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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."
It's the The Associated Press, a wire service.
At what point does this end though? You can't own a fact.
It's currently raining in NY (c) AP 2009?
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.
Maybe they sent themselves a DMCA takedown notice.