Tveyes
Tveyes
Tveyes
HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL
- against -
TVEYES, INC.,
Defendant.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
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TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
Page
Cases
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Eldred v. Ashcroft,
537 U.S. 186 (2003) ................................................................................................ 39
Eyal R.D. Corp. v. Jewelex New York Ltd.,
784 F. Supp. 2d 441 (S.D.N.Y. 2011) ............................................................... 66, 67
Feist Publ'ns, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co.,
499 U.S. 340 (1991) ......................................................................................... 39, ,53
Fin. Info., Inc. v. Moody's Investors Serv., Inc.,
808 F.2d 204 (2d Cir. 1986) .............................................................................. 60, 65
Fred Wehrenberg Circuit of Theatres, Inc. v. Moviefone, Inc.,
73 F. Supp. 2d 1044 (E.D. Mo. 1999) ..................................................................... 26
Fun-Damental Too, Ltd. v. Gemmy Indus. Corp.,
111 F.3d 993 (2d Cir. 1997) .................................................................................... 68
Harlen Assocs. v. Vill. of Mineola,
273 F.3d 494 (2d Cir. 2001) .................................................................................... 24
Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enters.,
471 U.S. 539 (1985) ............................................................................................ 5, 28
Hollander v. Steinberg,
419 F. App'x. 44 (2d Cir. 2011) .............................................................................. 25
International News Service v. Associated Press,
248 U.S. 215 (1918) .......................................................................................... 50, 60
Jeffrey Milstein, Inc. v. Greger, Lawlor, Roth Inc.,
58 F.3d 27, 34-35 (2d Cir. 1995) ............................................................................. 67
Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp.,
336 F.3d 811 (9th Cir. 2002) .................................................................................. 30
Leibovitz v. Paramount Pictures Corp.,
137 F.3d 109 (2d Cir. 1998) .................................................................................... 31
Maxtone-Graham v. Burtchaell,
803 F.2d 1253 (2d Cir. 1986) .................................................................................. 37
Metro. Opera Ass'n, Inc. v. Wagner-Nichols Recorder Corp.,
101 N.Y.S.2d 483 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1950) .................................................................. 65
NXIVM Corp. v. Ross Inst.,
364 F.3d 471 (2d Cir. 2004) .............................................................................. 28, 29
N.Y. Times Co. v. Sullivan,
376 U.S. 254 (1964) ............................................................................................... 55
Nash v. CBS, Inc.,
704 F. Supp. 823 (N.D. Ill. 1989) ........................................................................... 66
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Statutes
26 U.S.C. § 9003(e)......................................................................................................... 7
Miscellanesous
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PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
TVEyes is a research tool that allows users to learn when and how a
technology, TVEyes captures the broadcasts of over 1,400 television and radio
stations, indexes every word spoken into a massive database, and enables users to
run searches on that database to discover: (1) the fact that a particular word was
mentioned; (2) the context of the mention; and (3) advanced metrics associated
with the mention. In delivering search results, TVEyes displays the text of the
broadcast transcript surrounding the user’s keyword and allows the user to view a
way to effectively monitor what is said on more than 27,000 hours of television
broadcasts every day without a tool like TVEyes. Clients use TVEyes to, among
other things: confirm the accuracy of the information reported on the air; ensure the
safety of American troops abroad; and criticize broadcast news itself. To serve the
diverse monitoring objectives of its clients, TVEyes must capture everything that
database.
Through this action, Fox seeks to establish its exclusive control over the news
interferes with Fox’s exclusive right to determine when, how and on what terms it
makes available to the public on its website, choosing to include some—but not all—
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particularly highly factual content, such as the programs that air on Fox News
Channel—is not an infringement when the use is for a different purpose than the
original and when the use benefits the public interest. Here, TVEyes’ media-
channels such as Fox, and to conduct research on those channels’ accuracy, biases,
and trends. Such use is quintessentially fair. See, e.g., Authors Guild, Inc. v.
HathiTrust, --- F.3d ---, 2014 WL 2576342 (2d Cir. June 10, 2014) (copying of 10
Swatch Grp. Mgmt. Servs. Ltd. v. Bloomberg L.P., --- F.3d ---, 2014 WL 2219162 (2d
Cir. May 30, 2014) (copying entirety of sound recording in furtherance of factual
accuracy, not piracy, is fair use); Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google Inc., 954 F. Supp. 2d
282 (S.D.N.Y. 2013) (Chin, J.) (copying books and providing users with snippets of
Fox’s remaining state-law claims are meritless. For example, when asked to
identify Fox’s “hot news” that TVEyes allegedly misappropriated, Fox merely points
to its entire “coverage” of world events—e.g., two full months of reporting on the
“Arab spring uprisings,” and six weeks of reporting on “the papal resignation and
election.” Fox, however, does not own all news regarding the Arab uprisings or the
papal election—two of the most widely covered stories of the year. Covering an
important story, alongside thousands of others, does not render every second of
coverage “hot news,” owned by Fox. While Fox’s state-law claims are toothless
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because they are preempted by the Copyright Act, they demonstrate the excessive
level of control Fox seeks to exert over basic facts, which cannot be owned.
The Court should: (1) recognize that TVEyes’ use is a fair, non-infringing use
under the § 107 of the Copyright Act; and (2) reject Fox’s claims of state-law
FACTUAL BACKGROUND1
locate mentions of particular words on almost every major television and radio
broadcast in the United States. (SUF ¶¶ 2-3.) Launched in 1999, TVEyes uses
proprietary technology to: (1) capture television and radio content from more than
1,400 channels, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; (2) make that content text-
searchable by keyword; and (3) allow customers to view snippets of the content in
search engine, that makes it possible for users to sift through vast amounts of
traditional search engine, however, which queries only content that already exists
on the Internet, TVEyes captures and aggregates more than 27,000 hours of
content every day, broadcast on over 1,400 television and radio stations, and quickly
¶ 13-15.) Without TVEyes (or a service like it), it would not be possible to efficiently
1 The material undisputed facts are set forth more fully in the accompanying
Statement of Undisputed Facts Pursuant to Local Rule 56.1, dated June 26, 2014
(“SUF”), and the Declarations of David Ives, David Seltzer, Jessica Rose, and Todd
Anten, dated June 26, 2014.
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search through and review the staggering amount of information broadcast every
B. TVEyes’ Clients
profits, the media and political campaigns—to facilitate their internal research and
analysis of television content. (SUF ¶¶ 4-5.) Most TVEyes subscribers pay a fee of
$500 per month for access to TVEyes’ service, although select subscribers, such as
non-profits or journalists, may receive reduced rates. (Id. ¶ 6.) TVEyes does not
business or political office), and the service is not intended for personal use. (Id.
¶ 5.) Further, it is TVEyes’ policy that subscribers are required to limit their use of
video content obtained from TVEyes solely to internal research and analysis—a
As of October 2013, TVEyes had over 2,200 subscribers. (Id. ¶ 10.) TVEyes’
customers include:
Governmental bodies,
Congressional committees,
Journalism organizations,
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Armed Services,
Non-profit organizations,
For-profit corporations,
Media organizations,
Legal organizations,
Sports organizations,
(Id. ¶¶ 10-11.)
TVEyes’ clients use the service in various ways to facilitate their research
broadcast news channels (including Fox), often by comparing and contrasting how
the major news networks cover particular news events. (Id. ¶¶10-11, 53, 59-60.)
Government officials and corporations use TVEyes to monitor the accuracy of facts
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reported by the media so they can make timely corrections when necessary (Id.
¶¶10, 54, 57.) Political campaigns use TVEyes to monitor political advertising and
appearances of candidates in election years. (Id. ¶¶ 10-11, 51.) Financial firms use
TVEyes to track and archive public statements made about securities by their
employees for regulatory compliance. (Id. ¶¶ 10-11, 48.) The White House uses
TVEyes to evaluate news stories and give feedback to the press corps, including Fox
News. (Id. ¶¶ 10-11, 56.) Without TVEyes or a service akin to it, there would be no
way to effectively accomplish these objectives.
C. TVEyes’ Features2
TVEyes functions much like a search engine for television content. (SUF
“crawl” the Internet. This is because the vast majority of television content is not
posted to the Internet. Rather, TVEyes captures and indexes the actual broadcasts
of more than 1,400 television and radio stations, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, as
they are aired, and creates a comprehensive database of everything that was
broadcast content that would otherwise not exist, and making it searchable to
transcript “indexes” for every word spoken on a particular television station.3 (Id.
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¶ 16.) When a user searches for a particular keyword, she will receive a list of
results that include: (1) a snippet of the transcript in which the keyword was used;
and (2) the ability to watch a short clip of the television broadcast in which the word
was used, beginning 14 seconds before the keyword was said. (Id. ¶¶ 17-18.) This
few seconds before the keyword is uttered helps to ensure that TVEyes provides a
targeted result that is closely tailored to the user’s research needs. (Id.)
Content captured by TVEyes is searchable for up to 32 days from the date it
was first broadcast. (Id. ¶ 19.) All videos, other than those specifically archived by
users,4 are deleted from TVEyes servers 32 days after the broadcast was captured.
