The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-03-30
ASSOCIATED PRESS WINS OUT AGAINST
 THE |. N. SERVICE
Court Grants Injunction to Prevent Systematic Theft of News by Rival
 AgencyCo ComplainedOf

AS J NOAh -
 New York, March 2s s--The application of the Associated Press for a Wrlt or injunction restraining the lnternational News service from appropriating com plainant's news at any time prior to publication by complainants numbers was granted by Judge Augustus N. Hand in the federal district court today
 As to the right of the complainaht 10 an injunction, restraining defendant rom the appropriation of complainants news after publication the court states as toi- lows:
 While I am personally satisfied att CT giving the matter most deliberate ana careful consideration that the night ex- ists to prevent the sale by a competing news agency of news which is takep from early publication of complainants 8 members before a sufficient time has elapsed to afford opportunity for gem eral publication and that the existing practice amounts to unfair trade, yet the matter is one of first impression and my decision cannot be regarded sui ficiently free from doubt to Justify the granting of preliminary injunction upon this branch of the case"
 The effect of this opinion is to leave open for decision upon the final hear ing the question whether the Assoclated Press is entitled to an injunction against the appropriation by the International News service of news after its publica- tion by the members of the Associated Press.
 HISTORY OF SUIT
 On January the Associated Press, through it's general counsel, filed bill of complaint in the United States dls- trict court for the southern district or New York against the International News service, alleging that the International News service was engaged in printing the news of the Associated Press by bribing employees of Associated Press newspapers to give them the news or the Associated Press before publications and also by taking from Associated Press as fast as their various edl- tions appeared Associated Press dis patches and sending them out as their own.
 Affidavits in support of the bill of complaint were filed. showing that in the office of the Evening News of Cleveland, O., the telegraph editor of the News was secretly in the pay Of the International News service and was furnishing that organization with the substance of Associated Press news dis patches as soon as received and that Tn the office of the New York American of the International News service were permitted to examine As sociated Press news as fast as re- ceived.
 FOLLOWED INSTANTLY
 It was also disclosed that a number of papers receiving the service of the International News service followed al- most instantly the appearance of As sociated Press dispatches with ike tele- grams ocedited to the International News Service, 4sometimes teXtually repeating them and sometimes rephrasing them.
 The action was not brought under any copyrighted law, but upon the principle of unfair competition and the common law property rights in news was in- voked. The case came on for argument upon a motion to show cause why an injunction should not issue. Thereafter affidavits seeking to deny the practices were filed by the defendant and still later affidavits in rebuttal were presented by the Associated Press. The case was submitted to the court on Jan uary 30
 The case has aroused widespread in terest both in newspaper circles and in the legal profession
 The brief of the Associated Press holds that:
 ''It is entirely immateral whether the defendant gets our news by stealing 1t, by bribing employees in confidential re- lation, by inducing breaches of con- tract by our members Gall of which are acts in and of themselves subject to in- junction on independent grounds) or by voluntary revelation from our em- ployes, or by taking it from our bull letins and early editions-so long as the use it makes of the news, however acquired is to compete unfairly with us. to obtain the fruits of our labor and expenditure free of cost, and de- prive us thereof, and so threaten the very existence of the whole business organization of news collection throughout the world.
 "It is perfectly consistent with fair ness and equity and the business exist ence of the news collecting agencies that any one should copy news from any published newspaper bulletin board and use it any way in which the public ordinarily uses information. In other words, copying news is not un- lawful in and of itself, and the defend- ant therefore argues lidl IL iS not ul- lawful even when done syStema tically as method of business competition and as a means of getting the advant age of complainant's labor and eX- penditure without any payment there for, beyond the one cent which the newspaper costs, or, if 1t is case of copying from a bulletin board, entirely free of expense"
 Judge Hand acquits the Associated Press in definite terms of appealing to court of equity with "unclean hands !" It had been charged by the defendant that the Associated Press had been gull