Still an Alternative Way to Protect Traditional News: Why Barclays Did Not Kill the "Hot News" Tort
![handle is hein.journals/berktech27 and id is 973 raw text is: STILL AN ALTERNATIVE WAY To PROTECT
TRADITIONAL NEWS: WHY BARcLAYsDID NOT
KILL THE HOT NEWS TORT
Luis Zambranot
The news industry is in trouble. Among other setbacks, advertisement
revenues and print circulation for American newspapers have fallen
precipitously, leading to significant staff layoffs and, some contend, to a
reduction in the quality of the news product.' Although one argument is that
this is a result of the economic recession, Judge Richard Posner blames the
newspaper industry's continual financial troubles on the permanent shift in
consumer behavior from the paid to the free medium.2 He notes that
[n]ews, as well as other information found in newspapers, is available online
for nothing, including at the websites of the newspapers themselves, who
thus are giving away content.,3 Hence, consumers no longer pay-or expect
to pay-for access to the day's news in print if they can access the same or
similar content online. One study found that as of January 2010, close to
sixty-one percent of Americans received their news from online sources on
an average day.4 Another study found that print newspapers' total advertising
revenue has fallen significantly every year since 2006.'
© 2012 Luis Zambrano.
j- J.D. Candidate, 2013, University of California, Berkeley School of Law.
1. See Richard Posner, The Future of Newspapers, TI ij- BRCKER-POSNER Bi.OG (July 23,
2009, 7:37 PM), http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2009/06/the-future-of-newspapes--
posner.html. For a more complete explanation of why the loss of traditional newspapers may
be detrimental to the news dissemination process as a whole, see Elaine Stoll, Note, Hot
News Misappropriation: More Than Nine Decades After INS v. AP, Still an Important Remedy for
News Piray, 79 U. CIN. L. REv. 1239 (2011). Stoll argues that the fall of the traditional
newspaper industry means a decline in original news reporting, which leads to the
disappearance of substantial information even while online content sites increase in number.
Eventually (and ironically) these online blogs, social media, and other internet sites that
provide free access to news content will themselves suffer due to a lack of original
information to propagate. Id at 1284-88.
2. Posner, supra note 1.
3. Id.
4. Kimberley Isbell, The Rise of the News Aggregator Legal Implications and Best Practices 1
(Berkman Ctr. For Internet & Soc'y, Res. Publ'n Working Paper No. 2010-10, 2010), available
at http://papers.ssm.com/sol3/papers.cfin?abstractid=1670339.
5. Advertising Expenditures (Annual), NI MwSPAPPR ASS'N OF AM., http://www.naa.org/
Trends-and-Numbers/Adverising-Expenditures/Annual-All-Categories.aspx (last updated](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/berktech27&div=32&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Still an Alternative Way to Protect Traditional News: Why Barclays Did Not Kill the "Hot News" Tort
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