Johannesburg - Moneyweb, an internet-based financial news site in the Caxton group, has launched a legal challenge against the Fin24 website for what it calls “systematic plagiarism on an industrial scale” by the Naspers subsidiary.
In his affidavit, Moneyweb’s editor, Ryk van Niekerk, said “investigative journalism and investment in unique and original content is critical for the [media] industry to fulfil” its role as a critical stakeholder in and guardian of the South African democracy.
Fin24, which like Moneyweb has only an online presence, is a division of News24, which is part of Naspers’s media subsidiary, Media24.
The high court action is expected to clarify the application of the Copyright Act of 1978 to the internet.
A media lawyer told Business Report last week that the act had not been changed to accommodate the different characteristics of the internet and this case would provide an excellent opportunity for an investigation of the issues.
The heart of the issue is what, if any, restrictions there should be on a website’s use of “aggregated” material pulled from other sites and newspapers. It will provide clarity on the concept of fair use, which allows for some aggregation but not to the complete disadvantage of the source.
While aggregation of one or two paragraphs of a story is common, Moneyweb argues that Fin24 goes far beyond this.
News24 editor-in-chief Jannie Momberg has rejected the claims. Approached for comment, he referred Business Report to the Fin24 site where he is quoted: “At no time did we pretend to pass off the work of others as our own.”
The legal papers refer to seven “offending articles” that Fin24 copied either fully or partially from Moneyweb’s site “and published unlawfully”.
In his affidavit, Van Niekerk said Fin24’s conduct was unlawful because it infringed the Copyright Act and represented “unlawful competition against Moneyweb”. He described its content strategy as providing “excellent, unique and original business, financial and investment content to the Moneyweb community” using “unique and original business, financial and investment content”.
He described Fin24 as having a low-cost business model “where there is virtually no investment in original and unique content. Fin24 predominantly publishes inexpensive syndicated wire copy from Sapa, Reuters and AFP”.
He added: “The theory is that unique and original content would attract more readers, while a low-cost model would lead to a commoditised offering of syndicated content. The reality is that the volume of Fin24’s generated news content is inferior to competitors who invest in original content.”
Moneyweb acknowledges that Fin24 makes reference to Moneyweb’s original article but queries the quality of the reference link. Van Niekerk also acknowledged that it rewrote one or two sentences but contended this was “in an attempt to circumvent claims of copyright infringement”.
Momberg said at no time did Fin24 pretend to pass off the work of others as its own. He said Fin24 looked forward to defending the allegations and setting a legal precedent for fair use and content aggregation, which he described as “a practice that is as old as the free media and used by every single media organisation globally”. - Business Report