Eleven word snippet can infringe copyright
Jinfo Blog

7th August 2009

By Diana Nutting

Item

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that, by copying and reproducing an eleven word snippet, a Danish clippings service's copying could be unlawful. Danish clippings service Infopaq (http://www.infopaq.net/) was sued by the Danish newspaper industry body Danske Dagblades Forening (http://www.danskedagblade.dk) over its reproduction of 11-word snippets of news for sale to clients. The agency would scan in newspaper pages and use software to turn the image of the page into text. If pre-determined keywords that clients wanted monitored appeared in text then that word and the five words on either side of it were kept and the rest of the text thrown away. Clients were then sent the 11 words and the details of what page of what publication on what date the words appeared, as well as an indication of how far into the article the words came. Infopaq conceded that acts of copying and reproduction took place in the process, but said that the use was legal because of exceptions in the European Union's Copyright Directive for 'transient' copying of material and lawful copying. The ECJ ruled that, while some parts could be called transient, as soon as it had printed out the 11 words on to paper the copying became too permanent to qualify for the law's exception, which implies that reproduced snippets are OK in computer format, but not on paper. The full ruling can be found at (http://digbig.com/5badpf). At the same time, as reported elsewhere on LiveWire, there have been moves in the UK to tighten up on copyright. Associated Press announced last month that it was to envelope its articles, photographs and videos in a 'protective wrapper' and track the use of its information through a news database in a bid to prevent its unauthorised use (http://www.vivavip.com/go/e22457). And back in June, the Newspaper Licensing Agency announced a new business-to-business clippings database for newspaper websites to launch in January 2010, but added that at the same time it would be extending its licensing remit to cover newspaper websites (http://www.vivavip.com/go/e21244).

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