some more analysis links

[Red Flayer]

Existing common law has validated the need and restrictions on the doctrine of misappropriation wrt "hot news".

I fail to see why someone such as yourself would dismiss that case law out of hand without reading more about it... instead you sit on your moral high chair and demand that proof be brought to you.

I have no problem with you being sceptical... but it's intellectually lazy for you to be sceptical but to demand that others address it for you. Instead of placing a burden of proof, why not aim for greater understanding on your part?

Re:Some more analysis links

[Red Flayer]

No, because the papers themselves won't be able to afford to pay reporters.

The AP is a way for them to cut costs by sharing the expense of reporters. One AP reporter is far more efficient for raw facts than twelve reporters getting the same facts for twelve papers (though, of course, variety and depth suffer -- but that's another discussion).

Newspaper revenues are tanking, and if the newswires go bye-bye for lack of revenue, news reporting as we've known it is gone forever. Compare the papers today to the papers of fifteen years ago, and you'll see that the transformation of newspapers has already begun. The death of the AP (and Reuters, Bloomberg, and other wire services) would pretty much put the nail in the coffin for news reporting, and I think it'd be a terrible loss... social progress depends on public education, and good news reporting is a cornerstone of that.

P.S. Sorry for all the metaphors.

OT: your signature

[noidentity]

I'm just curious as to why you manually add a signature to your postings (a link to some website), rather than use the standard signature mechanism that automatically adds it, and allows a reader to disable all signatures if he is not interested in them.

Re:OT: your signature

[PitaBred]

and allows a reader to disable all signatures if he is not interested in them.

You answered your own question.

Re:OT: your signature

[noidentity]

and allows a reader to disable all signatures if he is not interested in them.

You answered your own question.

I'd just like to hear it from the person actually doing it, in order to decide how to respond. Why would someone want to bypass a user's preference to not see signatures, especially since it requires extra work?

Re:OT: your signature

[MichaelSmith]

and allows a reader to disable all signatures if he is not interested in them.

You answered your own question.

I'd just like to hear it from the person actually doing it, in order to decide how to respond. Why would someone want to bypass a user's preference to not see signatures, especially since it requires extra work?

There is a script floating around which will automatically insert a sig on slashdot posts. It doesn't have to require ongoing work.

Re:OT: your signature

[alain94040]

It's called ignorance (mine). Most posts I read here have a signature, so I sign my posts just the same way I was doing it 2000 years ago on Usenet (except it seems that one line is the etiquette here, versus 4 lines - good choice by the way, one liner is better).

And then one day you realize that you don't have to type it by hand, there is a feature (is it under preferences or profile I guess).

Re:OT: your signature

[ultranova]

Why would someone want to bypass a user's preference to not see signatures, especially since it requires extra work?

The signature in question appears to be an advertisement for a web site. Advertisers in general try to force people to see their ads. In other words, the signature is spam, and typing it by hand (or script) bypasses the spam filter.

I can see it now...

[Adrian Lopez]

Just imagine...

Massive Asteroid Headed for Earth.

In other news: AP victorious in pre-publication motion to prevent competitors from carrying asteroid story.

Re:I can see it now...

[onkelonkel]

I say we call Bruce Willis now, and worry about the lawsuit later!

protecting information: here's the deal

[drDugan]

We have IP for a reason: it helps make social structures work better. As a society, we make a little deal, and that deal is a different in each of the 3 broad categories of IP protection: copyright & trademarks, patents, and trade secrets.

In the copyright area, the deal works like this: the Content Creator gets a limited time right to exclusively control profits, distribution, performance, derivatives and use of the work they create as a proxy for the "property right" they would normally get to claim if they had created a physical thing. In return for this exclusive control, the Content Creator gets both benefits, but also pays a downside. The benefit is they get to profit and control the results of their efforts. The downside is that after that limited time is over, the information always gets released to the society at large. In the long run, society benefits from this deal in two ways: it promotes the creation of works based on information: digital media, software, literature, music, movies, etc. ...in today's world - most everything relating to media, computers, and electronic art. The second, important benefit is that society gets all the information after the limited time is over. It all becomes public domain.

