Legality of stealing news
<p>Say I read in the newspaper that a kangaroo shot a man on highway 45.</p>
<p>If I put this information on my homepage, and don't copy the exact wording of the newspaper, this is probably ok and not a violation of copyright or any other law.</p>
<p>But what if I read the newspaper every day, summarize facts from it, and sell this information?</p>
<p>It does not sound legal to me, but I would not know which law I am violating.</p>

<h2><a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/a/53525/10334">Facts are not copyrightable</a> <a href="/questions/tagged/united-states" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;united-states&#39;" aria-label="show questions tagged &#39;united-states&#39;" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-united-states-tooltip-container">united-states</a></h2>
<p>Facts are not copyrightable since at least <strong>Feist</strong> Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co., <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/499/340" rel="noreferrer">499 U.S. 340 (1991)</a>.</p>
<p>IF you take <strong>only</strong> the facts and not the expression, then the news site can do nothing: you do not violate copyright by taking <strong>only</strong> the facts. Or as Scotus said in Feist:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As a statutory matter, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/101" rel="noreferrer">17 U.S.C. § 101</a> does not afford protection from copying to a collection of facts that are selected, coordinated, and arranged in a way that utterly lacks originality.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>News contain more than facts.</h2>
<p>However, do note that news are not mere facts - like a phonebook as the Feist case was - but have their facts intricately entwined with expression. That's why press agencies like Reuters work: They get informed of facts, write an article and news sites buy that article's expression to refine it into their style. Most newspapers buy these articles, which leads to the appearance of nigh simultaneously reporting on the same event.</p>
<p>To understand where the line is between fact and expression, compare the following headlines from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933" rel="noreferrer">24th March 1933</a>, all regarding the same event:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://dfg-viewer.de/show/?set%5Bmets%5D=https://content.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/zefys/SNP2719372X-19330324-0-0-0-0.xml" rel="noreferrer">Berliner Morgenpost</a> titled their front page: Ermächtigungsgesetz mit 441 gegen 94 Stimmen angenommen (Enabeling Act approved with 441 to 94 votes) - That is merely reporting facts.</li>
<li><a href="https://dfg-viewer.de/show/?set%5Bmets%5D=https://content.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/zefys/SNP24329435-19330324-0-0-0-0.xml" rel="noreferrer">Deutch Chinesische Nachrichten</a> titled the front page: Ein Neues Zeitalter (A new Age) - This is an expression of opinion - and thus protected.</li>
<li>New York Times titled, deep inside, in the category <em>Special Cable</em>: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1933/03/24/archives/speech-of-hitler-in-reichstag-on-his-policies-for-germany.html" rel="noreferrer">Speech of Hitler in Reichstag on His Policies for Germany</a> - That is a fact.</li>
</ul>

<p>In <a href="/questions/tagged/germany" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;germany&#39;" aria-label="show questions tagged &#39;germany&#39;" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-germany-tooltip-container">germany</a>, you have to consider the ancillary copyright for press publishers (Leistungsschutzrecht für Presseverleger), specified in §§ 87f to 87h UrhG.</p>
<p>The publisher has the exclusive right to publish their news publication online. However, they explicitly cannot prevent you from</p>
<ul>
<li>using facts from the news publication</li>
<li>linking to the news publication</li>
<li>using individual words or very short snippets from the news publication</li>
</ul>
<p>So yes, it would probably be possible to create, publish, and sell such a news digest, as long as you avoid lifting quotes from the news publication. You should write everything in your own words.</p>
<p>In this context, you should review the history of the Leistungsschutzrecht, and in particular the role of Google Search and Google News. Many publishers that had advocated for this Leistungsschutzrecht ended up giving Google gratis licenses so that snippets/teasers could be shown in Google services. You would not benefit from such a license, and would have to be more careful.</p>
<p>Compared to the <a href="/questions/tagged/united-states" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;united-states&#39;" aria-label="show questions tagged &#39;united-states&#39;" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-united-states-tooltip-container">united-states</a>, Germany and Europe has more complicated copyright rules, with lots of ancillary rights that make a simple statement like &quot;facts are not copyrightable&quot; slightly incorrect. For example, facts are not copyrightable, but databases as collections of facts are. There's also a very low threshold of originality, so that even short text snippets must be assumed to be covered by copyright.</p>
<p>As to why copying news doesn't seem to be a common business model: it is reasonably common to report on something that was originally reported by another newspaper. However, there are practical downsides:</p>
<ul>
<li>the news would be delayed</li>
<li>summarizing stuff in your own words is still a lot of work (though automation is arriving)</li>
<li>legal risks if you include snippets of the original</li>
<li>why would people read your summary if they can read the original?</li>
</ul>
<p>At least for newspapers and similar press products, it is rare for journalists to write their own stories. Instead, a lot of news is licensed from news agencies, e.g. Reuters, Associated Press, or dpa. This syndication is cost-effective and avoids legal problems. The main value of a publication in that workflow is to select relevant stories and to maybe provide a bit of context for the audience. Reporting on others' stories is more common in areas that are more online and informal, for example tech news.</p>

<p>In the United States, this would be a form of unfair competition. The law treats things that behave like property as if they were property. Early knowledge of news, gathered at great effort and expense, behaves like property and so courts treat it like property. If you use the property of another to harm them, courts may fashion equitable remedies.</p>
<p>See the Supreme Court's ruling in International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918) for a case of precisely this:</p>
<p>&quot;<em>The contention that the news is abandoned to the public for all purposes when published in the first newspaper is untenable.</em> Abandonment is a question of intent, and the entire organization of the Associated Press negatives such a purpose. The cost of the service would be prohibitive if the reward were to be so limited. No single newspaper, no small group of newspapers, could sustain the expenditure. Indeed, it is one of the most obvious results of defendant's theory that, <em>by permitting indiscriminate publication by anybody and everybody for purposes of profit in competition with the news-gatherer, it would render publication profitless</em>, or so little profitable as in effect to cut off the service by rendering the cost prohibitive in comparison with the return. The practical needs and requirements of the business are reflected in complainant's bylaws which have been referred to. Their effect is that <em>publication by each member must be deemed not by any means an abandonment of the news to the world for any and all purposes, but a publication for limited purposes; for the benefit of the readers of the bulletin or the newspaper as such; not for the purpose of making merchandise of it as news, with the result of depriving complainant's other members of their reasonable opportunity to obtain just returns for their expenditures</em>.&quot;</p>

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