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AP wins ruling in copyright case against news aggregator
Reuters ^ | Mar 20, 2013 | Karen Freifeld

Posted on 03/20/2013 7:05:53 PM PDT by mdittmar

The Associated Press won a ruling in a copyright lawsuit against news aggregator Meltwater News Service over its use of AP story excerpts without paying licensing fees.

U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan ruled in favor of the Associated Press before a trial with one exception, according to a court filing on Wednesday.

The judge did not explain the exception and her full decision has not yet been released.

A spokesman for Meltwater did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meltwater is a subscriber-only electronic clipping service for corporate customers who want to monitor news coverage of their industries and themselves.

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Free Republic; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
reuters reporting on the associated press;)
1 posted on 03/20/2013 7:05:53 PM PDT by mdittmar
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To: mdittmar

The irony is, if it weren’t for aggregators, no one would ever see an AP story.


2 posted on 03/20/2013 7:23:54 PM PDT by C. Edmund Wright
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To: Jim Robinson

(( ping ))


3 posted on 03/20/2013 7:25:45 PM PDT by Lancey Howard
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; ColdOne; Convert from ECUSA; ...

Thanks mdittmar.


4 posted on 03/20/2013 7:26:11 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Romney would have been worse, if you're a dumb ass.)
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To: C. Edmund Wright

“no one would ever see an AP story.”

And that would be bad, because ...?


5 posted on 03/20/2013 7:26:17 PM PDT by USFRIENDINVICTORIA
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To: USFRIENDINVICTORIA

...oh, it wouldn’t be bad.....just pointing out the irony....


6 posted on 03/20/2013 7:28:04 PM PDT by C. Edmund Wright
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To: C. Edmund Wright

I gathered that — I just couldn’t resist the question.


7 posted on 03/20/2013 7:29:07 PM PDT by USFRIENDINVICTORIA
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To: C. Edmund Wright

reuters and the ap need those funds,how else would they pay all their stringers.


8 posted on 03/20/2013 7:33:09 PM PDT by mdittmar
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To: mdittmar

“copyright lawsuit against news aggregator Meltwater News Service”

They are a business subscriber, for fee only news aggregator. So if they use AP to make a profit, I can see why the lawsuit originated.

Is AP a good news source? H NO.

AP = Always Propaganda

The local news exists and should be reported. If AP did that I would be one of their biggest fans. They simply do not. Almost every article submitted is from a perspective that is so warped and biased it is criminal.


9 posted on 03/20/2013 7:35:04 PM PDT by Texas Fossil
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To: mdittmar; Jim Robinson

impact on FR?


10 posted on 03/20/2013 7:35:08 PM PDT by NonValueAdded (If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, you've likely misread the situation.)
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To: C. Edmund Wright
The irony is, if it weren’t for aggregators, no one would ever see an AP story.

Maybe,if people stop reading their local newspaper.

11 posted on 03/20/2013 7:42:23 PM PDT by mdittmar
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To: mdittmar

uh, most people have. thats the point


12 posted on 03/20/2013 8:34:39 PM PDT by C. Edmund Wright
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To: NonValueAdded

FR is my news aggregator of choice.


13 posted on 03/20/2013 10:30:29 PM PDT by Tainan (Cogito, ergo conservatus sum -- "The Taliban is inside the building")
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To: mdittmar

Any time you read an AP story, the automatic question to ask yourself is, “hmm, why would the White House have OK’d this?”


14 posted on 03/21/2013 4:40:15 AM PDT by hemogoblin
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To: hemogoblin

Yep. I do.


15 posted on 03/21/2013 4:52:41 AM PDT by Chad N. Freud (FR is the modern equivalent of the Committees of Correspondence. Let other analogies arise.)
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To: NonValueAdded; mdittmar; Jim Robinson; abb
10 posted on 3/20/2013 9:35:08 PM by NonValueAdded: “impact on FR?”

Good question.

Very, very good.

Applicability of copyright law to the internet is an area where there are very few legal precedents. I'm concerned that a bad decision in a relatively small case could get used by the Associated Press and other major media to seriously harm things like Free Republic.

We need to see the details of this legal ruling. But whatever the judge said, this is not cut-and-dried. The law is being developed on a case-by-case basis in this area and it's anyone’s guess what internet press law will look like in a decade.

I think it's obvious that major media organizations are doing a full-court press with all the remaining resources at their disposal to prevent the internet from continuing to erode their profits. This is just one facet of a much larger issue, and the AP has every motive to work as hard as they can for a favorable legal ruling they can apply elsewhere.

16 posted on 03/22/2013 4:42:50 PM PDT by darrellmaurina
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To: mdittmar

I would like to point out this link to AP’s own site regarding this story.
http://www.ap.org/Content/Press-Release/2013/AP-CEO-Win-against-Meltwater-a-victory-for-public-and-democracy

(I am not posting any of the article content, just a link)

Notice the top line above the article. Those are sharing options. The Google + sharing, for example, posts more than just the title but the first few paragraphs.

While I couldn’t find it initially, I wouldn’t be surprised if AP offers a RSS feed that would be used by these aggragrators.

In other words, AP provides the tools to share excerpts of their stories.


17 posted on 03/22/2013 5:36:46 PM PDT by mnehring
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To: mnehring
It's also a win for apple pie, warm puppies, and Mom, yes?

I bellyfeel doubleplusgood prolefeed.

18 posted on 03/23/2013 1:15:49 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: lentulusgracchus

No, my point is the opposite. It is kind of like the LVRJ lawsuit. They provide tools to encourage people to share excerpts of articles, then they go after people who share them. It is similar to entrapment.


19 posted on 03/23/2013 1:19:44 PM PDT by mnehring
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To: mnehring; NonValueAdded; mdittmar; Jim Robinson; abb
Here's another article that's worth reading on the role of content aggregators that may have relevance to Free Republic:

Recent YouTube, Veoh Copyright Infringement Rulings Help To Unpack Safe Harbor Guidelines

http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/24/some-rules-of-the-road-for-user-uploaded-content-platforms/?goback=%2Egde_78629_member_225865112

Key items: “Online content providers and aggregators are well aware of the potential penalties that can result from a copyright infringement lawsuit. In addition to being expensive to litigate, a copyright lawsuit can result in statutory damages (which can range between $750 to $30,000 for each infringing work found on a website), some or all of an infringer’s profits and even steeper penalties for willful infringement. A peer-to-peer platform relying on user-uploaded content, for example, can face nearly unlimited liability under this regime. Clearly, a copyright suit can have a crippling effect on an early-stage tech company. One of Congress’ goals when it passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998 was to insulate certain digital content providers (called “service providers” in the statute) as long as they promptly took down infringing works on notice from the copyright holder of those works. MULTI-PART SAFE STATUTORY TESTS ARE OFTEN A LITIGATOR’S DELIGHT, BUT THEY DO NOT ALWAYS PROVIDE CLARITY FOR BUSINESSES TRYING TO COMPLY WITH THE LAW.”

20 posted on 03/25/2013 3:34:19 PM PDT by darrellmaurina
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