(Id.) As a result, TVEyes cannot be used to search or access content that is more
system. (Id. ¶ 20.) Upon logging into the TVEyes website, hosted at
Page”) of TVEyes’ Media Monitoring Suite (“MMS”). (Id. ¶ 21.) From the Watchlist
Page, clients can select the words or phrases that they wish to monitor on an
ongoing basis (“Watch Terms”), without ever having to conduct another manual
search for that word. (Id.) There is no limit to the number of Watch Terms that can
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TVEyes. This page gives the user an easy-to-understand metric of the overall
frequency of the appearance of a particular Watch Term by date. (Id. ¶ 24.) In this
example, “Starbucks” was mentioned in 264 unique instances across all media
(television and radio) on June 19, 2014. TVEyes also offers more advanced search
functionality (under “Add Advanced Terms”), which allows the user to add more
complex Watch Terms. (Id. ¶ 25.) MMS also allows users to: (1) run an instant
“Google News” search for the Watch Term, allowing users to compare mentions of
the Watch Term on the Internet with mentions of the Watch Term on television; (2)
edit the Watch Term; (3) view Media Stats for the Watch Term; (4) set up an Email
Alert for the Watch Term; or (5) delete the Watch Term. (Id. ¶ 26.)
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The “Media Stats” function organizes data associated with each Watch Term.
representation of the number of times a Watch Term has been mentioned over a
given time period—month, day, week, or custom range. (Id.) In addition, users can
compare the relative frequency of mentions of multiple Watch Terms. Rolling over
any point in the graph provides the precise number of mentions. Figure 2 below
allowing the user to compare and contrast coverage of these two Watch Terms:
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market share for the Watch Term, visually communicating the geographic location
(Id.)
When the user clicks “Broadcast Network,” TVEyes generates a pie chart
depicting the breakdown of broadcast stations on which the Watch Term was used,
as in Figure 4 below:
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The “Email Alert” function sends an email to the user from the email address
Email Alert received by the user contains a thumbnail image from the relevant
portion of the broadcast and a link to a short video clip of the use on TVEyes. (Id.)
Watch Term was mentioned. The Email Alert feature is the fastest way to learn
that a Watch Term has been mentioned on the air. (Id. ¶ 29.)
The Watchlist Page (see Figure 1), includes hyperlinked numbers under the
“Mentions for Date” banner. (Id. ¶ 30.) When a user clicks a number, she is
brought to a results page (the “Results List Page”), where each mention of the
Watch Term on that date is organized in reverse chronological order, with the
Watch Term highlighted in a snippet of transcript text. (Id.) For example, if a user
clicks “264” for the Watch Term “Starbucks” on June 19, 2014, she encounters a
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If the user clicks “Show Map” in the upper right on the Results List Page, a
map is displayed presenting where the mention occurred and the relative number of
mentions (by the size of the circle). (Id. ¶ 31.) Figure 6 below, for example, shows
that on June 19, 2014, the greatest number of mentions for “Starbucks” occurred in
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Watch Term highlighted). (Id. ¶ 32.) The clip begins 14 seconds before the Watch
Term mention to provide the user with sufficient context while still closely tailoring
the result to the user’s research needs. (Id.) Figure 7 below provides an example:
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can also access a wealth of information about the video excerpt, including: (1) the
title of the program; (2) the precise date and time of the clip; (3) the transcript of the
video, drawn from the closed caption feed for the content; (4) the name and location
(6) the publicity value for the clip (Id.) In addition, the
user can save the clip; edit and download a shorter version of the clip and email the
clip or its transcript to others. (Id.) All of this is subject to the contractual
limitation that the video snippet is to be used for the client’s internal purposes only.
(Id. ¶¶ 7-9.)
On the Results List Page (see Figure 5), there is a small icon of a television
above each entry—this is a feature called “Media View” (the “Media View Page”).
(Id. ¶ 32.) When the user clicks the television icon instead of the thumbnail, the
user is presented with a more advanced presentation. (Id.) Upon clicking the icon,
the user is presented with a screen similar to the one in Figure 8 below:
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The Media View Page not only presents the user with the clip (again,
beginning 14 seconds before the keyword is mentioned), but also highlights the
transcript as the text is spoken (in the example above, the words “for in libya” are
being spoken at that moment). (Id. ¶ 35.) The screen also displays: (1) the title of
the program, (2) the category of program (e.g., news); (3) the year the program
premiered; (4) the URL for that program’s website, if one exists; and (5) credits for
the program. (Id.) In the example above, because this excerpt comes from the Fox
News program America’s Newsroom, the user is provided with the URL to Fox’s
and is not collected or maintained by TVEyes. (Id.) Clicking the “Viewership” tab
presents the total viewership and ad value for the clip. (Id. ¶ 36.) Clicking the
“Editor” tab allows the user to edit and save a short clip. (Id.)
search queries through its “Power Search” tool. (Id. ¶ 37.) The results of a user’s
Power Search are displayed in a result list—with a thumbnail image and transcript
excerpt—in reverse-chronological order (similar to the Results List for Watch Term
Hits shown in Figure 5). (Id.) And, similar to the Results List for Watch Term hits,
when the user clicks a thumbnail image, the user is brought to the clip’s
TVEyes also has a “Date and Time Search” feature, which allows users to
play a video clip starting at a specific time on a specific television station, rather
than entering a search term. (Id. ¶ 39.) This tool is useful because sometimes
5 The Media View Page may provide the URL for the homepage for that program,
but it does not include a link to a particular clip on the Internet. It is not possible to
direct the user to a particular clip on the Internet because: (1) each user’s clip is
unique, starting about 14 seconds before the selected keyword; and (2) the vast
majority of broadcast content is not available on the Internet.
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sometimes the case with commercials, or where there is an error with the closed-
caption capture). (Id.) In such circumstances, Date and Time Search provides an
particular moment.
way, TVEyes precisely tailors the clip to the user’s research objective and thus
maximizes research efficiency. (Id.) Moreover, the clips generated by TVEyes are
responsive solely to the user’s queries, and do not correlate to the beginning, end, or
any particular broadcast. (Id. ¶ 40.) TVEyes does not identity the “top” stories of
the day, nor does it distinguish between important versus unimportant news, as
The subjects of searches on TVEyes vary widely. The average TVEyes user
Watch Terms. (Id. ¶ 62.) For example, on January 13, 2014, among the ten most
“national guard,” “Department of Health,” and “Special Olympics,” and each was
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In a typical month, less than of users’ Watch Term hits result in a user
playing the corresponding video clip. (Id. ¶ 65.) In other words, the overwhelming
majority of TVEyes’ service is used to discover the mere fact that a particular Watch
Term was mentioned on the air, rather than to view a clip associated with that
TVEyes are discovered via the “Watch Terms” or “Power Search” functions. (Id.
¶ 66.) Less than of the plays originate with the “Date and Time Search”
TVEyes’ users play the video clips they access for an average of
video clips played on TVEyes are three minutes or shorter in length; are two
minutes or shorter; and are one minute or shorter. (Id. ¶ 69.) While the
maximum length that any particular clip can be played is ten minutes, less than
User play statistics for Fox News Channel (“FNC”) and Fox Business
Network (“FBN”) are similar to the aggregate: Users play FNC clips for an average
of seconds and FBN clips for an average of seconds. (Id. ¶ 71.) For FNC,
of video clips are played for three minutes or less; are played for two minutes
less; and are played for one minute or less. (Id.) For FBN, of clips are
played for three minutes or less; are played for two minutes or less; and
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scratch a library of television broadcast content that does not otherwise exist, and
TVEyes enables clients to discover, track and utilize what was said on television for
Without TVEyes (or a service like it), there is no other way to sift through more
which is not available online or anywhere else—to track and discover information.
(Id. ¶ 46.)
The various ways that TVEyes’ clients use the system to conduct research
For example:
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Fox owns and operates FNC and FBN, which are national cable channels.
(Id. ¶¶ 1, 91.) Fox content is broadcast on FNC and FBN, each of which telecasts
(Id. ¶ 92.)
(Id. ¶ 94.)8
1. Fox’s Websites
Fox operates the websites associated with FNC and FBN, located at
the “Fox Website”). (Id. ¶ 98). Fox makes some, but not all, of the content
previously broadcast on FNC and FBN available for viewing on the Fox Website.
(Id. ¶ 101). Fox alone controls what content previously broadcast on FNC and FBN,
if any, will be made available to the public via the Fox Website, and when, if ever, to
make such content available. (Id. ¶¶ 99, 101). Further, Fox can—and does—
7 At a Court conference on April 7, 2014, TVEyes noted it did not yet have the
opportunity to take a 30(b)(6) deposition of Fox. Thus, TVEyes has not had the
opportunity to ask Fox about its documents, licensing activities, revenues, websites,
purported markets, or any other topic; in contrast, Fox took a 30(b)(6) deposition of
TVEyes. The Court ruled that, at that time, a 30(b)(6) deposition of Fox was not
necessary; however, the Court noted that if a party believed that discovery was cut
off too soon, it could bring that to the Court’s attention. TVEyes respectfully
reserves that right, to the extent that Fox relies upon any evidence in its opposition
to this motion about which TVEyes did not have an opportunity to depose Fox.
8 In discovery, Fox refused to produce certain documents relating to Fox’s
revenues. For example, Fox refused to produce: (1) total annual revenues for Fox,
FNC, and FBN; (2) information demonstrating the methods by which revenues were
generated for its websites or any other authorized websites; and (3) actual or
potential revenues purportedly lost by Fox as a result of TVEyes’ service. (SUF
¶ 95.) To the extent such information could have any bearing on the Court’s
analysis, TVEyes respectfully seeks the opportunity to review the documents
requested and to depose Fox about their contents.