Copyright is good, and we need it. Many have argued and manipulated the system to change the amount of time - but that is another story. Many have argued about how much of what one creates can be controlled, and how - and we have fair use cases that cover exactly that.

So we already have the deal. The deal works (some might argue poorly). I don't see a valid need for another, different deal.

Just because AP runs a large business and spends money doesn't mean they (or anyone) can cut a new deal. In this case, the whole idea of "hot news" is about controlling very specific, small pieces of information: scores, facts, headlines. In my opinion after a very brief read: the balance between what is good of society and what is good for the Content Creator is not met.

Re:protecting information: here's the deal

[Locke2005]

We have IP for a reason: it helps make social structures work better. We have only had the legal concept of IP for a few hundred years now. Are you saying social structures didn't work before then? I think the ancient Egyptians, Mayans, Greeks, Romans, Chinese, and many other civilizations too numerous to mention would probably disagree with you on that one.

Re:protecting information: here's the deal

[Timothy Brownawell]

Copyright is good, and we need it.

Has anyone actually shown that overall creative output increased as a result of the adoption of copyright, like the theories say is should have?

Re:protecting information: here's the deal

[Pinckney]

We have only had the legal concept of IP for a few hundred years now. Are you saying social structures didn't work before then? I think the ancient Egyptians, Mayans, Greeks, Romans, Chinese, and many other civilizations too numerous to mention would probably disagree with you on that one.

They also lacked a way to efficiently copy information. IP law, in the form of author's privileges, appeared as early as the 15th century in the west, following the invention of the movable type printing press.

Re:protecting information: here's the deal

[DragonTHC]

Entities should not legally be allowed to own copyrights for living artists' and authors' work.

the MPAA's member companies should not disallow writers to hold copyrights on their work.

We should not be legally allowed or able to sign away our rights on the dotted line.

Copyright was thought up as a way to protect authors' and inventors' work. It was meant as a way to prevent plagiarism and protect the rights of the original creator.

The whole system has been bastardized and gamed to cut the creators out of their fair share and to protect revenue streams of investors.

Re:protecting information: here's the deal

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Sounds strawman-ish. "work better" doesn't have to mean mean things didn't work at all before. Not only that, the landscapes were very different. There wasn't a mass market for prerecorded/preprinted media because it was too expensive. I don't think as big of a proportion of the society worked at creating works of art, books, music, movies either. Before a couple centuries ago, most people's employment was in food production, now, food production employs less than 5% of a modern developed society.

Re:protecting information: here's the deal

[servognome]

I would like to see a good study on this as well.
At least on the surface if you look at employment, a greater percentage of the population is involved in "creative" tasks compared to the past. Historically people were involved in purely labor intensive tasks (eg farming, construction); automation and mass production have rendered these types of tasks obsolete.

Re:protecting information: here's the deal

[servognome]

You would destroy the whole idea of "works for hire."
Most creative works are not the result of one person; it takes a large number of people, if each retained the copyright for their portion you would create a bigger legal mess.
People should be allow to sign away their copyright. It's a fair exchange where they get a firm return and not deal with the risk if their product is a commercial failure. The **AA doesn't go to the artist and ask for millions of dollars if their song/movie bombs.

Re:protecting information: here's the deal

[Timothy Brownawell]

IP law, in the form of author's privileges, appeared as early as the 15th century in the west, following the invention of the movable type printing press.

It looks like it actually started as publisher's privileges:

Second, Gutenberg's development of movable type and the development and spread of the printing press made mass reproduction of printed works quick and much cheaper than ever before. Before printing, the process of copying a work could be nearly as labor intensive and expensive as creating the original, and was largely relegated to monastic scribes. It appears that publishers, rather than authors, were the first to seek restrictions on the copying of printed works. Given that publishers of music and films in particular commonly now obtain the copyright from a creator (although rarely a book author) as a condition of mass reproduction of a work, one of the criticisms of the current system is that it benefits publishers more than it does creators.

