AP Settles Copyright Infringement Suit

  • July 28, 2008
Several newspapers and The Associated Press have settled a copyright infringement lawsuit against the operator of a collection of Web sites, the news organizations announced Friday.

The Police News Publishing Co., Breck Porter and six affiliated Web sites had been accused of accessing the news content of the organizations without their authorization and posting it on the Web sites, where advertising appears. The content was then archived; the archiving, publication, distribution and display of the content all violated the news organizations' copyright, according to the suit.

Under a settlement agreement, Porter and his Web sites will only be able to copy the headline and up to the first two sentences of any stories from the newspapers. The Web sites can copy and publish only headlines and the first paragraph from AP stories provided to them by the news service. All stories used by the Web sites must be attributed to their original sources and include a copyright notice and link to the original work.--Tanya Irwin

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