AP Targets Aggregator Meltwater News in Copyright Infringement Suit

Image via CrunchBaseWire and wire clippers are natural foes, which explains the 41-page copyright infringement complaint filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York yesterday by The Associated Press, the 166-year-old news agency, against 11-year-old Meltwater News, a San-Francisco-based news clipping service.

As reported by Reuters, the New York Post, the Above the Law blog and elsewhere, AP, a New York nonprofit corporation, sued Meltwater, a Delaware corporation that digitally clips news stories to enable clients to track their own press coverage, in a six-count complaint that includes claims for copyright infringement and hot news misappropriation.

AP alleges the defendant is stealing its copyrighted content and selling the information to Meltwater clients without paying AP a licensing fee.  There's no love lost here, as AP President and CEO Tom Curley released a statement branding Meltwater "a parasitic distribution service that competes directly with traditional news sources without paying license fees to cover the costs of creating those stories." The lawsuit seeks damages and injunctive relief.

AP last July, partnered with The New York Times, The Washington Post, and more than two dozen other news organizations to launch NewsRight, a licensing service that monitors the use of copyrighted content on Internet outlets, including blogs and Websites.

Live-Streaming Justice in Quincy--OpenCourt Opens for Business

Image via WikipediaBuoyed by a "Knight News Challenge" $250,000 grant won from the James L. Knight Foundation, Boston public radio station WBUR-FM is overseeing the OpenCourt experimental project that began this week at Quincy District Court with the live-streaming of judicial proceedings.

According to accounts by the websites, Above the Law and Govtech.com, heretofore unwelcome bloggers, Tweeters, Facebookers, and other social media types equipped with iPads, smartphones and laptops are going to find a little love in the district trial court.  Judge Mark S. Coven retains discretion to shut off the live stream broadcast for certain proceedings, such as sexual assault hearings, to spare the victim embarrassment, and "dead spots" are built in to allow for attorneys and their clients to confer without sacrificing the privileged nature of their tete-a-tete.

There will be no mistaking the court goings-on for a sporting event as live commenting is not permitted during live streaming of video.  Transparency in judicial proceedings is the underlying goal of the open arms approach to social media.