| This study examines the history of the hot news doctrine and the legal and historical factors that influenced its development. The hot news doctrine originated in the 1918 U.S. Supreme Court case, International News Service v. Associated Press,1 in which the International News Service (INS), a competitor of the Associated Press (AP), stole breaking war news from uncopyrighted AP news reports. Following principles of unfair competition law, the Court awarded AP a limited property right in the facts of news for a short period after publication, establishing a new common law tort it called “misappropriation.” As it applied to news organizations and other information providers, the tort has been more commonly referred to as the “hot news doctrine.”; The doctrine has received renewed attention by database providers and others who seek to protect their fact-based works in the digital age. The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the origin, application, and development of the hot news doctrine and its ability to preserve the balance between a vibrant public domain and a healthy market for fact-based works in the digital age. It also addressed the call for new legislation to protect digital fact-based works.; Using historical legal research methods and case analysis, this study showed that the hot news doctrine first underwent expansion as new technologies freely distributed works left unprotected by copyright law, and courts rushed to protect creators. As Congress and the courts questioned the extent to which the states could create intellectual property law, however, the doctrine was later narrowed. As a result, the doctrine's threat to works left in public domain remains minimal.; This study concluded that although it is unlikely the Supreme Court would create the doctrine today under similar circumstances, the hot news doctrine has served an important common law function: Though imperfect and often ill-defined, it offers a measured approach to protections for uncopyrighted works delivered by new technologies and can prevent a rush to draft new legislation that might later be seen as obsolete.; 1248 U.S. 215 (1918). |
