Aggregation Aggravation: GateHouse sues NY Times over links and aggregation

Bloggers have for years been aggregating content, sometimes by way of taking the headline, other times the headline and lede and more often than not by taking the whole article. Content providers such as Reuters, AFP, The Associated Press, Getty Images have for years viewed some of this use of their content as a possible copyright infringement. Needless to say, the taking of a full news story or image is what constitutes copyright infringement and is prosecuted to the full extent of the law under the Copyright Act (Title 17, United States Code). All other use is not as straight forward and the argument of what is fair use has been going on for years.

On Monday, GateHouse Media filed a copyright infringement law suit in U.S. District Court of Massachusetts against New York Times Company over its Boston Globe local sites linking with headlines and ledes to another publisher’s articles. "GateHouse Media claims that the Boston Globe sites lifted headlines and ledes word-for-word and therefore infringed its copyright, even though the items were credited to and linked back to the Gatehouse pubs, according to Boston.com, which is owned by NYTCo (NYSE: NYT)."

The fact that the aggregated content linked back to the original source, Gatehouse stated, does not matter. Many content providers, including The Associated Press, have for years claimed that the headline and lede, even with attribution, is too much of a taking. GateHouse in its complaint "charges that Boston.com both through advertising and its direct aggregation is confusing readers about where the articles actually originated. And even though Boston.com does link back to GateHouse sites, the publisher is frustrated that the links do an end-run around the ads on its homepage. NYTCo rep Catherine Mathis tells Boston.com that its hyperlocal sites aren’t doing anything different from what blogs have been doing all along."

This is going to be an interesting case which I am sure the rest of the news media market will be watching very closely.

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