All entries tagged: GateHouse
NYT Co.’s top lawyer doubts that aggregation is a copyright issue
It’s been four months since Josh predicted that a news organization would sue The Huffington Post for copyright violation over its aggregation of headlines, ledes, and article summaries. The interim has been marked by saber-rattling, settlements, and dubious proposals for changes to federal law.
But I’m still hoping to see that lawsuit — not because I think The Huffington Post is necessarily in the wrong but because a major case of that sort could begin to clarify the increasingly muddled issues of copyright on the Internet. For instance, how do you apply a 91-year-old legal doctrine known as “hot news” to a website that never heard of news that isn’t sizzling?
Well, I’m no copyright lawyer, but UCLA professor Doug Lichtman is, and he just released a wonderful, hourlong podcast on what intellectual property means in the context of news reporting. Most of the program focuses on the dueling lawsuits over Shepard Fairey’s use of an Associated Press photograph in his iconic Obama “Hope” poster. Lichtman interviews lawyers from both sides and offers a more thoughtful discussion of the case than I’ve seen anywhere else.
But my interest was really piqued by his chat with The New York Times Co.’s general counsel, Ken Richieri, who considers whether news aggregators are protected by “fair use,” the legal standard that permits reproduction of copyrighted material under guidelines that, as Richieri says, “work a lot better in the analog world than they do in a digital world.”
He ends up largely dissenting from the view of other media companies in suggesting that while news aggregation might constitute unfair competition, it isn’t really a copyright issue: “The AP’s saying, ‘Well, if all of these facts are listed in the same place [on an unlicensed site], that’s a substitute.’ And that may well be, but I’m not sure it’s a substitute for the expression, which is what copyright protects.” He also observes that “traditionally, newspapers were the users of fair use, and pretty much that’s all they did and saw themselves as.” Richieri:
I mean, I think the big issue online and the pressure publishers are feeling is that publishers online are having a hard time replicating the economics that they saw offline. And many of them are looking at that through the lens of copyright…. I think where I would just draw a distinction is I am not so sure that copyright is really the culprit in a lot of this…that that’s an imperfect lens and an imperfect remedy.
Lichtman has graciously allowed me to clip his 7-minute interview with Richieri and reproduce it here with a transcript, which is after the jump. (Despite the news value, I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t qualify as fair use of Lichtman’s podcast. But, again, I do think the full hour is worth your time.) Here’s the clip, which begins with Lichtman:
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Links of the Week on Twitter
Over the past several weeks, we’ve been ramping up our use of Twitter to share interesting links, promote our work, interact with readers, and collaborate on reporting. Consider following us over there or checking out our five most-recent tweets in the sidebar at right. Here are some of the more popular and interesting links we’ve posted on Twitter this week:
Wrap-up: GateHouse/NYT Co. Q&A
As the dust settles on yesterday’s settlement in GateHouse Media v. The New York Times Co., I’ve spoken with a few more experts and key players in the case. (Here’s everything we’ve written so far, but if you’re new to the case, start with this post.) What follows are some unresolved questions and everyone’s best stabs at an answer.
Q: What are the implications of this settlement for other news aggregators?
