Associated Press take action to protect content

25th October 2007

It seems the tension between news aggregation websites and content providers is now occurring on both sides of the Atlantic. It was recently reported that news agency the Associated Press (AP) have issued proceedings in New York against Verisign Inc. in relation to the unauthorised use of their news content on the Verisign-owned Moreover Technologies Inc. website.

The Moreover site is a news aggregation platform designed to re-publish news stories rapidly after they are first published elsewhere and operates both free and subscription services. It is alleged that Moreover have improperly displayed AP headlines and portions of stories as part of its free, ad-supported services, in addition to reproducing full articles and photographs through their subscription service. The suit points out that Moreover's own promotional materials claim to "harvest" news from the AP and other sources in "as fast as two minutes". According to reports on CNN Money.com, the AP discovered the extent of Moreover's practices while negotiating with it to provide content management services to the AP members.

Unspecified damages are sought against Moreover in addition to an injunction to prevent the further use of AP material. The cause of action is both copyright and trade mark infringement. US copyright provisions permit limited reproduction under "fair use" provisions, but Srinandan Kasi, AP's vice president and general counsel, believes that Moreover's activities do not qualify because, amongst other things, they merely copy the headlines without offering any transformative value.

The AP is a 161 year old cooperative owned by various news organisations. Their chief executive, Tom Curly, said "The Associated Press spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year gathering and reporting the news, providing original coverage of vital breaking news that cannot be obtained anywhere else." Making reference to the agency's lengthy history he continued; "we've done this for more than 160 years, often under tremendous time pressure and often at great risk to our journalists. When someone uses our content without our permission, they are free riding on our news gathering and our reporting of news from around the world." Verisign apparently said they do not comment on pending lawsuits.

Those familiar with the issues involved will recognise the similarities between this action and those taken in Europe recently, where various European newspapers and representative bodies have voiced concerns about the Google News site. The site (which was launched in beta in 2002) indexes news sources worldwide carrying news headlines and summaries as well as providing links to the actual websites carrying the stories. Proceedings were commenced in France and Belgium relating to Google using this content (including pictures) without paying.

Last year the AP agreed contractual terms with Google over use of their material by the news aggregation service, without the need for proceedings to be issued. The exact financial terms of the agreement are unreported but Google had previously maintained their position that use of the material was permissible under the fair use doctrine.