Over in the United States global news network Associated Press is celebrating a win in its court case against Meltwater News.
The case began after AP sued Meltwater last year, alleging that AP content was copied and sold by Meltwater for profit to its customers without any fees being paid to AP. The judge agreed, and on Wednesday ruled in their favour. A full decision is to be released soon.
Regular readers of this blog will be aware of the NLA’s own dispute with Meltwater in the UK courts and at the Copyright Tribunal. Other than a narrow technical point around temporary copying, the dispute was resolved in the NLA’s favour. The appeal on temporary copying had a two day hearing in February 2013 and we are awaiting a final decision.
The NLA has always believed that paid for services using newspaper copyright material need a licence. The UK experience is that users accept licence fees should be paid. Now it seems the US has reaffirmed the need fairly to remunerate its newspaper industry for use of its intellectual property too.
Andrew Hughes
Commercial Director, NLA
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