4 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
4 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Content Aggregator Loses Copyright Case

by kindsvater
3 replies
A website that took portions of online news stories and sold them to customers was found liable for copyright infringement in a case brought by the AP.

News aggregator Meltwater can't use AP's copyrighted articles for free, judge says - San Jose Mercury News

If you are curating / aggregating content, this was an interesting quote from the judge, comparing an aggregation service profiting from the news stories with a search engine like Google profiting from driving traffic to other websites:

"Meltwater News is an expensive subscription service that markets itself as a news clipping service, not as a publicly available tool to improve access to content across the Internet," she said. "Instead of driving subscribers to third-party websites, Meltwater News acts as a substitute for news sites operated or licensed by AP."



.
#aggregator #case #content #copyright #loses
  • Profile picture of the author MartinPlatt
    I have always wondered about this.

    I think thought that the key here is that these people curated content then sold it.
    I think if you curated the content, and added your own twist to it, and didn't sell it, and used the traffic to monetise in some different way, that would be less of a problem.

    Also, I think you would have to cite the source of your data too??

    Being the legal eagle, what do you think - where would we stand with content curation?
    Signature

    Martin Platt
    martin-platt.com

    Stuck with earning commissions online? Get this get this uncensored affiliate marketing guide for free (sold as coaching for $4,997)

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7884621].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Malcolm Thomas
    Wow, but in a way I am not entirely surprised by the outcome.
    Signature
    Learn How To Make $100 Per Day Using This Dead Simple Method!

    The Easiest & Most Realistic $100 Per Day Method Ever Revealed!
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7884624].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author kindsvater
      Martin, I don't know enough about Meltwater's service.

      My impression was the content aggregation reached such a high level, and enough of each article was taken, that people were subscribing to get information from Meltwater instead of the AP.

      I don't know, but assume, Meltwater was citing and referring back to the original article. But that doesn't matter if few ever click the link since they are getting enough of what they need to know from the content snippet. Giving credit is itself not a copyright defense.

      Since Meltwater was free-riding off the AP's expensive news gathering this not only hurt the AP financially, but many legal decisions come to down to "fairness."

      .
      Signature
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7884644].message }}

Trending Topics