“The Associated Press and AHN Media have agreed to settle an intellectual property lawsuit filed by the wire service in early 2008. In the settlement, announced in a joint statement, AHN agrees to pay an ‘undisclosed’ sum, admits to some improper use of AP content and—the part that may wind up helping AP most—’acknowledge the tort of “hot news misappropriation” has been upheld by other courts and was ruled applicable in this case.’ The notion of treating breaking news or ‘hot news’ differently in terms of intellectual property dates back to a 1918 U.S. Supreme Court decision in AP’s favor when Hearst’s International News Service picked up and rewrote its WWI news. The court held that ‘hot news’ was the ‘quasi property’ of a news-gathering organization and that allowing another news agency to profit from that work ‘would render publication profitless, or so little profitable as in effect to cut off the service by rendering the cost prohibitive in comparison with the return.’”
Who Knew?