Associated Press (AP), a cooperative news-gathering organization, collected news from reporters and member papers and distributed it to its members for publication. International News Service (INS), a competing wire service, was accused of taking AP's time-sensitive news from early editions of newspapers and from bulletin boards, then rewriting and selling it to INS clients as its own. AP sued to stop INS from appropriating this material in direct competition. The dispute arose even though the underlying news facts themselves were not subject to ordinary copyright protection.
Whether a news-gathering organization has a protectable quasi-property interest against a direct competitor's appropriation and republication of its time-sensitive news before its commercial value has passed.
Although news as facts is not owned against the public, between competing news organizations there is a quasi-property interest in time-sensitive news gathered through labor, skill, and expense. Equity may prevent a competitor from reaping where it has not sown by appropriating and selling that material as its own in direct competition.
Yes. The Court held that INS's systematic taking of AP's hot news for commercial resale to competing newspapers constituted unfair competition, and AP was entitled to injunctive relief during the period in which the news had market value as news.
Justice Pitney reasoned that while the public may freely use information in the news, a direct competitor may not misappropriate the fruits of another's costly news-gathering enterprise for immediate commercial gain. The Court treated the interest as quasi-property enforceable only as between competitors and only for the limited period in which the information retained value. INS's conduct threatened the economic incentive to gather news because it enabled a rival to free-ride on AP's expenditures and compete with AP's own product. Equity therefore could restrain the appropriation without creating full ownership in the underlying facts against the world.
Justice Brandeis, joined by Justice Holmes in part, argued that creating a new private right in uncopyrightable facts was a task for Congress, not the Court. He warned that the Court was effectively making law by recognizing a vague property-like interest in news.
INS is the canonical source of the common-law "hot news" misappropriation doctrine and a foundational unfair-competition case. Its influence persists, though later law narrowed its force, especially after federal copyright preemption; the modern leading treatment is National Basketball Association v. Motorola, Inc., 105 F.3d 841 (2d Cir. 1997). The case is also associated with the broader misappropriation principle later discussed in Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co., 376 U.S. 225 (1964), Compco Corp. v. Day-Brite Lighting, Inc., 376 U.S. 234 (1964), and Bonito Boats, Inc. v. Thunder Craft Boats, Inc., 489 U.S. 141 (1989).
National Basketball Association v. Motorola, 105 F.3d 841 (2d Cir. 1997) |
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Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co., 376 U.S. 225 (1964) |
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Compco Corp. v. Day-Brite Lighting, 376 U.S. 234 (1964) |
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Inc. v. Thunder Craft Boats, 489 U.S. 141 (1989) |
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