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restrict or disable access to content on the Fox Website, and may do so at any time,
for any reason. (Id. ¶ 99.) In addition, the video content that Fox chooses to make
available on the Fox Website is materially different from what is broadcast on FNC
and FBN. (Id. ¶¶ 111-113). For example, video clips accessible on the Fox Website
do not contain a ticker graphic. (Id. ¶¶ 111-112.) However, on the original FBN
broadcast there is a graphic that displays: (1) the time of the broadcast; (2) the
station logo; (3) information about financial markets, including the Dow Jones
Industrial Average and stock prices; and (4) a running ticker of financial news. (Id.
¶ 112.) On the original FNC broadcast, there is a graphic that displays: (1) the
station logo; and (2) a running ticker of the latest news. (Id. ¶ 112.) In addition,
Fox broadcast content is sometimes “corrected” on the Fox Website, and the original
“as aired” version is not available on the Fox Website. (Id. ¶ 106).
In addition, Fox restricts how the public may use the content available on the
Fox Website through its Terms of Use. (Id. ¶ 114). Pursuant to these Terms,
visitors to the Fox Website may access video content for “personal use only and
[the content] may not be used for commercial purposes.” (Id. (emphasis added))
The Terms of Use for the Fox Website also prohibit users from downloading content
placed before video clips and from the placement of Fox-owned content on the
Yahoo!, Hulu.com and YouTube websites. There is no evidence, however, that any
revenue earned by Fox from advertising on the Fox Website or the placement of
the display of the 19 Works-in-Suit on these sites, or that anyone who ever viewed
such content on TVEyes would otherwise go to the Fox Website, Yahoo!, Hulu, or
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Both directly and through its exclusive licensee ITN Source, Inc., Fox licenses
content previously aired on FNC and FBN to third parties for use in connection
with the production of television shows, movies, advertisements, video games, film
festivals, e-books and other projects through which the Fox-owned work will be
publicly performed and/or displayed. (Id. ¶ 115.) There is no evidence that any of
this revenue is attributable to licenses issued for use of (1) the Works-in-Suit; or (2)
Fox does not offer media-monitoring services. (Id. ¶¶ 93, 125). It does not
capture and index the complete broadcasts of over 1,400 television and radio
channels worldwide, exactly as they aired, to create complete and accurate database
of content that is text-searchable by keyword. (Id.) Fox does not provide a web-
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based software platform for monitoring and accessing snippets of previously aired
content for internal use. (Id.) Fox does not provide data about the frequency of the
keyword, the geographic location of where it was mentioned, or other data analytics
tools. Fox does not offer an e-mail alert-service that sends notification moments
after a keyword of interest is mentioned on the air. (Id. ¶¶ 93, 102, 125.) Fox does
not even provide access on the Fox Website to all the content aired on FBN or FNC,
nor does it permit the public to use the content it does post for commercial business
purposes. (Id. ¶ 101.)
G. The Works-in-Suit
Fox claims that TVEyes has infringed its rights under federal copyright law
¶ 72.)9 All of the Works-in Suit, which were initially broadcast on FNC between
October 16, 2012 and July 3, 2013, are highly factual news programs, many
containing live interviews and video footage owned by other networks. (Id. ¶¶ 72-
73.)
Because TVEyes allows users to search for and view content only within 32
days of the initial broadcast, none of the Works-in-Suit are now available on
TVEyes, and they have not been for many months. (Id. ¶ 76). Over the entirety of
the 32 days that each Work-in-Suit was available for searching, there were a total of
560 plays for clips sourcing from the Works-in-Suit. (Id. ¶ 77). As a basis for
comparison, in an average month, there are about plays for video clips on
TVEyes. (Id. ¶ 78). The video plays resulting from users accessing the Works-in-
9 The 19 Works-in-Suit consist of: two episodes of On the Record with Greta Van
Sustren; three episodes of Special Report with Bret Baier; three episodes of The
Five; four episodes of The O’Reilly Factor; two episodes of The Fox Report with
Shepard Smith; four episodes of Hannity; and one episode of Special Report
Investigates: Death & Deceit in Benghazi. (SUF ¶ 72.)
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plays in the month the Works-in-Suit were available on TVEyes. (Id. ¶ 79).
The average length of the clips played from the Works-In-Suit by TVEyes
users was 53.4 seconds, with the full range spanning from 11.5 seconds to 362
Further, 85.5% of all of the clips viewed from the Works-in-Suit were less than one
minute long, and 76% were less than 30 seconds long; and 51% were less than 10
seconds long. (Id. ¶ 81). One of the Works-in-Suit was never played by any TVEyes
It is not disputed that Fox received fees from cable companies to air FNC
programming, which includes the Works-in-Suit, or that Fox received revenue from
However, there is no evidence that Fox has ever earned any revenue from directly
licensing any of the 19 Works-in-Suit to any party for any purpose after the Works-
in-Suit aired on FNC. For example, there is no evidence that anyone has ever asked
ITN Source for a license of any sort—let alone one for internal review and
ARGUMENT
I. LEGAL STANDARD
fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P.
56(a). The Court must “resolve all ambiguities, and credit all factual inferences
that could rationally be drawn, in favor of the party opposing summary judgment.”
Roe v. City of Waterbury, 542 F.3d 31, 35 (2d Cir. 2008) (citations omitted).
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of the motion.” Harlen Assocs. v. Vill. of Mineola, 273 F.3d 494, 499 (2d Cir. 2001).
Nov. 1, 2013) (Hellerstein, J.) (citing Scotto v. Almenas, 143 F.3d 105, 114 (2d Cir.
will be insufficient; there must be evidence on which the jury could reasonably find
for the plaintiff.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 252 (1986).
TVEyes’ copyright fair use defense “is a mixed question of law and fact.”
Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enters., 471 U.S. 539, 560 (1985).
However, “the court may resolve issues of fair use at the summary judgment stage
where there are no genuine issues of material fact.” Bill Graham Archives v.
Dorling Kindersley Ltd., 448 F.3d 605, 608 (2d Cir. 2006) (citing Wright v. Warner
Books, Inc., 953 F.2d 731, 735 (2d Cir. 1991)). Thus, courts in this district have “on
stage.” Cariou v. Prince, 714 F.3d 694, 704 (2d Cir. 2013) (quoting Blanch v. Koons,
467 F.3d 244, 250 (2d Cir. 2006)). See, e.g., Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust
(“HathiTrust”), --- F.3d ---, 2014 WL 2576342 (2d Cir. June 10, 2014) (affirming
Swatch Grp. Mgmt. Servs. Ltd. v. Bloomberg L.P. (“Swatch”), --- F.3d ---, 2014 WL
2219162 (2d Cir. May 30, 2014) (same); Cariou, 714 F.3d 694 (same); Hollander v.
Steinberg, 419 F. App’x. 44 (2d Cir. 2011) (summary order) (same); Blanch, 467 F.3d
244 (same); Bill Graham, 448 F.3d 605 (same); Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google Inc.
(“Google Books”), 954 F. Supp. 2d 282 (S.D.N.Y. 2013) (Chin, J.) (same).
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copyright law preempts a state law claim is a question of law.” U.S. ex rel. Berge v.
Bd. of Trs. of Univ. of Ala., 104 F.3d 1453, 1463 (4th Cir. 1997). Fox bears the
burden of directing the Court to evidence establishing that these claims are not
preempted. See, e.g., Fred Wehrenberg Circuit of Theatres, Inc. v. Moviefone, Inc.,
73 F. Supp. 2d 1044, 1050 (E.D. Mo. 1999) (granting defendant’s motion for
summary judgment on “hot news” claim because “plaintiff here has failed to
establish the last element of the ‘hot news’ exception to preemption”).
As explained below, the material facts here are not in dispute, and a finding
and useful Arts.” Campbell v. Acuff–Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569, 574 (1994)
(quoting U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 8). Accordingly, “our law recognizes that
copyright is ‘not an inevitable, divine, or natural right that confers on authors the
and progress in the arts for the intellectual enrichment of the public.’” HathiTrust,
2014 WL 2576342, at *4 (quoting Pierre N. Leval, Toward a Fair Use Standard, 103
HARV. L. REV. 1105, 1107 (1990)).
One “important limit[] to an author’s rights to control original and derivative
works … is the doctrine of ‘fair use.’” Id. at *5. Indeed, “[f]rom the infancy of
copyright protection, some opportunity for fair use of copyrighted materials has
been thought necessary to fulfill copyright’s very purpose.” Campbell, 510 U.S. at
575. Though of common-law origin, the fair use doctrine was codified into the
Copyright Act in 1976 at § 107. “Congress meant § 107 to restate the present
judicial doctrine of fair use, not to change, narrow, or enlarge it in any way and
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intended that courts continue the common-law tradition of fair use adjudication.”
Id. at 577 (quotations omitted). Thus, § 107 “permits and requires courts to avoid
rigid application of the copyright statute, when, on occasion, it would stifle the very
creativity which that law is designed to foster.” Castle Rock Entm’t, Inc. v. Carol
Pub. Group, Inc., 150 F.3d 132, 141 (2d Cir. 1998) (quoting Campbell, 510 U.S. at
577).
Title 17, United States Code, Section 107 states in relevant part:
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for
or value of the copyrighted work.
Determining whether a particular use is fair “is not to be simplified with
bright-line rules, for the statute, like the doctrine it recognizes, calls for case-by-
case analysis.” Campbell, 510 U.S. at 577. Thus, a court is to “engage in ‘an open-
Blanch, 467 F.3d at 251). The examples of fair use provided in the preamble of
§ 107 “are ‘illustrative and not limitative’ and ‘provide only general guidance about
the sorts of copying that courts and Congress most commonly had found to be fair
uses.’” Castle Rock Entm’t, 150 F.3d at 141 (quoting Campbell, 510 U.S. at 577-78).