It also sounds like one of the early purposes was censorship:

In 1557, the English monarch, Mary I, chartered a London guild of printers, bookbinders, and booksellers known as the Stationers' Company, probably in an attempt to prevent the spread of the Protestant Reformation. Only Guild members were allowed to practice the art of printing and the master and wardens of the society were empowered to search, seize, and burn all prohibited books, and to imprison any person found to be printing without a license. In return for their role in preventing the publication of books deemed heretical or seditious, the Guild's members enjoyed the economic benefits of a monopoly over the printing industry. From 1557 to 1641, the English Crown exercised authority over printing and the Stationers' Company through the Star Chamber. After the abolition of the Star Chamber in 1641, the English Parliament continued to extend the Stationers' Company's censorship/monopoly arrangement through a series of ordinances and Licensing Acts between 1643 and 1692.

...and modern copyright came about when the law granting the Stationers their power expired and they needed to obtain a new one.

Re:protecting information: here's the deal

[bit01]

Copyright is good, and we need it.

Oh, wonderful. Propaganda without numerical evidence being asserted for the zillionth time. Your scientific evidence for this practically neanderthal spam is?

Perhaps the benefit of allowing billions of people to share outweighs the dubious benefit of allowing very small numbers of people to profit. In a society of billions it is a statistical certainty that millions will want to create for reasons other than what the copyright monopoly gives and that may be a net win.

I get heartily sick of people in all areas of intellectual creation claiming without scientific evidence that such-and-such as true. Intellectual output now affects society to the tune of trillions of dollars and yet nobody is willing to engage in a serious large scale effort to scientifically and formally analyze what are the virtually infinite number of forms that intellectual creation right allocation might take, nor optimizing them for society at large.

We already choose not to protect many forms of intellectual work (e.g. deciding where to site a business, house plans, building methods, jokes or selling a particular selection of products) and yet we arbitrarily decide that certain other forms of intellectual work must be controlled. It's time government stepped back and started assigning property rights based on scientific, numerical evidence, showing benefit from government interfering in a citizen's business and not allowing pressure groups representing a very small minority of the population to dominate.

---

You communist! Breathing shared air!

Re:protecting information: here's the deal

[Clovis42]

Copyright is good, and we need it. Many have argued and manipulated the system to change the amount of time - but that is another story.

When copyright is perpetually extended, the manipulation of the system is the main story. Nothing created after 1920 will ever enter the publice domain again unless the creator releases it. Copyright is now a legal instrument for a small number of people to control all of our culture.

Many have argued about how much of what one creates can be controlled, and how - and we have fair use cases that cover exactly that.

"Fair use" no longer exists either. You can claim something is a fair use all you want, but the MAFIAA are the ones who decide what is fair use now. If the content is "encrypted" you cannot use it even if you have a fair use because the DMCA made circumventing the encryption method illegal. If this isn't a problem, then you still risk getting sued. It will cost thousands of dollars to protect your "fair use", and you won't get that money back even if you win.

Copyright once served a useful purpose, but it no longer does. It does exactly the opposite of what the Constitution intended it to do.

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[PitaBred]

There's a point where the ubiquity of an acronym is so much that it doesn't NEED explaining. Do you need me to type that I live in the United States of America (USA)? Or would you get it from the context of what I was saying because it's a common acronym? The AP has been around for so long and has it's name in so many places that I'd think almost all people reading it would know it.

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[vux984]

I know your being cynical, but if you:

a) answered the question
b) put interesting facts in
c) put relevant link in
d) entertain people in the process

Hell, you deserve to be modded up.

This post meets a & d, but misses b and c so should still do ok. But overuse this particular d and it will cease to entertain which just leaves a, and there is no shortage of a's, which means this template, if it remains unfilled will start out funny, but as the funny wears off your moderation will trend towards redundant. ;)

Re:protecting information: trade secrets

[redelm]

I do not understand why people are upset. Paranoia? Here's a nickel, go get some tinfoil :)

Unpublished news is like unpublished scientific discoveries or product developments. Trade secrets are property of the employer and the employee giving them to anyone else is simple theft and the receiver is at least a receiver of stolen goods, or may be complicit in the theft.

