Court Upholds AP "Quasi-Property" Rights On Hot News 169
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."
I call it plagiarism (Score:5, Informative)
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 [fairsoftware.net] -- where geeks are their own boss
Re:What the hell is "AP"? (Score:3, Informative)
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"? (Score:5, Informative)
It's the The Associated Press [wikipedia.org], a wire service [wikipedia.org].
it is not plagiarism (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:3, Informative)
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:What the hell is "AP"? (Score:5, Informative)
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:Some more analysis links (Score:4, Informative)
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:What the hell is "AP"? (Score:3, Informative)
"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:OT: your signature (Score:3, Informative)
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:I call it plagiarism (Score:3, Informative)
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:it is not plagiarism (Score:2, Informative)
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:Another sign of the failing news industry (Score:3, Informative)
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"? (Score:2, Informative)
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 [ap.org]
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.