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To this end, the four fair-use factors “are non-exclusive.” Swatch, 2014 WL
2219162, at *5. In addition, a defendant “need not establish that each of the factors
set forth in § 107 weighs in [its] favor.” NXIVM Corp. v. Ross Inst., 364 F.3d 471,
476-77 (2d Cir. 2004) (internal citation omitted). This is because “[t]he factors do
not represent a score card that promises victory to the winner of the majority.
Rather, they direct courts to examine the issue from every pertinent corner and to
ask in each case whether, and how powerfully, a finding of fair use would serve or
disserve the objectives of copyright.” Leval, supra, at 1110-11. Thus, the statutory
factors “guide but do not control” fair use analysis, Castle Rock Entm’t, 150 F.3d at
141, and “are to be explored, and the results weighed together, in light of the
purposes of copyright,” Campbell, 510 U.S. at 578. “The ultimate test of fair use is
whether the copyright law’s goal of promoting the Progress of Science and useful
Arts would be better served by allowing the use than by preventing it.” Bill
tasked with determining “whether a particular use is fair.” Harper & Row, 471
U.S. at 549 (emphasis added); see also Swatch, 2014 WL 2219162, at *5 (same).
Thus, in assessing whether TVEyes engaged in fair use, the Court is required to
broadcasts is fair.
The first fair-use factor considers “the purpose and character of the use,
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favors the defendant if the allegedly infringing work fits the description of uses
described in [the preamble] of] § 107,” such as research, criticism, comment, and
news reporting. NXIVM, 364 F.3d at 477 (quotations omitted). TVEyes is designed
to assist users in discovering not only the fact that a particular keyword was used
on a broadcast, but also how it was used, and how that use compares with uses of
other words. (SUF ¶¶ 4, 26-27, 32, 64); see Google Books, 954 F. Supp. 2d at 287
(describing similar system as “an essential research tool” that, in particular, allows
users “to analyze massive amounts of data”). Further, TVEyes informs its uses that
it is to be used for research and analysis only. (Id. ¶¶ 7-9). Because TVEyes fits
comfortably within the illustrative guide of fair uses, factor one presumptively
favors TVEyes.
Even apart from this “strong presumption,” the first factor strongly favors
TVEyes because: (1) the use is highly transformative; (2) TVEyes’ use serves
important public interests; (3) any commerciality is of minimal relevance; and (4)
“An important focus of the first factor is whether the use is ‘transformative.’”
HathiTrust, 2014 WL 2576342, at *6. This inquiry evaluates whether the use “adds
something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with
new expression, meaning, or message.” Campbell, 510 U.S. at 579. Further, “the
more transformative the new work, the less will be the significance of other factors,
like commercialism, that may weigh against a finding of fair use.” Id.
Crucially, “[t]he use of a copyrighted work need not alter or augment the
562 F.3d 630, 639 (4th Cir. 2009). Rather, a use “can be transformative in function
or purpose without altering or actually adding to the original work.” Swatch, 2014
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Second Circuit has held, for example, that “[i]n the context of news reporting and
analogous activities, … the need to convey information to the public accurately may
in some instances make it desirable and consonant with copyright law for a
Indeed, the Second Circuit recently found the copying of entire copyrighted books
2576342, at *7; see also Vanderhye, 562 F.3d at 639 (copying entire essays, without
alteration, into database for plagiarism detection transformative); Perfect 10, Inc. v.
Amazon.com, Inc., 508 F.3d 1146, 1165 (9th Cir. 2007) (copying of entire images into
database for Internet search engine results transformative); Kelly v. Arriba Soft
multiple levels.
television channels, including FNC and FBN, and transforms those feeds into a
comprehensive, text-searchable, word index that enables its users to discover when,
where, and how a particular word was mentioned on television or radio. (SUF ¶¶ 3,
indexing of books to create a text-searchable database that the Second Circuit has
In that case, a group of authors claimed that HathiTrust’s copying and digitizing of
more than ten million books to create a full-text searchable database of their
contents (the “HDL”) infringed their copyrights. Id. *1. The Second Circuit found
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message than the original broadcast. There is no evidence that Fox creates
TVEyes’ “overriding purpose here was not to ‘scoop[]’ [Fox] or ‘supplant the
2219162, at *7 (quoting Harper & Row, 471 U.S. at 562). At base, TVEyes provides
unmanageable quantity of data and discover, with appropriate context, how certain
copyrighted works at issue than did the transformative uses [the Second Circuit]
Cariou, 714 F.3d at 706; (finding transformation); Bill Graham, 448 F.3d at 609-11
(same); Blanch, 467 F.3d at 252-53 (same); Leibovitz v. Paramount Pictures Corp.,
137 F.3d 109, 114 (2d Cir. 1998) (same); see also id. at *8 (citing cases from other
circuits that support this conclusion, including Perfect 10, Arriba, and Vanderhye).
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indexes broadcasts, which are ephemeral and largely unavailable once they have
aired. (SUF ¶ 15). By contrast, words on a page are already in a form that lends
itself to searching. TVEyes thus not only collects the information (akin to
text-searchable.
to monitor, and TVEyes automatically searches for it across all of these stations,
every day, seven days a week, without the user ever having to conduct a manual
search again. (Id. ¶¶ 21, 23.) In response to this query, TVEyes returns the
keyword “hit” results from all stations in reverse chronological order, enabling users
in different areas of the country. (Id. ¶¶ 17-27). If the user so chooses, TVEyes will
also send an email alerting the user that her Watch Term has been spoken on
television, providing a link to transcript and video excerpts surrounding the Watch
Term. (Id. ¶¶ 28-29.) Such data could not be available absent a research tool such
as TVEyes, which undertakes the task of capturing all major broadcasts, digitizing
This use is highly transformative in its own right, as such tools “add[s]
something new” to the original broadcast. Campbell, 510 U.S. at 579. Judge Chin
came to a similar conclusion in Google Books, finding the Google Books service,
which “digitizes books and transforms expressive text into a comprehensive word
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index that helps readers, scholars researchers, and others find books,” to be “highly
substantive research, opening up new fields of research. By contrast, Fox does not
broadcasts, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, searchable by keyword, that alerts
users by email within moments that the keyword is mentioned. Fox offers no
service that could allow users to conduct research on a complete data set of
broadcast text, exactly as that text was stated on the air. (SUF ¶¶ 93, 100-110.)
request, TVEyes’ service is also highly transformative, as these clips are accessed
for a different purpose than the original broadcasts. As discussed above, TVEyes’
clients use the service for diverse purposes—e.g., to evaluate and criticize broadcast
national security risks for U.S. troops, to track compliance with financial market
thus are transformative uses. Monitoring television simply is not the same as
watching it. Snippets generated by TVEyes are designed to serve the former
purpose, not the latter—they are closely tailored to meet the user’s research needs;
each clip begins just 14 seconds before the keyword is mentioned. (Id. ¶ 18.) The
fact that the average length that TVEyes’ users play video excerpts is just
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demonstrates that TVEyes’ purpose is different than Fox’s and does not supersede
the original. (Id. ¶ 68.) TVEyes’ subscribers do not pay $500 per month so that
they can watch Fox programming. Finally, the clips generated by TVEyes are
when it appears in a broadcast. (Id. ¶ 40.) These snippets, much like the concert
posters in Bill Graham, are small, tailored references to past events, i.e., past
broadcasts. See, e.g., Google Books, 954 F. Supp. 2d at 291 (“[t]he display of
snippets of text for search is similar to the display of … small images of concert
TVEyes’ use is even more limited than uses in other search-engine cases
where transformation was recognized. In Perfect 10, for example, where the
defendant displayed the entirety of the copyrighted work, the court found the
context so that they are transformed into a new creation.” 508 F.3d at 1165
(quotations omitted). Here, any particular search result returns only a short
portion of the original broadcast. See William F. Patry, Patry on Fair Use (“Patry”)
§ 3.9 (“Providing access to portions of a work for research purposes will be fair use,
context of news reporting and analogous activities … the need to faithfully convey
information to the public accurately may in some instances make it desirable and
consonant with copyright law for a defendant to reproduce an original work without
alteration.” Swatch, 2014 WL 2219162, at *8. In Swatch, for example, the Court
recognized that by disseminating an actual sound recording, unaltered, “Bloomberg
was able to convey with precision not only the raw data of … words, but also the
more subtle indications of meaning inferable from their hesitation, emphasis, tone
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of voice, and aspects of their delivery.” Id. Likewise, the video excerpts provided by
transcript, such as the tone of voice, gestures and body language of the speaker, and
graphics and visual images on the screen at the time the keyword was mentioned.
Apart from transformation, the first factor weighs in favor of fair use where
the use serves important public interests. Courts consistently consider the social
benefit that a secondary use provides, apart from whether the use is transformative
or commercial. See, e.g., Perfect 10, 508 F.3d at 1166 (in addition to transformation
and commerciality, court must weigh “the extent to which [defendant’s] search
engine promotes the purposes of copyright and serves the interests of the public”);
Sega Enters. Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc., 977 F.2d 1510, 1523 (9th Cir. 1992) (court “free
to consider the public benefit resulting from a particular use”); see also Sony Corp.
of Am. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 454 (1984) (“to the extent time-
benefits”); HathiTrust, 2014 WL 2576342, at *12 (first factor favored fair use, even
interest to make appropriate accommodations for the blind and print disabled).
