Dow Jones Sues Over ‘Hot News Misappropriation’
Dow Jones & Co. claims in a lawsuit that the subscription website Briefing.com copied a substantial portion of Dow Jones newswire content, often posting articles before they could appear online at the Wall Street Journal.
The suit filed Tuesday in New York federal court alleges copyright infringement and “hot news misappropriation,” Bloomberg reports. Dow Jones publishes the Wall Street Journal and is owned by News Corp., Bloomberg says.
The complaint filed by Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler accuses Briefing.com of “unauthorized free-riding.”
“By instantaneously cutting and pasting into their own products the reports of news events uncovered and verified by other news outlets at significant investment and expense, they offer a pirated product at a cheaper cost,” the complaint says.
Dow Jones said in a statement that in one two-week period, Briefing.com copied a “substantial portion” of at least 100 articles and republished more than 70 headlines within three minutes of their publication.
PaidContent.org and Dow Jones (sub. req.) also had stories on the suit.
