News Aggregator Chased by Photographer

Dear Rich: I run a news aggregator that uses RSS feeds to pull in a headline, a small photo and a few lines of text. We pull content from maybe 2,000 sources. Visitors who want to read the full story click on a “read more” button and get taken back to the original source. I recently have been sued by a photographer whose photo appeared on our site. We gave the original source credit for the story and the photo, and of course we provided a link back to the original site. This photographer says I didn’t have the right to include her photo on our site. Now it looks like we might be heading to court. If I truly have done nothing wrong and if what I’m doing is considered fair use – whatever that is – why should I be punished or even subjected to all this? My site is relatively new and I have put significant money into the enterprise. I need time to build this up, and now I’m being threatened. I have tried to reach the publication that published the photo to see if it can shed more light on this, but nobody answers my emails or voice messages. It’s a big publication; it’s hard for me to believe they didn’t have the rights to publish on the Internet.
We don't believe it matters whether the big publication had permission to publish the photo. If they did have permission, it wouldn't extend to you. If they didn't have permission, you're still in the same pickle.
So, how do aggregators do it? Not all news aggregators operate from an identical model but it's generally considered "safe" -- meaning you won't hear from any lawyers -- to publish only the headline, a link back to the news source, and perhaps some original text describing the content (without reproducing it). How do news aggregators like Apple, Google and Yahoo! reproduce photos and text? These aggregators pay for permission to reproduce publications like the New York Times and the Associated Press. They don't pay smaller news sources and these publications don't object to being aggregated because they reap the benefits of link backs that result in more traffic. As you can see, a free lance photographer who reaps no financial or linking benefit from aggregation may find it more lucrative to chase infringers, especially small companies that can't afford to fight.
Making a case for fair use. We assume you used the complete photo. And we assume you didn't use it for a transformative purpose. Both of these factors make it hard to argue for fair use. If you had displayed a thumbnail of the photo, you may be in a better position. In a 2007 case, a court ruled that Google’s thumbnail reproductions of images from an adult men’s magazine website were permitted as a fair use primarily because the purpose was transformative -- the thumbnail was used for indexing and searching. (See also this 2003 case.)
What should you do? First get proof that the photographer does own the copyright. Obtain a copy of the registration and look for contradictions -- for example, she assigned the photo copyright to someone else, or the photo was a work made for hire. Second, run an image search for the photo. You should contact the websites who have also reproduced the photo to learn if they have been hassled and if so, what was their resolution?  Third, consult with a copyright attorney and ask for an estimate of your odds and your costs. (Be wary of Pyrrhic victories). Also, check your business insurance just in case the policy covers copyright infringement.

News Aggregation and Fair Use

Dear Rich: We're interested in aggregating entertainment news for a new app. Is there any formula to use to figure how much can you take from a news site. Sorry, but there's no way to quantify how much is "too much." It's more helpful to look at the handful of public disputes over news aggregators (websites or applications that gather news or news feeds from other sources). In 2005, the Associated Press (AP) was involved in a dispute with All Headline News, a company that copied and rewrote news stories and resold them. AP seems to have had the upper hand because the parties settled before trial with All Headline News agreeing to pay for past use and to halt future use of AP content. In another dispute, AP went after Google for its news clipping service. The result: Google entered into a licensing deal with the AP, as well as with another news organization, AFP.
Meltwater and the search engine defense. More recently AP sued Meltwater and prevailed on its infringement claim. Meltwater argued that it functioned like a search engine -- an argument that had worked successfully in other fair use/search engine litigation and scanning/search engine lawsuits. But Meltwater differed from search engines like Google because it was a paid subscription service. It also failed the fair use test because its service cut into AP's clipping service revenues and because it sometimes copied up to 60% of articles. (One possible takeaway: don't mess with AP!)
Fox News and TVEyes.  A related case involved a TV clipping database, TVEyes, that made it possible for users to search news broadcasts using keywords, then view a portion of the curated news clip containing those keywords. A district court determined that the storage, indexing, excerpting, and reproduction of the clips was a fair use. The court emphasized that the purpose of the database was unique and transformative, and dismissed the “very small possible impact” of  lost revenues for Fox.
Bottom Line Dept. As this informative (slightly outdated) article explains, the type of aggregation (there are a few variations) may make a difference as to whether your app qualifies for fair use. It also explains the disfavored concept of hot news. In any case, we must repeat our fair use mantra: no matter what we say, only a court can determine what constitutes fair use.

Wants to Curate and Re-Post Content

We would like to curate, gather and re-post content from other publishers or creators -- sort of like Buzzfeed, Tumblr and Pinterest. These sites seem to walk a thin line between curating and plagiarizing/stealing content from other creators. Can you define that line and tell us when it's okay and when it's not? No, sorry, we can't define that line because there's no measurement of how many words you take to constitute infringement. The law regarding curation/aggregation is unclear and most legal cases regarding these issues are settled before a final decision is made. (See this article for more information.) In general, infringement is determined on a case-by-case basis using a standard known as "substantial similarity" --  which generally means somebody had access to your work and copied it such that an observer would believe that the similarities in expression are more than trivial and not coincidence.
Infringement isn't the issue. Anyway, the "line" that most people care about is, “Will I get in trouble for doing this?” -- that is, "Will I get involved in a legal confrontation, typically a lawsuit or the threat of a lawsuit, or some other legal mechanism such as shutting down an account?" In that way infringing is a different issue from getting hassled, much like littering is different than being fined for littering. There are three common ways that a curator/aggregator could get hassled:

• It's business. You are a suitable commercial target, taking content from another established business – a business to business dispute. For example, that's what happened when the AP sued Meltwater.
• It's easy. You are an individual or business and you are an easy target for a business – for example, it’s quite simple for Getty Images to determine if someone has infringed one of its photos and to demand a licensing fee from them (see our previous blog entry). Ditto for lawsuits brought by the RIAA or by copyright trolls.
• It's the principle. Third, you’re an individual or business and a copyright or trademark owner just feels strongly about your use and wants to stop it – for example, you're using their photo in a manner they consider offensive.

Therefore, unless you are competing in business, easy to locate, or your use bothers a principled copyright owner, you're likely to get away with your curation regardless of whether it is an infringement.