931 F. Supp. 2d 537
S.D.N.Y.2013Background
- AP publishes news and licenses its articles; Meltwater scrapes articles and delivers excerpts to subscribers; Meltwater markets as a news clipping/monitoring service with dashboards and analytics; AP asserts copyright in 33 Registered Articles and seeks injunctive relief and damages; Meltwater raises five affirmative defenses and seeks summary judgment on several issues.
- Meltwater’s service copies and disseminates AP content without paying licensing fees, arguing fair use/transformativeness; AP licenses include snippets and excerpts; Meltwater’s News Reports include lede and Hit Sentence excerpts with URLs and source attribution.
- The court grants AP’s summary judgment on infringement, rejects Meltwater’s fair use defense, and addresses implied license, equitable estoppel, laches, and copyright misuse.
- Procedural posture includes cross-motions for summary judgment; the court also reserves rulings on certain injunctive relief questions and on Meltwater’s secondary infringement claims.
- The opinion analyzes four fair use factors and weighs them against Meltwater’s business model of copying protected content for commercial gain.
Issues
| Issue | Plaintiff's Argument | Defendant's Argument | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whether Meltwater’s copying of AP articles constitutes fair use | AP | Meltwater—transformative, like a search engine | No; not transformative; four-factor test favors AP |
| Whether Meltwater has an implied license to copy AP articles | AP | Implied license exists via conduct/robots.txt | No; no meeting of the minds; implied license fails |
| Whether equitable estoppel bars AP’s claim | AP | AP’s silence/omissions estop AP | No; estoppel not shown; no justifiable reliance |
| Whether laches bars AP’s claim or prospective relief | AP | Laches bars claims/relief | Laches does not bar damages or prospective relief; retrospective relief addressed later |
| Whether Meltwater’s conduct constitutes copyright misuse | AP | AP engaged in antitrust-related misuse via NewsRight | No; misuse defense rejected |
Key Cases Cited
- Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569 (U.S. 1994) (four fair use factors; transformative use analysis)
- Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley, Ltd., 448 F.3d 605 (2d Cir. 2006) (transformative use; archival poster timeline)
- Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 508 F.3d 1146 (9th Cir. 2007) (thumbnails; transformative use in search context)
- Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp., 336 F.3d 811 (9th Cir. 2003) (thumbnails; fair use in search engine context)
- Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Inc. v. Comline Business Data, Inc., 166 F.3d 65 (2d Cir. 1999) (abstracting; fair use considerations; quantitatively close call)
- Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enters., 471 U.S. 539 (U.S. 1985) (market/public policy considerations; nature of use; first publication rights)
- Am. Geophysical Union v. Texaco, Inc., 60 F.3d 913 (2d Cir. 1994) (consideration of potential licensing markets; transformative use factors)
- NXIVM Corp. v. The Ross Inst., 364 F.3d 471 (2d Cir. 2004) (amount/substantiality; qualitative assessment of copied material)