Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 28, 1995 TAG: 9511280088
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: MIAMI LENGTH: Medium
LambGroup Inc., a Miami company that provides local tourist information on the World Wide Web, has sued another across town for plagiarism.
But rather than invoking traditional federal copyright law, the company is seeking legal relief under British common law, on which U.S. common law is based.
``We're all trying to accomplish the same end, which is trying to protect our clients' intellectual property rights,'' said Montgomery Blair Sibley, the attorney representing LambGroup. ``I'm just using a different tactic because I'm not satisfied there's any legislative [means] at present.''
The case illustrates the baffling state of copyright law in cyberspace.
Normal copyright procedure often is applied to Internet material in the same way it is applied to printed or broadcast information. Documents, newspaper articles and the like are protected under federal copyright laws, even when they're on the global public data network.
In practice, though, material is often copied and republished without penalty under the ``fair use'' doctrine of copyright law.
In a suit filed in Dade County Circuit Court last week, LambGroup accused Guru Communications of plagiarizing a local events calendar from its Web site. Both companies present tourism information on their Web sites and sell ads to generate revenue.
LambGroup asked for an injunction and unspecified damages from lost advertising and user ``visits'' to its site.
Guru president Chris Heuer said the suit was frivolous. ``It's a company policy. ... We don't even use anyone else's graphics,'' he said.
LambGroup's calendar lists basic events such as Miami Dolphins football games and performances of The Miami Symphony Orchestra. Guru has a similar, though smaller, selection.
The set of facts in each isn't protected under copyright law because they are public. But LambGroup attorney Sibley contends that by invoking the British common law principle of Trover, the company can ``recover damages for property that was found but then wrongfully detained and used.''
Outside experts said federal copyright protections may be more suited for the case.
``The way in which a given author organized and selected the facts - the end product - that compilation is protected,'' said Robert Penchina, a media and intellectual property lawyer at Rogers & Wells in New York. ``The level of originality doesn't have to be great.''
The Miami dispute is just the latest case involving copyright on the Internet.
Free-lance journalists have sued newspapers to get electronic rights to their stories, magazines have sued Internet operators to prevent them from posting their images on bulletin boards and encouraging users to download them.
by CNB