Item — HN Reader

Does anyone know about the legal implications of building such a "fronted"? Doesn't Reuters own the copyright zo the contents of their news articles? Can't they send a Cease & Desist (or worse) to the developer, given they are potentially losing some ad revenue?

Or they can and simply don't bother?

2 comments

Yes, it’s copyright infringement.

Yes, they can send a C&D to whomever is hosting the copies of their content.

Yes, they are losing some minor potential ad income.

They will likely bother if their legal department notices and thinks it rises to a level they must contend with. My guess is that it won’t.

Thanks. Is there some rule of thumb about how much should the article change so that the copyright doesn't apply any more? These points come to my mind:

- There is a whole category of software called "news aggregators". Are they all infringers? How can they operate, apart from praying that the news outlet doesn't care?

- News outlets quote each other, e.g. "According to Reuters", etc. Does that solve the copyright issue? Is it only the 100% verbatim copy that is copyrighted?

Many thanks already for the insights.

The rules are country-specific. For the US, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#U.S._fair_use_factors. There is no simple rule of thumb.

Aggregators are references to content. Frontends are copies. You can't sidestep copyright with a "according to Reuters" preamble for the entire article text.

If your alternative becomes popular they will sic their lawyers on you.