Penske Media Corporation (PMC), owner of Nikki Finke's Deadline.com and other media-related websites, has made good on its threat to sue the Hollywood Reporter for copyright infringement. The suit accuses the trade publication of resorting on an almost daily basis, to "the outright theft of intellectual property, including but not limited to whole articles, content, software, source code and designs." The lawsuit implied that PMC may take similar action against other entertainment media news sites. (Deadline and PMC have made similar accusations against Sharon Waxman's TheWrap.com.) "PMC is taking a stand against desperate and copycat news organizations and media outlets such as THR that constantly monitor PMC's websites for the sole purpose of copying and imitating PMC websites' news stories and original content within minutes after online publication," the lawsuit said. In response, the Hollywood Reporter said, "An initial review of the complaint shows that it is replete with examples of stories that originated from widely-released press releases from publicists. ... It is not copyright infringement to report these stories, even if on occasion Deadline.com posts them first." THR appeared to acknowledge that computer code for a feature on its website appeared to be copied from another website owned by PMC but, it insisted, it was coded "by a third -party vendor."

15/09/2011