How can a republisher have any advantage? They have to change the words, most likely reducing accuracy. If they can prepare a prettier presentation, then they've added value.

Sharing is not plagiarism

[Geof]

I just thought I should point that out. Plagiarism is claiming someone else's work as your own. Sharing does not imply plagiarism. The vast majority of copyright infringement is *not* plagiarism.

One of the foundations of international copyright (and an aspect of it not strongly respected by the United States) is moral rights, including the right of the author to be given credit. I find it ironic that vigorous enforcement of copyright actually creates an incentive for sharers and borrowers to obscure the source or credit of material. This makes their activity harder to detect, and easier for them to defend ("I got this from AP" is kind of a dead giveaway).

If copyright law was closer to actual social practice, this kind of plagiarism would likely be much less common.

Personally, I find clear cases of plagiarism to be utterly dishonest and far worse than sharing.

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[ethicalBob]

I find it fairly ironic that people reading a NEWS site don't know what the AP is, yet would probably not bring up this point if the article were about DARPA, or IIS, or CGI...

Worse yet is that those of you that don't know the AP probably would have no problem identifying TMZ* (tabloid news), and what it is without knowing the full name behind the Acronym.


*for the record, TMZ stands for "Thirty Mile Zone", which is old film-industry speak for the Hollywood area of LA.

Okay, two reporters cover the same "hot" story

[iminplaya]

They print it in their respective papers. Which one gets sued?

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[mysidia]

not-for-profit ?

Surely you jest... what are they doing placing content behind pay walls and suing authors of news over reporting "hot news" for, if that's truly the case...?

Come on now

[lunartik]

"we won't link to it."

I know you are making a joke, but we shouldn't participate in this bullshit by limiting what we publish.

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[Kamokazi]

Try this:

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=ap

But seriously...with the context of the writeup...how in the hell could you not know who the AP is?

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[ColdWetDog]

It's still good form to explain an acronym once. Yeah, I got the AP part, AHN required a quick Google. Not that Slashdot is going to win any journalism awards (or any other awards for that matter), but pendants have to have something to complain about.

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[arkane1234]

Thank you for explaining what TMZ means. I've wondered everytime I've seen it displayed. Not that I give a flying crap about the stuff since it's like something a teenage girl would banter about with another teenage girl.
"like, oh mah god... you should see brad pitt's ass. and him next to angelina jolie, oh... mah.. god... BRANNNNgelia! Totally."

Another sign of the failing news industry

[DustyShadow]

When all else fails, sue everyone!

Re:Another sign of the failing news industry

[lavaface]

This is a knee-jerk response to a real problem. Let me explain what is happening here:
The Associated Press is a not-for-profit organization comprised of hundreds of newspapers and television stations around the world. Members of the cooperative pay to subscribe to news that they would ordinarily not be able to cover because of limited resources. They also contribute their own resources to the wire service. If there is a tornado in some small town in Kansas, the AP will "pick up" the story from the local newspaper and add additional reporting as needed. This involves calling people and asking them questions. Typically the AP story will cite the original paper as a source.

What AHN does is scrape AP subscribers' sites and slightly change the wording, stripping any mention that their source of information is the Associated Press. They then sell their "reporting" to other companies and organizations. From their website:

AHN content feed services provide a convenient, cost-effective and reliable alternative to expensive and difficult to deal with "legacy" wire service and content providers.

They are profiting from plagiarism, plain and simple. The "hot news" doctrine stipulates that the news is only imbued with some aspects of property rights while it is commercially valuable. This means that the Associated Press does not claim ownership of the facts they report. Other companies are welcome to make calls, visit the scene, etc. in their own pursuit of the story. What other companies can't do is completely lift all of the information in an originally reported item and sell a competing product based on that. Th AP is right here, despite your "insightful" comment.

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[Deanalator]

True, but AP means so many other things depending on the context. When I was in highschool, AP meant "Advanced Placement". In the technology namespace, it means "Access Point".

