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Show : uu Opinion Given By the Supreme Court of U. S. WASHINGTON. Dec. 23 A digest of tho majority opinion in The Associated Asso-ciated Press case follows: "In considering Ihe general question ques-tion of property in news mattor, It is necessary to distinguish between the substance of the information and the particular form or collation of words in which the writer has communicated com-municated it "It seems to us tho case must turn upon tho question of unfair competition competi-tion in business. And this does not depend upon any general right of property pro-perty analogous to the common law-right law-right of the proprietor of an unpublished unpub-lished work i to prevent its publication J without his consent " The peculiar pe-culiar value of news is in the spreading spread-ing of it while it is fresh; and it is evident that a valuable property interest inter-est in tho news, as news, cannot be maintained by keeping it secret. Besides, Be-sides, except" for matters improperly disclosed, or published in breach of trust or in violation of law the news of current events may be regarded re-garded as common property. Regarding the taking of Associated Press news bulletins for bulletin boards and early editions of Associated Associat-ed Press newspapers, and selling to its own clients, the court said. "The right of the purchaser of a single newspaper to spread knowledge knowl-edge of its contents gratuitously for any legal purpose not unreasonably interfering in-terfering with complainant's right to make merchandise of it, may be admitted; ad-mitted; but to transmit that news for commercial use in competition with complainant which is'what defendant has done and seeks to justify is a very different matter. Stripped Strip-ped of all disguises, the process amounts to an unauthorized interference interfer-ence with the normal operation of complainant's legitimate business precisely pre-cisely at the point where the profit is to be reaped, ; with special advantage to defendant in the competition compe-tition because of the fact that it is not burdened with any part of the expense of gathering the news. The transaction speaks for itself, and a court of equity ought not to hesitate long In characterizing it as unfair competition in business. "The contention that the news is abandoned lo tho public when published in the first newspaper newspa-per is untenable. Abandonment is a question of intent and the entire organization or-ganization of The Associated Press negatives such a purpose. "Besides the misappropriation, thero aro elements of imitation, of false pretense, pre-tense, in defendant's practices. The device of rewriting complainant's news articles carries its j own comment. Indeed, the entire system of appropriating complainant's news and transmitting it as a commer- clal product amounts to a false representation that the news transmitted is the result of defendant's de-fendant's own investigation." Justice Pitney said a distinction existed ex-isted between tho boclily appropriation of news matter and the taking of rival news as a "tip" for independent investigation. in-vestigation. He concurred in the lower low-er court's findings that the "tip" practice prac-tice was "insurably journalistic." |