Categories: OLD Media Moves

Why the Dow Jones lawsuit won’t work

Matthew Ingram of GigaOm writes that the Dow Jones & Co. lawsuit filed Thursday against Ransquawk for allegedly stealing Wall Street Journal content isn’t likely to be successful.

Ingram writes, “Like the brokerage firms, Dow Jones is trying to piggyback on the original ‘hot news’ ruling by making its claim in New York state, which adopted aspects of the doctrine as part of state law — despite the criticisms made by legal scholars that enshrining a form of property right in factual statements contravenes federal copyright law. In its claim, Dow Jones goes to some lengths to argue that Ransquawk does business in New York and/or is hurting the wire service’s business prospects in that state.

“It’s true that seconds can matter when it comes to financial news in particular (Reuters charges certain clients thousands of dollars a month to get labor statistics just two seconds before they are released to the rest of its business customers). But it’s also true that sources of information are everywhere — and if anything, they are multiplying faster than Dow Jones or the court can count them.

“For example, part of the Dow Jones claim states that Ransquawk reproduced within seconds the wire service’s ‘scoop’ that Twitter had filed securities documents in preparation for an initial public offering or IPO. But that ignores the fact that literally hundreds of Twitter users — both wire services and individuals — did exactly the same thing within seconds of the filing.

“The reality, as I’ve argued before, is that Twitter is the news-wire for a growing number of people now, and the life-span of a so-called news ‘scoop’ continues to dwindle rapidly. Dow Jones may not want to believe it, but there are plenty of legal ways that Ransquawk — or anyone else, for that matter — can find out market-moving information within seconds or minutes of Dow Jones moving it on the wire. Suing every provider like Ransquawk is like closing the barn door after the horse has long since moved on to greener pastures.”