This is because “[t]he key issue in every case is whether the use is beneficial to
Courts have found the first factor to favor fair use—even absent
able to convey valuable factual information that would have been impaired” had it
not been permitted to disseminate the call. 2014 WL 2219162, at *9. The Second
Circuit concluded that the first factor favored fair use “regardless of how
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transformative the use is” because “Bloomberg’s faithful reproduction … served ‘the
States, Inc. v. Gen. Signal Corp., 724 F.2d 1044, 1049 (2d Cir. 1983)).
purposes of copyright and the public interest. See, e.g., Perfect 10, 508 F.3d at 1165
(“[A] search engine provides a social benefit by incorporating an original work into a
new work, namely, an electronic reference tool”); Google Books, 954 F. Supp. 2d at
digitizing, and making searchable television content in the manner described above,
TVEyes has created an original, electronic reference tool that furthers the research
and educational purposes copyright law was designed to protect. Without TVEyes—
or a service like it—it would not be possible to search all television broadcasts by
In addition, as discussed infra at Part IV.D.2, TVEyes’ service also serves the
public interest because it facilitates: (1) criticism of Fox and other news
broadcasters; and (2) access to facts when Fox is itself the subject of news.
While a court will consider whether the use “is of a commercial nature” as
part of its first-factor analysis, such considerations carry minimal weight in the
circumstances presented here. “[T]he more transformative the new work, the less
will be the significance of other factors, like commercialism, that may weigh against
a finding of fair use.” Campbell, 510 U.S. at 579. Thus, courts routinely afford the
Cariou, 714 F.3d at 708 (“Although there is no question that Prince’s artworks are
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transformative nature of the work.”); NXIVM, 364 F.3d at 478 (“Finding the work
Even if the Court disregarded the transformative nature of the uses, any
commerciality of TVEyes’ service does not weigh against fair use. The proper
inquiry is not merely whether TVEyes operates for profit, as “nearly all of the
conducted for profit.” Campbell, 510 U.S. at 584 (quotations omitted). Rather,
Geophysical Union v. Texaco Inc., 60 F.3d 913, 922 (2d Cir. 1994) (emphasis added).
Here, there is no evidence that TVEyes directly sold any of the Works-in-Suit
for profit. See Google Books, 954 F. Supp. 2d at 292 (Google Books “does not engage
flat fee of $500 a month to conduct unlimited research on all television and radio
broadcasts. Whether a user ever searches or plays for FNC or FBN content does not
affect that price. (SUF ¶ 6, 12). Because “the link between [TVEyes’] commercial
gain and its copying is … attenuated,” Am Geophysical Union, 60 F.3d at 922, such
use should not weigh against fair use. In Swatch, for example, the Second Circuit
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because “it would strain credulity to suggest that providing access to Swatch
Group’s earnings call more than trivially affected the value of that service.” 2014
WL 2219162, at *7. So too in this case: users’ access to snippets of the 19 particular
Works-in-Suit (compared to Bloomberg, which provided the entire work at issue) for
32 days could not have more than trivially affected the value of TVEyes’ service.
available).)
Finally, any economic gain by TVEyes from any use of the 19 Works-in-Suit
was not “to the exclusion of broader public benefits.” Am. Geophysical Union, 60
F.3d at 921-22. Just as the exhibition of art has “value that benefits the broader
public interest” even though “artists are sometimes paid and museums sometimes
earn money,” Blanch, 467 F.3d at 254 (quotations omitted), TVEyes provides a
research tool for discovering, locating, and learning about broadcast content for a
new and different purpose. Where a defendant’s use serves the broader public
commerciality takes on a reduced role. See Google Books, 954 F. Supp. 2d at 292
(“[E]ven assuming Google’s principal motivation is profit, the fact is that Google
10 While authorities have questioned the relevance of good or bad faith to the first
factor, see, e.g., Swatch, 2014 WL 2219162, at *7 (questioning the “role good or bad
faith plays in fair use analysis”), there is no evidence TVEyes acted in bad faith.
For example, TVEyes’ awareness that Fox did not wish for its content to be
captured is not evidence of bad faith. See Campbell, 510 U.S. at 585 n.18 (“being
denied permission to use a work does not weigh against a finding of fair use”);
Swatch, 2014 WL 2219162, at *7 (similar).
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The second fair-use factor assesses “the nature of the copyrighted work.”
§ 107(2). This factor recognizes “that some works are closer to the core of intended
copyright protection than others,” Campbell, 510 U.S. at 586. In considering this
factor, courts consider “(1) whether the work is expressive or creative, ... with a
greater leeway being allowed to a claim of fair use where the work is factual or
informational, and (2) whether the work is published or unpublished, with the scope
for fair use involving unpublished works being considerably narrower.” Cariou, 714
First, “[i]t is well established that ‘the scope of fair use is greater with respect
to factual than non-factual works.’” Swatch, 2014 WL 2219162, at *13 (quoting New
Era Publ’ns Int’l, ApS v. Carol Publ’g Grp., 904 F.2d 152, 157 (2d Cir. 1990)); see
also, e.g., Stewart v. Abend, 495 U.S. 207, 237 (1990) (“In general, fair use is more
likely to be found in factual works than in fictional works.”); Harper & Row, 471
U.S. at 563 (noting “a greater need to disseminate factual works than works of
fiction or fantasy”); Sony Corp., 464 U.S. at 455 n.40 (“Copying a news broadcast
may have a stronger claim to fair use than copying a motion picture.”). The Works-
in-Suit are all highly factual television news programs. (SUF ¶¶ 72-73). Almost
interviews, and the like—are protectable only to the extent of their placement in the
copyright over facts and news of the day. See, e.g., Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186,
219 (2003) (“Every idea, theory, and fact in a copyrighted work becomes instantly
available for public exploitation at the moment of publication”); Feist Publ’ns, Inc. v.
Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340, 348 (1991) (“[A]ll facts—scientific, historical,
biographical, and news of the day … may not be copyrighted and are part of the
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Eng’rs, 303 F.3d 460, 466-67 (2d Cir. 2002) (“[H]istorical, scientific, or factual
information belongs in the public domain, and … allowing the first publisher to
prevent others from copying such information would defeat the objectives of
copyright by impeding rather than advancing the progress of knowledge.”); see also
Taggart v. WMAQ Channel 5 Chicago, 2000 WL 1923322, at *4-5 (S.D. Ill. Oct. 30,
2000) (unscripted interview answers not protectable under copyright law). Indeed,
the Works-in-Suit themselves contain snippets from broadcasts of competing news
channels, such as CNN and MSNBC, which FNC presumably used for their factual
content, pursuant to the doctrine of fair use. (Id. ¶ 70). (listing third-party video
Second, courts also consider whether the plaintiff’s works were published at
the time of the use. Here, there is no dispute that, at the time of TVEyes’ capture
TVEyes captures only what has already been disseminated, and thus necessarily
Because the Works-in-Suit (1) are highly factual and (2) were published prior
The third factor considers “the amount and substantiality of the portion used
analysis, the Court is to assess “whether the secondary use employs more of the
copyrighted work than is necessary, and whether the copying was excessive in
relation to any valid purposes asserted under the first factor.” HathiTrust, 2014
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WL 2576342, at *6. “For some purposes, it may be necessary to copy the entire
copyrighted work, in which case Factor Three does not weigh against a finding of
fair use.” Id. at *8; see, e.g., Sony Corp., 464 U.S. at 449-50 (entire work copied);
Bill Graham, 448 F.3d at 613 (entire image copied). Here, this factor does not
copying of the entirety of millions books for the purpose of creating a text-
conclusion. See, e.g., Google Books, 954 F. Supp. 2d at 292 (copying and digitizing
digitized database to detect plagiarism did not weigh against fair use); Perfect 10,
508 F. 3d at 1165 (“The fact that Google incorporates the entire Perfect 10 image
into the search engine results does not diminish the transformative nature of
Google’s use.”); Kelly, 336 F.3d at 821 (“It was necessary for Arriba to copy the
entire image” because copying only part of the image would “reduc[e] the usefulness
TVEyes’ capture and index of the entirety of each of the 19 Works-in-Suit was
described supra, Section II. TVEyes captured each of the 19 Works-in-Suit in its
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entirety to: (1) create a comprehensive, electronic database of broadcast content; (2)
render that content full-text searchable; and (3) allow users to conduct research
regarding particular search terms, ranging from the frequency of mentions to where
they occurred to how they occurred. (SUF ¶¶ 74-75.) To provide its full-text search
function, it was necessary to copy the entirety of the Works-in-Suit; otherwise, the
database would be incomplete and have reduced utility. (Id. ¶ 75). Additionally,
L.P., 861 F. Supp. 2d 336, 342 (S.D.N.Y. 2012) (Hellerstein, J.) (public interest
That TVEyes allows users to access snippets of video does not weigh against
a finding of fair use, for multiple reasons. First, as noted above, access to the actual
video is necessary to provide to convey the full meaning and context surrounding
the keyword mention. See Swatch, 2014 WL 2219162, at *10 (“[T]he sound
Second, any snippets played were not substantial portions of the Works-in-
Suit. The average play length of the snippets associated with the Works-in-Suit
was 53.4 seconds. (SUF ¶ 80). More than 85% of the plays were shorter than 60
seconds, 76% were less than 30 seconds, and 51% were less than 10 seconds. (Id.
¶ 81). By any measure, the snippets constitute a fractional amount of the overall
Works-in-Suit. TVEyes’ provision of these snippets was thus not excessive in light
of the need to provide sufficient context about the keyword mention to serve the
user’s particular purpose. See Swatch, 2014 WL 2219162, at *13 (recognizing need
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selects the start point of the snippet 14 seconds before the term queried by the user.
