Judge inclined to rule in favor of News-Press

BY CRAIG SMITH
DAILY SOUND CORRESPONDENT

The Santa Barbara News-Press got an indication yesterday that it may prevail, at least partially, in its lawsuit against the Santa Barbara Independent over allegations of copyright infringement.
The lawsuit was brought in federal court and arises out of an article written in July of 2006 by former News-Press reporter Scott Hadley, describing what occurred in the paper’s newsroom the day executive editor Jerry Roberts and several other top editors resigned.

Although the News-Press decided not to run the article, the Independent, who had somehow obtained a copy of it in draft form, posted the story in its entirety on its Web site and linked to it in a story written by Independent Executive Editor Nick .
The Independent took the article down when the News-Press demanded that they do so, but Ampersand Publishing, Wendy McCaw’s parent company, which owns the Santa Barbara News-Press, sued the Independent in federal court for posting the article, according to attorneys for the Independent
Both sides appeared in federal court yesterday to argue motions seeking summary adjudication of some of the issues on the case.
In a tentative ruling announced from the bench, Federal District Court Judge Edward Rafeedie indicated that he was inclined to rule that the Independent had indeed infringed Ampersand’s copyright on the Hadley article and that the doctrine of “fair use,” which provides that limited portions of a copyrighted work can be reproduced for purposes of education, criticism or news reporting, would not provide a defense for the Independent.
As to the other allegations in Ampersand’s complaint against the Independent for violation of California’s trade secrets act, unfair competition and interference with prospective economic advantage and contract, the judge indicated that he thought that those claims were preempted or displaced by copyright law and that the copyright infringement claim was Ampersand’s only viable claim against the Independent.
Although the judge indicated that Ampersand had a “technical” claim on the issue of copyright infringement he exhibited quite a bit of skepticism as to whether the News-Press had been damaged monetarily.
When he asked Ampersand’s lawyer Stanton Stein what he hoped to accomplish with the litigation against the Independent Stein replied, “My main objective is to punish them.”
Louis Petrich, an attorney for the Independent, countered that “they brought this litigation to silence a newspaper.”
At the conclusion of the hearing, the judge stated that he would ponder the matter further before issuing a final ruling.
Outside of the hearing following court, Stein stated that while he was glad the judge was leaning the way he was on the copyright infringement claim he was disappointed that the judge was not able to see the case in the larger context.