The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-12-24

rating defendants news, because not shown to be guilty of sanctioning this practice
 "As to securing tips from a com peting news agency. the district court GAO Fed Rep. 995l, while not sanction ing the practice, found that both par ties had adopted it in accordance with common business usage. in the belief that their conduct was technically law full, and hence did not find in it any sufficient ground for attributing un- clean hands to complainant The cir cult court of appeals GAS Fed. Rep. 247) found that the tip habit, though discouraged by complainant, was in curably Journalistic, and that there was no difficulty in discriminating between the utilization of tips and the bodily application of another's labor in accommodating and starting fpfor- nation
 MAY DRAW DISTINCTION
 We are inclined to think a distinc- tion may be drawn between the utiliza- tion of tips and the bodily application Of news matter, either in it's original form or after rewriting and without in- dependent investigation and verificatfon; whatever may appear at the final hear ing, tho proofs as they now stand recog- nize such distinction; both parties avowedly recognize the practice of talk ing tips, and neither party alleges it to be unlawful or to amountto unfair com petition in business. In a line of Eng fish cases a somewhat analogous prac- tice has been held not to amount to an infringement of the copyright of a direc- tory or other book containing compiled information In Kelly vs. Morris, L. R. 1, Eq 697 701, 7a2, Vice Chancellor Sir William Page Wood (afterwards Lord Hatherly), dealing with such case, said that defendant was not entitled to take one word of the information pre-i viously published without independently working out the matter for himself, so as to arrive at the same result from the same common source of information, and the only use that he can legitimately make of previous publication is to veri- fly his own calculations and results when obtained This was followed by Vice Chancellor Giffard in Morris vs. Ash bee, L. R. ', Eq. 33, where he said: Tn case such as this no one has a right to take the results of the labor and ex- pense incurred by another for the pur- pose of rival publication, and thereby save himself the expense and labor or working out and arriving at these results by some independent road similar view was adopted by Id. Chancellor Hatherly and the former vice chancellor, then Giffard, L. J., in Pike vs Nichols, L. R. 5, Oh. App. Gas. 251, and shortly afterwards by the latter judge in Morris vs Wright, l.. R. 5, Ch App. Cas- 21s, 2S7, where he said, commenting upon Pike vs Nicholas: Tt is a perfectly legi- innate course for the defendant to refer to the plaintiffs book, and if, taking that Book as his guide, he went to the original authorities and compiled his book from them, he made no unfair or improper use of the plaintiffs book; and so here, if the fact that MT. Wright used the plaintiffs book in order to guide himself in the persons on whom 1t would be worth his while to call, and for no other purpose he made a per- fectly legitimate use of the plaintiffs book A like distinction was recog- nized by the circuit court of appeals for the second circuit in Edward Thompson company vs. American Law Book com ~pany, 122 Fed Rep. 922 and in West Pulp fishing company vs. Edward w. Thomp- son company TIC Fed. Rep. S33, 838
 "In the case before us, in the present state of the pleadings and proofs, we need go no further than to hold, as we do, that the admitted pursuit by com plainant of the practice of taking news items published by defendants sub scribers as tips to be investigated and, if verified the result of the investiga- tion to be sold-the practice having been followed by defendant also, and by news agencies generally-is not shown to be such as to constitute an uncon- scientious or inequitable attitude to- wards it's adversary so as to fix upon complainant the taint of unclean hands, and debar 1t on this ground from the relief to which 1t is otherwise en-