(SUF ¶ 18, 82.) As a result, any snippets of the Works-in-Suit are closely and
reasonably tailored to the user’s research objectives. Further, TVEyes did not make
the entirety of any of the Works-in-Suit available to users; rather, the maximum
that could ever be played is ten minutes, and none were played for even close to that
long. (Id. ¶ 70); see Google Books, 954 F. Supp. 2d at 292 (“Significantly, Google
the most “important” portions of the broadcasts, such as the lead stories or
headlines.11 (SUF ¶ 40). TVEyes does not create headlines for snippets, favor a
“lede,” or undertake any other activity to favor certain content over other content;
thus, TVEyes cannot be considered to have taken the “heart” of any of the Works-in-
Finally, the fourth fair-use factor considers “the effect of the use upon the
potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.” § 107(4). This factor
“requires a balancing of [1] the benefit the public will derive if the use is permitted
11 In contrast, the starting point of all video clips on the Fox Website are
predetermined, beginning at the opening of a particular “story” and ending at the
close of that “story.” If, for example, a Fox Website visitor was interested only in a
word that appeared at the 8-minute mark, she would still be taken to the beginning
of that segment. To this end, the Fox Website is not reasonably tailored to
providing visitors with the ability to conduct keyword research. (SUF ¶ 103.)
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and [2] the personal gain the copyright owner will receive if the use is denied.” Bill
Crucially, this factor “is concerned with only one type of economic injury to a
copyright holder: the harm that results because the secondary use serves as a
Campbell, 510 U.S. 591). Thus, “any economic ‘harm’ caused by transformative
uses does not count because such uses, by definition, do not serve as substitutes
for the original work.” Id. (citation omitted); see also Bill Graham, 448 F.3d at 615
market, [plaintiff] does not suffer market harm due to the loss of license fees.”);
Castle Rock Entm’t, 150 F.3d at 145 (“The more transformative the secondary use,
the less likelihood that the secondary use substitutes for the original.”).
Fox cannot manufacture an injury by claiming that it has in the past, or will
in the future, seek licensing fees from media-monitoring services to use Fox content.
“[A] copyright holder cannot prevent others from entering fair use markets merely
transformative uses of its own creative work. [C]opyright owners may not preempt
Finally, it bears repeating that the Court’s analysis must be limited to the
effect of TVEyes’ use upon the potential market for or value of “the copyrighted
work,” § 107(4), i.e., the 19 Works-in-Suit. While the Court may consider whether
result in a substantially adverse impact on the potential market for the original
work,” that inquiry still focuses upon “the original work,” i.e., the Works-in-Suit.
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play, edit or download snippets of the Works-in-Suit. (SUF ¶¶ 74-75.) The record
contains no evidence that any of these features are, either actually or potentially, a
substitute for the Works-in-Suit. And because TVEyes’ use of the Works-in-Suit is
Fox cannot argue that TVEyes’ text-searchable database has any effect on the
market for or value of the Works-in-Suit, as Fox does not offer, and has no plans to
offer, a media-monitoring service such as TVEyes. (SUF ¶¶ 93, 125.) And, in any
case, “the full-text search function does not serve as a substitute for the [works] that
are being searched.” HathiTrust, 2014 WL 2576342, at *10. The remainder of this
section of the brief therefore addresses whether TVEyes users’ ability to play and
save snippets of video from search-results affects the market for the Works-in-Suit.
It does not.
Suit. This market is unaffected by TVEyes’ service, which records and indexes
evidence that Fox lost any revenue from any actual or potential cable company
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Both directly and through its exclusive licensee ITN Source, Fox licenses
footage from its programming to incorporate into new works, such as television
that are then shown to the public. (SUF ¶¶ 115, 117.) Fox also issues licenses to
third parties to publicly perform clips of Fox-owned footage on their websites. (Id.)
To date, however, neither Fox nor ITN Source has earned any revenue from directly
licensing any of the 19 Works-in-Suit to third parties for use in connection with new
works or for display on their websites. (Id. ¶ 116). Thus, there has been no market
thereof, to third parties for public performance in the future, TVEyes does not
First, the Works-in-Suit were accessible on TVEyes only for 32 days after the
initial broadcast—none of the Works have been available outside that window. (Id.
¶ 76). Thus, no future use by TVEyes could interfere with any future licensing by
undermines any argument that TVEyes’ service is a substitute for Fox’s public-
Second, TVEyes’ contract with its subscribers prohibits the use of clips for
any purpose other than internal use, including public performance, and clients are
snippet of video. (Id. ¶¶ 7-9.) Thus, while there are seven clips that remain on
TVEyes’ servers, any public performance of these seven clips would necessarily
breach their contract with TVEyes. Because any licensing activity by Fox is for the
purpose of public performance, and because TVEyes does not permit public
performance of any clips gathered, TVEyes does not usurp Fox’s potential licensing
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contract.
Third, Fox’s licensees seek to use Fox content for entirely different purposes
than TVEyes’ clients. As noted above, TVEyes’ contract and policies limit any use of
(Id. ¶ 116). This is not surprising, given that use of a clip for internal research and
analysis is fair use and does not require a license in the first place. Cf. Bill
Graham, 448 F.3d at 614 (“A copyright holder cannot prevent others from entering
Finally, Fox alleges that TVEyes substitutes for users watching Fox
programming on the Fox Websites or the websites of its licensees. The record,
however, supports the opposite conclusion, as Fox introduced no evidence that users
who played portions of the Works-in-Suit on TVEyes otherwise would have visited
the Fox Website, or any other Fox-authorized website, to independently search for
and view any clips from the Works-in-Suit. Indeed, there are multiple, material
differences between the two that establish that market substitution is absent as a
matter of law.
day, seven days a week. Once a user selects a Watch Term, TVEyes periodically
searches for this word automatically, without the user ever having to manually
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conduct another search. (SUF ¶¶ 21, 23). TVEyes can email the user whenever
any Watch Term is mentioned, alerting the user to the existence of a clip containing
the Watch Term. In contrast, neither Fox nor its licensees offer continuous,
automated searches of pre-selected terms, nor do they email the user whenever that
evidence that, if TVEyes did not exist, its users would endeavor to undertake
repeated manual searches of the Fox Website and its partners, one by one, for the
dozens (or hundreds) of keywords they desire to track, multiple times every day.
Fox’s assumption that TVEyes’ users would have searched for the same keywords
on its or another’s website is thus rank speculation. See Sony, 464 U.S. at 453-54
(time shifting was fair use because the copyright owners’ “prediction that live
Second, visitors to the Fox Website are bound by the site’s Terms of Use,
which restrict the use of the site’s content to “personal use only and may not be used
for commercial purposes unless you receive prior written authorization from Fox
News.” (SUF ¶ 114). While the Fox Website prohibits commercial use, TVEyes
permits only commercial use—it does not provide subscriptions for personal use.
(Id. ¶¶ 3, 13, 18, 44.) By contrast, as Fox concedes, it does not make every portion
of every broadcast on the FNC or FBN available on the Internet. (Id. ¶ 101.)
Accordingly, any search results obtained by running keyword searches on the Fox
Website or its partners are necessarily incomplete. It is thus not possible to use the
Fox Website to be assured of how many times a particular keyword was mentioned
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covered on the air in a given period of time, which is why clients use TVEyes. See,
Rose Decl. ¶ 27, Ex. WW (e.g., “Fox News has spent just over 10 minutes covering
the 13 court decisions in favor of marriage equality since Windsor”). Even if Fox
decided to make available every single second of its television shows on its website,
Fox does not include the commercials that aired on FNC or FBN—thus, it is not
possible to use the Fox Website to track or evaluate the political advertising or
study the relationship between Fox programming and the commercial advertising
that supports it. See id ¶ 18, Ex. NN (the Romney ads “are still airing in multiple
assured of complete accuracy of what was aired on FNC, FBN, or any other major
network, is to use a service that captures, indexes and provides search capability for
Fourth, in addition to being incomplete, the video segments that are available
on the Fox Website and its partners are materially different from what is broadcast
on FNC and FBN. Video segments from FBN on the Fox Website, for example, do
not contain the news ticker graphic that was included in the actual telecast, which
displays (1) the time of the broadcast, (2) the station logo, and (3) information about
financial markets (including the Dow Jones Industrial Average), stock prices, and a
running ticker of financial news. (SUF ¶ 111). Likewise, video segments from FNC
on the Fox Website do not include the news ticker graphic that was included in the
actual telecast, which displays the station logo and a ticker reporting the news. (Id.
contents of the news ticker and what was said on FNC or FBN, such information
could not be gathered from Fox. In addition, Fox sometimes purposely changes the
video segments made available on its website from what had been aired. For
example, Fox recently came under fire for using an incorrect graphic during a story
about the ferry disaster in Korea; Fox removed the video from its website and
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assured viewers that the graphic would be “corrected” on its website. (Id. ¶¶ 113.)
The Fox Website cannot guarantee the accuracy of what was actually broadcast.
TVEyes can.
Fifth, because the Fox Website is designed for entertainment, not research
(Rose Decl. ¶ 12, Ex. HH (Fox Website is for “personal enjoyment and
segments available on the Fox Website lack basic contextual information about the
footage, such as the air time and show title. (SUF ¶ 105). Such information is
essential to TVEyes’ users, who can access snippets to research the context in which
their keyword was mentioned. In addition, the Fox Website offers limited search
functionality—for example, users cannot set a date range when conducting a search
on the Fox Website, nor use advanced Boolean connections such as “&” in
only 510 results. (Id. ¶ 110). Finally, the Fox Website does not offer any of the
analytics that TVEyes makes available, such as demographics, market share, heat
Sixth, while TVEyes’ clips always begin 14 seconds prior to the user’s query
term, each video segment on the Fox Website has a predetermined beginning and
corresponds to the start and end point around the particular discussion. (Id. ¶ 103.)
