Having just filed its Reply and Counterclaim in the suit instituted against Yahoo in the High Court of Singapore, SPH has accused Yahoo of reproducing content to drive traffic, to further its own interests rather than acting in the public interest as the internet giant had claimed.
In a public statement, SPH asserted that “Yahoo’s actions were tantamount to an improper misappropriation of and ‘free-riding’ on the skill, labour and effort of SPH’s authors and of SPH’s significant investments in assembling an independent news gathering and journalistic team.”
SPH’s statement went on to say that “these acts of infringement were committed by Yahoo to direct and maximise traffic to its website in order to drive up its page views and advertising revenue. This was not done for the public interest, as claimed by Yahoo!, but instead in furtherance of its own vested financial interest.”
Samuel Seow, managing director of Samuel Seow Law Corporation, said that this is part of the ongoing conflict between new media, which tends to be free, and old media which is paid for.
"Copyright laws haven't yet caught up with media innovation," he said. "News moves so fast these days that everybody's 'borrowing' from everyone else, in fact Yahoo are counter-claiming that SPH also infringed their copyright," said Seow. 'But it's understandable that SPH would want to protect its subscription revenues (rather than see its content free elsewhere). From what I've seen, SPH does have a case here."
Seow added that it would be interesting to see whether Yahoo could argue fair dealing, under the free trade agreement between Singapore with the USA. "But as it directly impacts SPH's subscription revenues that's probably unlikely."
The suit was originally filed on 18 November 2011, in which SPH claimed that Yahoo Southeast Asia had reproduced, without permission, a number of articles from sources including The Straits Times over a two-month period.
13 December 2011 saw a counter-suit from Yahoo, as well as a denial of copyright infringement. Describing the articles in question as “insubstantial and insignificant” Yahoo said it had been acting in the public interest. “There is an important public interest in respect of the right of the public to be informed of current events in Singapore. Copyright law does not protect facts and information.”
In the Reply and Defence to Counterclaim, SPH has asserted that Yahoo’s “substantial reproductions ‘extended beyond the reproduction of mere facts and information’ but instead involved the reproduction of, amongst other things, ‘identical paragraphs, sentences, phrases and/or words’ of SPH's articles and the paraphrasing of sentences, phrases and/or words in SPH’s articles by merely replacing them with synonyms.
In 2010, Yahoo had sought, unsuccessfully, to obtain a licence from SPH for the reproduction of its articles. Yahoo were unavailable for comment on SPH's statement.
