Judge recommends trimming Dow Jones copyright lawsuit

A Texas judge has recommended that a copyright lawsuit filed by Wall Street Journal parent Dow Jones & Co. against an investment manager be trimmed because the company cannot claim damages for each article, reports Katryna Perera of Law360.

Perera writes, “Harris, who has been a subscriber to the WSJ and Barron’s, another Dow Jones publication, since 2017 and agreed to Dow Jones’ terms of use, ignored the publications’ copyright warnings, according to the complaint. Each of his newsletters featured four to 20 articles copied verbatim from the news websites, Dow Jones said.

“Harris — currently the president and chief executive officer of the University of Texas/Texas A&M Investment Management Co. — has consistently pushed back against Dow Jones’ claims, saying the ‘articles were a small portion of the works from which they came,’ and that his use of them in his newsletters didn’t make a dent in subscriptions because they were sent to existing Dow Jones subscribers or encouraged nonsubscribers to subscribe.

“He also said he hasn’t made a dime from his emails, which he developed for students of his business seminar ‘for nonprofit, educational purposes.'”

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