As a result, if a user tries to search the Fox Website for a particular word, she must
watch the entire segment or try to scroll through irrelevant portions to somehow
find her keyword. Because TVEyes’ clips always begin within the first 14 seconds of
between Fox and those who monitor it. This conflict is most obvious when
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journalists use TVEyes to publicly criticize Fox News. See, e.g., Rose Decl. ¶ 27, Ex.
WW (e.g., HUFFINGTON POST, Jan 9, 2014: “Fox News Downplayed Chris Christie
Scandal All Day”; BUSINESS INSIDER, July 11, 2011” “Fox News Has Only Reported
2014: “On Fox, The Gay Marriage Revolution Has Not Been Televised”). A conflict
of interest also exists when organizations use TVEyes to give feedback to the press.
For example, the White House has used TVEyes to criticize Fox’s reporting, see
Anten Decl. ¶ 23, Ex. EEE (White House to Fox: “This is not even close to a
official correction, see id. ¶ 22, Ex. DDD (“We had expected a clarification
somewhere on the network but never saw one”). Because Fox has complete control
over the contents of its website, and can alter or remove the content posted at any
time, for any reason, without explanation or notice, it cannot be relied upon as a
neutral, complete and accurate source for monitoring. Only a third party that
* * *
For these reasons and more, TVEyes cannot be said to affect the market for
“substitute” for the Works-in-Suit, the fourth factor heavily favors TVEyes.
Even if TVEyes did affect the market for the Works-in-Suit (which it did
not), TVEyes nonetheless provides significant benefits to the public that far
12 This outcome is also supported by logic—if TVEyes truly was a substitute for the
Fox Website, a user interested in watching a clip from FNC would do so for free
rather than pay $500 a month to TVEyes to watch it.
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outweigh the gain, if any, that Fox “will receive if the use is denied.” Bill Graham,
for research on a previously impossible scale. Using TVEyes, clients can efficiently
sift through the daily deluge of television content from numerous, disparate sources
1,400 channels, which continuously capture more than 27,000 broadcast hours
every single day, instead of conducting endless, constant searches on thousands of
websites, where the content may not even be available. (SUF ¶¶ 15, 44-46.) And
even then, TVEyes provides significant educational, research benefits through its
TVEyes, or a service like it, there would be no other way for users to discover, gain
made by Fox. Today, the manner in which news organizations like Fox report news
is often news in its own right, separate and distinct from the underlying news being
reported. (SUF ¶¶ 120-122.) In other words, Fox does not merely report the news,
often it is the news. See, e.g., (Rose Decl ¶26-27, Exs., VV-WW; (e.g. HUFFPOST
MEDIA, June 4, 2014: “Fox Makes Disgusting Comment About Bowe Bergdahl’s
Father”; RAW STORY, May 25, 2014: “Fox News Expert Suggests Homosexual
Impulses Triggered Calif. Mass Shooting”; WASHINGTON POST, Oct. 7, 2013: “Fox &
that is, covering how the media covers the news. See, e.g., Erik Wemple,
have programs dedicated to media analysis. See, e.g., #mediabuzz (FNC broadcast),
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program analyzes the coverage of a wide range of topics ….”); Reliable Sources
and these FNC broadcasts were then covered by other news stations. (Rose Decl.
¶ 14, Ex. JJ (e.g., MEDIAITE, Nov. 1, 2012: “Fox’s The Five Hosts: Post-Hurricane
Sandy Gas Lines Are ‘Carter-Esque,’ Bad For Obama”; WASHINGTON POST, Dec. 10,
2012: “Will George Zimmerman Regret Hannity Interview?”). TVEyes’ service thus
greatly facilitates the public’s access to the news made by Fox on its broadcasts
every day, functioning as the source for creating a new news story. Just as the
Second Circuit recognized that “Bloomberg was simply revealing the newsworthy
information of what Swatch Group executives had said,” Swatch, 2014 WL 2219162,
at *8, TVEyes functions to “reveal the newsworthy information of what [FNC and
FBN] had said,” id.; see also Feist, 499 U.S. at 348 (“facts … [such as] news of the
day … may not be copyrighted and are part of the public domain available to every
fundamental First Amendment value. Without TVEyes (or services like it), the
public could not efficiently review content broadcast on FNC, exactly as it was
content from the Fox Website to criticize Fox because, as noted above, that content:
(1) is exclusively controlled by Fox; (2) is incomplete; (3) does not accurately reflect
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exactly what was broadcast; and (4) has limited search functionality that interferes
with the ability to search for and find content. (Id. ¶¶ 100-114.) In contrast, there
is tremendous value in having a disinterested third party capture and index all
content as it aired, make it searchable, provide analytic tools, and provide snippets
that systematically monitors a cross section of print, broadcast, cable, radio, and
internet media outlets for conservative misinformation, which directs a substantial
portion of its monitoring and criticism towards Fox. (Id. ¶ 61.) Media Matters can
best serve its role to the public as a media watchdog, and lay the groundwork for
substantive political debate, because it can efficiently and affordably research and
compare broadcast content via TVEyes. For example, Media Matters reported that
and CNN, using TVEyes to conduct the analysis. (Rose Decl. ¶ 15, Ex. JJ). This
undeniably benefits the public interest and the core principles underlying the First
Amendment.
Cable news shows about the news media’s coverage of the news, and media
watchdogs that criticize and expose what they deem bias and misinformation,
demonstrate the extent to which news reporting is the subject of legitimate and
widespread political debate. Denying TVEyes the ability to make excerpts of Fox
Since TVEyes is essential to this end, this Court should hold that its use is fair.
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together, along with any other relevant considerations, in light of the purposes of
the copyright laws.” Google Books, 954 F. Supp. 2d at 293. Here, the relevant
considerations weigh heavily in favor of fair use: (1) TVEyes’ use of the Works-in-
Suit is transformative in that they are used for a different function and purpose
than the original work; (2) TVEyes offers the important public benefit of conveying
factual information, promoting the goal of accuracy, not piracy; (3) the Works-in-
Suit are highly factual and already published; (4) TVEyes uses no more of the
Works-in-Suit than necessary to accomplish its fair-use goals: TVEyes must use the
entirety of the works to create a functional search database and TVEyes provided
clients with access to small portions of the Works-in-Suit that were narrowly
targeted to the user’s search; and (5) TVEyes does not act as a substitute for the
Works-in-Suit and, in any event, the public benefit of the use far outweighs any
gain to Fox.
The ultimate question before the Court is “whether the copyright law’s goal of
promoting the Progress of Science and useful Arts would be better served by
allowing the use than by preventing it,” Bill Graham, 448 F.3d 605 at 608. TVEyes
what was said on television, without the danger that the source will withhold,
delete or alter that information. While Fox seeks to control what parts of its
broadcast may and may not be accessible to the public, such control frustrates
TVEyes’ purpose of allowing people to monitor the media. Cf. N.Y. Times Co. v.
Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 305 (1964) (Goldberg, J., concurring) (“sunlight is the most
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Weighing all of these considerations together, the Court should find that
TVEyes’ particular use of Fox broadcasts—both in their entirety for the purpose of
Fox’s New York state-law claim for “hot news” misappropriation 13 —a tort
that is rarely recognized, and only in circumstances that are essentially identical to
those of International News Service v. Associated Press (“INS”), 248 U.S. 215 (1918),
should be rejected, both because it is preempted by the Copyright Act and, in any
event, Fox has failed to introduce evidence sufficient to support such a claim.
preempted by the Copyright Act, courts in this Circuit apply a two-pronged test.
See Barclays Capital, Inc. v. TheFlyontheWall.com, Inc. (“Fly”), 650 F.3d 876, 892
(2d Cir. 2011). A claim is preempted if: (1) the claim seeks to vindicate legal or
equitable rights that are equivalent to one of the bundle of exclusive rights already
protected by the Copyright Act; and (2) the work in question is of the type of works
protected by the Copyright Act. Id. Where both prongs of the preemption test are
satisfied, courts will then apply the “extra element test” to determine whether the
claim should nonetheless survive preemption. This test asks whether “an ‘extra
13 In a letter to TVEyes’ counsel dated August 26, 2013, counsel for Fox stated that
Counts II and III of the Complaint are brought under New York state common law.
(Rose Decl. ¶ 31, Ex. AAA).
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claim. Nat’l Basketball Ass’n v. Motorola, Inc. (“NBA”), 105 F.3d 841, 850 (2d Cir.
1997) (quoting Computer Assoc. Int’l v. Altai, Inc., 982 F.2d 693, 716 (2d Cir. 1992)).
If so, “then the right does not lie within the general scope of copyright, and there is
no preemption.” Id.
The two seminal cases of this Circuit addressing “hot news” misappropriation
are Fly and NBA. In both Fly and NBA, the Second Circuit recognized an extremely
narrow “hot news” exception to the rule that claims of misappropriation under New
York common law arising from the copying of the plaintiff’s materials are
preempted by federal copyright law. See Fly, 650 F.3d at 896 (“The NBA panel
repeatedly emphasized the ‘narrowness’ of the ‘hot news’ tort.”); NBA, 105 F.3d at
This exception applies only to allegations of misappropriation that mirror the facts
of INS. See NBA, 105 F.3d at 845 (“a ‘hot-news’ INS-like claim survives
preemption,” but noting that prior panels have come to this conclusion “only
claim,” let alone all of them. Accordingly, its “hot news” claim is preempted by
§ 301 of the Copyright Act. Fly, 650 F.3d at 902 (“hot news” claim was preempted
by Copyright Act because defendant did not free-ride); NBA, 105 F.3d at 854 (same).