Assuming people on slashdot are going to be familiar with acronyms from the journalism namespace is not really appropriate in my opinion.

Still though, googling for "AP" gives the answer on the first hit, or (god forbid) clicking the link to the article.

And I thought the Ninth Circus liked to...

[Dachannien]

...legislate from the bench.

Seriously, where's the statutory basis for this new property right? Or did they pull all of this stuff directly out of their ass?

Re:And I thought the Ninth Circus liked to...

[russotto]

Seriously, where's the statutory basis for this new property right? Or did they pull all of this stuff directly out of their ass?

It's common law. Which is a fancy way of saying the latter.

Re:And I thought the Ninth Circus liked to...

[Vintermann]

My thought, too. Ugly, ugly, ugly. I think all this legislating from the bench is a consequence of the USA's senate, with its different composition from the house and procedural ugliness (fillibusters, senators anonymously delaying legislation, etc), and the president's veto power. Legislation is so hard to pass, that there has over time grown more acceptance towards judges pulling these sorts of stunts.

I do not think it would likely have been accepted in most other western states. If a judge made such a ruling, politicians would quickly either put it into law or change existing laws to prevent it.

Re:Okay, two reporters cover the same "hot" story

[artor3]

Neither. RTFA.

a "hot news" misappropriation claim is viable when:

(i) a plaintiff generates or gathers information at a cost; ...

(iii) a defendant's use of the information constitutes free riding on the plaintiff's efforts; ...

Sounds like they have a copyright claim.

[kabloom]

If they're reading the AP's articles, then altering them, why doesn't the AP have a copyright claim that the AHI's articles are derivative works of the AP's?

Re:Sounds like they have a copyright claim.

[zobier]

Because the AP's articles are derivative works of Current Events.

Re:Sounds like they have a copyright claim.

[Zordak]

why doesn't the AP have a copyright claim that the AHI's articles are derivative works of the AP's?

Because they don't get exclusive rights in facts. I could copy all the facts from the leading biography of Pres. Obama and publish my own book based on those facts, and nobody would have a claim.

Re:Sounds like they have a copyright claim.

[kabloom]

But if they're reading the articles and loosely republishing them, then isn't their expression of those facts a deriviative work of the AP's expression of those facts? (That's copyrightable otherwise your software wouldn't be.)

Re:Sounds like they have a copyright claim.

[Zordak]

It would depend on how closely you track their expression. Code is copyrightable, but I don't get to copyright the algorithm I used, regardless of what SCO wanted to think.

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[NotBornYesterday]

Standard disclaimer: IANAL

"Not-for-profit" != "takes in no money".

Not-for-profit is more of a legal/accounting designation than a vow of poverty, and lawsuits are often to get an court ruling against improper/undesirable behavior, rather than win lots of money.

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[Celc]

Now it might be because I'm living in another country or maybe it's just me but I had too think for a few seconds to figure out what it stood for aswell. I'm curious if it really is such an obvious ackronym too the rest of the world, I rarely se anything but reuters and TT over here.

Comparing the ackronym USA with AP is so absurd I can't be bothered qualifying why.

Copyright is evil

[Snaller]

Simple really.

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[LingNoi]

I didn't know what AP meant either meaning it's 2 vs 1.

I'll wait for the court decision

[PPH]

...and when its in, I'll read all about it in the,....er,.....um.....

Well, maybe not.

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[Anonymous Coward]

... but pendants have to have something to complain about.

"That jeweler really should have made me an eighth of an inch longer"

Re:Okay, two reporters cover the same "hot" story

[Viperpete]

They print it in their respective papers. Which one gets sued?

Both of them?

Re:Okay, two reporters cover the same "hot" story

[iminplaya]

To be perfectly redundant, as a whole lot of others have said, that would be called plagiarism, pawning off somebody else's work as your own. Either way, I believe the dissenting opinion to be the correct one. Chalk it up as another failure of majority rule.

Re:No joke. The AP's coverage is right here.

