Press Releases

01/14/2008

Associated Press sues AHN Media Corp., claims improper use of AP news stories

By AMY WESTFELDT
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Associated Press on Monday sued a company it said copied and rewrote AP stories and distributed them on the Internet.

The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, seeks unspecified damages from AHN Media Corp. and All Headline News Corp. and an end to the appropriation of AP's copyright-protected stories.

The AP claims that AHN Media Corp., based in Wellington, Fla., copies AP stories from Web sites that legitimately carry them and redistributes them on its Web site and as a service it sells to other news outlets, competing for the AP's customers.

"AHN calls itself a `news service,'" the lawsuit said. "However, on information and belief, AHN has no reporters and is simply a vehicle for copying news reports and misappropriating news gathered and reported by real news services such as AP."

A person who answered the telephone at AHN's headquarters Monday said there would be no comment on pending litigation and hung up without identifying himself. An e-mail to the company was not immediately returned.

The AP lawsuit said that AHN employees delete information that identifies the material as AP stories, such as writers' bylines and the "(AP)" stamp, before distributing it online.

The AP claims that AHN tells its employees to search other Web sites for breaking news stories, then copy or rewrite them and distribute them as AHN stories. The lawsuit said AHN is marketing its service with misappropriated AP stories to the same customer base as AP.
Because AHN has no reporters and fewer employees, who are poorly paid, the lawsuit said, "defendants are able to offer their 'news service' to customers and potential customers at a price that is far lower than the AP can offer for its services."

AHN and the AP entered into a contract in 2003 that gave AHN the right to distribute the first two paragraphs of news stories offered as part of the AP Online service, the lawsuit said. AP ended the contract in 2005 because AHN repeatedly used more content than was permitted under the contract, the lawsuit said.

The Associated Press is a 161-year-old cooperative owned by news organizations, with more than 4,000 employees across the world.

The AP filed a similar copyright suit in October against Moreover Technologies Inc. and its parent company, VeriSign Inc., claiming that Moreover improperly displayed AP headlines and reproduced full articles and photos through subscription services. VeriSign said then that it does not comment on pending lawsuits.

Last August, Knowledge Networks Inc., a market research company, agreed to pay $300,000 to settle claims that it improperly distributed in company press packets articles from the AP, United Press International and trade publisher Reed Elsevier PLC.