TVEyes Loses Copyright Infringement Case

In the US, media monitoring firm TVEyes has lost its appeal in a copyright infringement legal action brought by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News. The action had claimed that TVEyes had copied and redistributed Fox's copyrighted content without the broadcaster's permission.

Connecticut firm TVEyes continuously records content from around 1,400 US TV channels and imports it into a text-searchable database which can be accessed by clients to find out when and how often particular words or phrases have been used in broadcasts. Users can instantly find, watch and share ten-minute clips relating to their searches; track how many times a particular product was mentioned during a specific time frame; and determine whether the context was positive or negative.

Through the legal action, Fox queried TVEyes' content redistribution practices, which it said provided clients with access to copyrighted material without Fox's permission. In its defence, TVEyes claimed that its practices constituted 'fair use' - which according to The Copyright Act, includes 'for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research'. Initially the district judge agreed with TVEyes that viewing of this sort constituted a fair use, however, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has since found that TVEyes failed to demonstrate 'fair use' and has directed the District Court to issue an injunction prohibiting the company from offering Fox News' audio-visual content - whether by viewing, downloading, sharing or archiving.

As part of the ruling, TVEyes' clients will no longer be able to watch the clips, but the firm will be able to continue compiling its broadcast database. The appeals court concluded: 'TVEyes' redistribution of Fox's audio-visual content enables TVEyes's clients to isolate from the vast corpus of Fox's content the material that is responsive to their interests, and to access that material in a convenient manner. But because that redistribution makes available virtually all of Fox's copyrighted audio-visual content - including all of the Fox content that TVEyes's clients wish to see and hear - and because it deprives Fox of revenue that properly belongs to the copyright holder, TVEyes has failed to show that the product it offers to its clients can be justified as a fair use'.

Web sites: www.tveyes.com and www.foxnews.com .