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The South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg has struck down most allegations by business publication Moneyweb that its rival Fin24 was guilty of copyright infringement.
Acting Judge Daniel Berger this morning handed down judgment in the landmark legal battle, which stemmed from complaints lodged by Caxton-owned Moneyweb in September 2013.
Moneyweb alleged that Fin24 had infringed on seven articles but in his judgment, Berger said Fin24 only infringed in one article about Amplats.
Berger said two of the stories did not qualify for protection under copyright, and Moneyweb did not prove that other four stories were original.
Berger ruled that Moneyweb had to pay 70% of Fin24’s legal costs.
The judgment came a year after the matter was heard in the South Gauteng High Court in May 2015.
Moneyweb’s case centred on an allegation that Fin24 aggregated up to eight of its articles unlawfully.
Moneyweb editor Ryk van Niekerk accused Fin24 of committing “plagiarism on an industrial scale”.
Moneyweb’s lawyer Philip Ginsburg SC argued in court last year that Fin24 must remove the articles in question from its website and pay damages at a later date. Fin24, though, rejected the claims as false and Media24’s counsel Cedrick Puckrin SC argued that there was no copyright or exclusivity in news items.
The Moneyweb-Fin24 case sparked debate over how journalistic works should be produced in South Africa. The case also highlighted South Africa’s Copyright Act of 1978, which Media24’s legal counsel last year argued was outdated for the era of online news. Section 12(8)a of the Act excludes certain official texts from copyright protection such as laws, speeches of a political nature, or “in the news of the day that are mere items of press information’’.
News24 editor Adriaan Basson said he was “satisfied with the court’s ruling”.
“Media24 felt that in the majority of the stories it had not infringed on copyright,” he said.
“While this case was pending, we appointed a 20 plus strong news team of journalists to create original content,” he added.
Basson said Media24 would study the judgment and move to correct where it had erred (in light of that one story).
Van Niekerk told Fin24 that the ruling against the one story “shows that there is copyright in news”.
He said Moneyweb still views this as a victory, despite it only being one article. It’s not clear if they will appeal, as they need to study the judgment, said Van Niekerk. – Fin24
» Fin24 and City Press are both published by Media24
