Moneyweb took Naspers’s Media24 to court last year over seven of its news reports that were aggregated by Media24’s business news website Fin24.
Moneyweb said in its affidavit last year that Fin24 infringed its copyright and this constituted unlawful competition.
Moneyweb claims in its court papers that Fin24 was guilty of “plagiarism on an industrial scale”.
This is an important case because the court’s decision will define the extent to which news organisations can copy each other’s stories.
At the moment‚ no firm rules exist governing the extent that this is allowed.
Moneyweb advocate Philip Ginsburg said during May last year when the case was heard that this was a simple case: “Fin24 took substantial parts of the articles … and thereby infringed Moneyweb’s copyright.”
Fin24 argued that news reports taken primarily from press releases or what was said at press conferences did not enjoy copyright protection.