[zobier]

Thanks, I guess it's because the story is a week old!
I didn't try to look that far back, their search interface isn't very useful.

sure, but plagiarism isn't illegal

[Trepidity]

Unethical, yes, but that's policed, to the extent that it is, by professional communities among themselves. If someone proves an important new theorem, and I claim to prove the same theorem the same way the next month, no reputable math journal would publish my plagiarized paper. But if I put a PDF online, I wouldn't be committing a crime, either.

Re:sure, but plagiarism isn't illegal

[WNight]

But if you rewrote someone else's findings to be understandable you'd probably get published, if your work was helpful.

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. IANAL either, but I have done some research into this specific stuff.

Non-profit organizations are a subject that confuse many. On the one hand, we have things like charitable organizations. You get tax breaks for donating stuff to these.

On the other hand, you have non-profit organizations like my alma mater's book store. They are bound by their charter to invest everything that comes out as "profit" on the balance sheet, back into the company. Moreover, these investments are supposed to help the student body -- they could invest in mutual funds if they applied the dividends towards lower prices, for example. (IANAL is especially relevant here. I am definitely not a tax lawyer.)

This is decidedly not a charity, and you do not get tax breaks for donations. On the other hand, they get some tax breaks in exchange for creating a sustainable business serving a specific and essential need in the community.

Heck, you could potentially have a non-profit publicly traded company.

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[Repossessed]

Do I need to explain what IBM stands for too?

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[thebigbadme]

Associated Press.
I think press in this usage refer to a collecctive group of individual people (members) who report on news, rather than an individual print-press machine (as opposed to expeller, or other presses) which is associated with something (entity)

I spent years trying to figure it out (what the letters were abbreviating), and then another hour trying to determine if it would be an association of people, or printing presses. yes, I am that slow

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[poopdeville]

Who cares whether it's called "AP" or "Associated Press"? Do you demand people to expand IBM for you too? HP? Radar? Lasers? AP has being using "AP" for branding for a few years now anyway.

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[pipatron]

Ok, let's check the wikipedia article:

The Associated Press (AP) is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States

Perhaps this is the reason that I had never heard about "AP"? It's not being used outside your country, but I suppose USA means "The World". I guess you'll wake up sooner or later.

Being sued

[troll8901]

I was sued once by a company that wanted to put me out of business and they almost succeeded.

So what happened?

P/S: I can't find your email address in your website.

Thanks

[Mathinker]

> Meanwhile, the cynic in me says "It doesn't matter, we'll only see the news they
> want us to see", the paranoid in me says "We'll only see the news THEY want us to
> see", and the dadaist in me says "News? Art.".

That's golden. Thanks, I've stored it in my personal cache.

Although I might have rephrased it as:

Meanwhile, the cynic in me says "It doesn't matter, we'll only see the news Big Money wants us to see", the paranoid in me says "We'll only see the news Big Brother wants us to see", and the dadaist in me says "News? Art.".

Nah

[Mathinker]

Nowadays, it'd be more like

Rogue Astronomer selling details about Massive Asteroid Headed for Earth on Ebay

or maybe

Rogue Astronomer in Jail; only willing to give Asteroid Details directly to the President

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[iJusten]

It's obvious acronym. Greetings from Finland.

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[ethicalBob]

The AP operates globally.

I remember it well - I was an AP stringer for 12 years, and we covered news (and provided news to outlets) across the world.

Siting Wikipedia for this is just silly. Did you even think to check the AP website?

From http://www.ap.org/pages/about/about.html

243 bureaus in 97 countries.

1,700 U.S. daily, weekly, non-English and college newspapers.

5,000 radio and television outlets taking AP services.

850 AP Radio News audio affiliates.

550 International broadcasters who receive AP's global video news service, APTN, and SNTV, a sports joint venture video service.

121 number of countries served by AP

4 languages in which AP sends news. The report is translated into many more languages by international subscribers.

4,100 AP editorial, communications and administrative employees worldwide.

3,000 of AP's worldwide staff are journalists.

49 Pulitzer Prizes, including 30 for photography.

Copy of decision

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I've put a copy of the decision (PDF) online.