GateHouse Media owns 125 newspapers in Massachusetts, the US
state in which Boston is located. The New York Times Company (NYT
Co) owns The Boston Globe and Boston.com.
GateHouse has said that Boston.com's republishing of its
headlines and the first sentence of news stories without permission
is copyright infringement. The NYT Co has said that the lawsuit is
without merit.
"[NYT Co] is reproducing, displaying and distributing on the
infringing website unauthorised verbatim copies of newspaper
article headlines and the first sentences thereof," said
GateHouse's suit. "[The NYT Co] is offering [GateHouse's]
copyrighted material on the infringing website without [The NYT
Co's] express or implied permission, in violation of the United
States copyright and trademark laws."
The stories on Boston.com carried links straight to the story at
the relevant Gatehouse website as well as accreditation. In its
lawsuit, Gatehouse said that the accreditation made it seem as
though the practice had the approval of Gatehouse.
The suit said that the use of GateHouse Media newspaper titles
was "causing confusion and mistake among users of the infringing
website as to the source of origin and endorsement of content
posted there".
The NYT Co said that such links are the basis of the
internet.
"Far from being illegal or improper, this practice of linking to
sites is common and is familiar to anyone who has searched the
web," said a company statement, according to the NYT Co-owned
Boston Globe. "It is fair and benefits both web users and the
originating site."
Disputes have long raged about how much of one media outlet's
material another can use online.
In 1997 two newspapers on the remote Shetland Islands fought
over one's use of headlines from the other's website. The dispute
was settled out of court when it was agreed that any stories be
attributed.
More recently, news aggregation site Google News ran into legal
trouble in Belgium when newspaper trade body Copiepresse sued it
over its use of headlines and news story first paragraphs.
It argued that the use of this material constituted copyright
infringement, and it won its case in the Belgian Court of First
Instance in February 2007.
"We confirm that the activities of Google News, the reproduction
and publication of headlines as well as short extracts, and the use
of Google's cache, the publicly available data storage of articles
and documents, violate the law on authors' rights," the ruling
said, according to a translation from news agency AP.
GateHouse's case was due to be heard in early January, but both
sides have agreed to postpone the case until the end of the month,
according to The Boston Globe.
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