Open App →
Home › Case briefs › Property

International News Service v. Associated Press

Supreme Court of the United States · 1919 · Property
248 U.S. 215 (1919)
Updated
PropertyUnfair CompetitionNews MisappropriationQuasi-Propertymisappropriationnewscompetitorsbulletin boards

Facts

Associated Press and International News Service were direct competitors in gathering and distributing news to newspapers for profit. INS admittedly took news from AP members' publicly posted bulletins and early newspaper editions, sometimes bodily and sometimes after rewriting, and transmitted it to INS customers for publication in competing newspapers. Because news moved generally from east to west and telegraph transmission was rapid, INS could republish AP's news in western papers as early as or earlier than AP-served papers. AP alleged this practice let INS profit from news AP had gathered through substantial expenditure of labor, skill, organization, and money.

Issue

May a competing news service be restrained from taking news from another service's bulletins or early newspaper editions and selling it to its own clients while the news still has commercial value? More specifically, does such conduct constitute unfair competition even if the news is not protected as absolute property against the public after publication?

Rule

Although uncopyrighted news of current events may be common property as against the public upon publication, as between competing news-gathering organizations the news may be treated as quasi-property. A competitor commits unfair competition when it appropriates that time-sensitive news, gathered by another at substantial cost, and uses it for commercial gain in direct competition before the news's commercial value has passed away. Taking a rival's published items merely as tips to investigate and verify independently is distinct from bodily appropriation without independent investigation.

🔒

See the holding & full analysis

Create a free KwikCourt account to unlock the rest of this brief — and practice the case.

  • The court's holding and reasoning
  • Doctrine tests, pitfalls & exam hypotheticals
  • 10 practice questions + 4 AI-graded essays on this case
Sign up free to see more →
Free sample · practice this case

Test yourself

One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.
Lakefront Dispatch, based in Chicago, spends heavily to gather wildfire updates across the West and sells the reports to subscribing newspapers. Before Lakefront's client paper in Portland can publish a major update, Harbor Wire copies the update from an early Spokane edition, lightly rewrites it, and sells it to a competing Portland paper that runs it the same morning.

Lakefront seeks an injunction against Harbor Wire. What is the strongest basis for relief?

Explanation. The majority treated fresh news as quasi-property only as between competing news businesses. A competitor may be restrained when it takes time-sensitive news gathered by another at substantial expense and sells it in direct competition before the news's commercial value has expired. The wrong is not an absolute property right against the public, and it is not limited to exact verbal copying; taking the substance after rewriting can still be misappropriation.