As a threshold matter, Fox has not identified any specific piece of time-
sensitive “hot news” that TVEyes allegedly misappropriated; rather, Fox identified
entire topics, without identifying a specific time or date that a particular piece of
“hot news” was exclusively disseminated by Fox. Because TVEyes has not been
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placed on notice of the particular “hot news” that it allegedly misappropriated, Fox’s
“[i]dentify each piece of ‘hot news’ that TVEyes allegedly misappropriated and, for
each piece of ‘hot news’ identified, describe the efforts Fox News undertook to
gather it.” (Anten Decl. ¶ 33, Ex. OOO.) The entirety of Fox’s substantive response
is as follows:
First, Fox merely identifies the subject of its “hot news” claim as “all of the
Second, Fox identifies as the substance of its claim entire weeks of its
“coverage” of world events as constituting its protectable “hot news.” For example,
without identifying any particular story or segment that was broadcast, Fox claims
the entirety of its coverage of the Arab Spring uprisings for 63 days is “hot.”
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Likewise, without identifying any particular story or segment that was broadcast,
Fox claims the entirety of its “coverage” of the papal resignation and election for 43
days is “hot.” Fox even identifies the entirety of nine days of “coverage of political
Mideast. At base, Fox seeks to claim that all of its coverage is “hot news.” But Fox
does not, and never has, owned the topics of Hurricane Sandy, the Newtown
shootings, or Israel-Hamas conflict. The Court should reject Fox’s argument that it
can simply name a world event and own every fact reported on it. There is a
difference between “news” and legally protectable “hot news,” but Fox makes no
distinction.
Third, Fox produced no evidence that any of the facts contained in its
“coverage” of these events was first published exclusively by Fox, nor that any such
“facts” were not already available from another source when TVEyes allegedly
misappropriated them. To establish a claim for “hot news,” Fox must identify
specific, time-sensitive facts, that were acquired exclusively by Fox, and were
subsequently published by Fox before any other competing news source. See
BanxCorp v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 723 F. Supp. 2d 596, 612 (S.D.N.Y. 2010)
(“Plaintiffs must allege not only that the news was time-sensitive when it was
Lavandeira, 2009 WL 513031, at *6 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 26, 2009) (rejecting “hot news”
claim where “[t]he same information that was allegedly gathered by Plaintiff
through costly efforts was widely available and published by numerous other
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sensitive, nor that the facts uncovered were published exclusively by Fox and no
other outlet.14
Even if Fox could establish that it was the first news outfit to report a
particular piece of news, that information would lose its time-sensitive value as
soon as other news networks independently acquired and disseminated it. See
Capitol Records, Inc. v. Naxos of Am., Inc., 262 F. Supp. 2d 204, 209 (S.D.N.Y. 2003)
(“This doctrine creates a narrow quasi property right in news, which as facts ‘may
not be copyrighted,’ only as against business competitors and only until its
commercial value as ‘hot news’ has passed.”) (citing Fin. Info., Inc. v. Moody’s
Investors Serv. Inc., 808 F.2d 204, 207 (2d Cir. 1986)). In the age of the 24-hour
news cycle, the time-sensitive value of news is increasingly fleeting. Fox bears the
burden of proving that any of the facts it claims to have exclusively acquired and
reported to the world first were not reported by other news sources before Fox’s
Fox cannot establish that TVEyes “free-rides” on Fox’s effort as this element
has been interpreted by this Circuit in Fly and NBA. “Free-riding” was defined in
INS as “‘taking material that has been acquired by complainant as the result of
organization and the expenditure of labor, skill, and money, and which is salable by
own ….’” Fly, 650 F.3d at 903 (quoting INS, 248 U.S. at 239). However, where a
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riding because the defendant has not sold it “as its own.” Id.
Here, far from passing off Fox’s content as its own, TVEyes specifically
including FNC an FBN content. (SUF ¶ 126). That is in many respects the whole
point of the service. For example, to the extent that the FNC and FBN logos are
displayed on the screen when broadcast, those logos also appear, in the same
manner, on TVEyes. For TVEyes to pass these clips on as its own “would be of little
value to either [TVEyes] or its customers,” Fly, 650 F.3d at 903, who are interested
in the fact that their keyword was mentioned on a particular news channel, not on
TVEyes. Under INS, Fly and NBA, TVEyes does not “free-ride” because it does not
take the information broadcast by Fox and redistribute “that news as though it
were ‘breaking’ news of its own.” Fly, 650 F.3d at 903 n.36.
Moreover, TVEyes expends its own resources to capture the content of over
1,400 television and radio broadcasts and, using its own skill and technology,
indexes the content into text databases and delivers relevant search results and
occur solely at TVEyes’ expense. See NBA, 105 F.3d 854 (“free riding” not met
where the parties each bore their own costs in collecting and disseminating the
definition, is not the same underlying news reported by Fox; it is a new fact, and
therefore cannot constitute free-riding. See Fly, 650 F.3d at 902 (“[Fly] is collecting,
collating and disseminating factual information—the facts that Firms and others in
the securities business have made recommendations with respect to the value of
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to its source. The Firms are making news; Fly, despite the Firms’ understandable
Fox cannot begin to prove that TVEyes represents a “threat to the very
existence” of Fox’s newsgathering activities. NBA, 105 F.3d at 853. As NBA noted,
misappropriation that “would destroy the incentive to collect news in the first
place.” Id. The fate of Fox and its news programming, however, is not affected by
the existence of TVEyes’ service, because TVEyes has no plausible impact on Fox’s
two primary sources of revenue: (1) licensing fees collected from cable companies
and (2) revenue generated from adverting broadcast during program breaks.
(Compl. ¶ 20). To the extent Fox argues that TVEyes may threaten Fox’s incentive
to license video clips or host them on the Fox Website, such a position is flawed—
the question is not whether TVEyes may have any conceivable financial effect on a
portion of Fox’s business model; rather, the question is whether the existence of
TVEyes would “destroy” Fox’s “incentive to collect news in the first place.” NBA,
105 F.3d at 853. Because Fox introduced no such evidence, this claim must fail.
Finally, the “hot news” tort requires that the parties be bona fide direct
competitors, in the way that INS and AP were directly competitive wire services
chasing after identical stories. As Fly noted, “in talking about a “hot-news” INS-like
claim, as we did in [NBA], … we are mindful that the INS Court’s concern was
tightly focused on the practices of the parties to the suit before it: news, data, and
the like, gathered and disseminated by one organization as a significant part of its
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business, taken by another entity and published as the latter’s own in competition
monitoring service, and TVEyes does not (and does not purport to) engage in its own
newsgathering efforts. (SUF ¶¶ 93, 125.) There is no evidence that Fox is now, or
keyword the content broadcast on over 1,100 television stations, nor that TVEyes is
See Fly, 650 F.3d at 914-15 (Raggi, J., concurring) (“The Firms do not aggregate or
distribute other Firms’ Recommendations … [and] Fly does not produce any of its
CCC.)
existence of TVEyes. See NBA, 105 F.3d at 853-54 (“With regard to NBA’s primary
SportsTrax or the AOL site as a substitute for attending NBA games or watching
them on television.”). While Fox may claim that Fox and TVEyes “directly compete”
in connection with Fox’s ancillary business of licensing clips, the issue is not
whether there is any competition, but whether there is “direct” competition akin to
two directly competing newswire services, where one party “scoops” the other. This
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Even if Fox’s “hot news” claim was not preempted by the Copyright Act, it
should be rejected on the merits for the same reasons discussed above. The “extra
elements” for a claim of “hot news” misappropriation are also the elements of the
underlying “INS-like” tort, Fly 650 F.3d at 898, and accordingly Fox’s “hot news”
(Direct Competition)” (Compl. ¶¶ 71-77), it is not clear such a claim even exists.
misappropriation under New York law. To the extent that Fox has included such a
under New York law because “TVEyes uses Fox News’s work in competition with it”
and is thus “intentionally misappropriating Fox News content and palming it off to
connection between Fox News and TVEyes where there is none.” (Compl. ¶¶ 73-74.)
Copyright Act. See NBA, 105 F.3d at 852 (New York’s broad misappropriation
doctrine preempted by federal copyright law); Walker v. Time Life Films, Inc., 784
F.2d 44, 53 (2d Cir. 1986) (“Walker’s cause of action for unfair competition is
preempted by the federal copyright laws to the extent it seeks protection against
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copying of Walker’s book.”); see also 17 U.S.C. § 301(a) (“all legal or equitable rights
that are equivalent to any of the exclusive rights” of the Copyright Act “are
In this case, there can be no dispute that the first two elements of the
preemption test are met: the essence of Count III is that TVEyes’ alleged copying,
misappropriation, all of which are governed by the Copyright Act. (See Compl.
¶¶ 72, 74.) As to the “extra element test,” the Second Circuit has consistently held
preempted by the Copyright Act. See, e.g., NBA, 105 F.3d at 852 (“only a narrow
material within the realm of copyright”); Fin. Info., Inc. v. Moody’s Investors Serv.,
Inc., 808 F.2d 204, 208 (2d Cir. 1986) (”We are not persuaded by FII’s argument
Copyright Act.”). In Fly, the Second Circuit reiterated that the broad doctrine of
Corp., 101 N.Y.S.2d 483 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1950) is preempted by the Copyright Act.
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“uses” and “distributes” Fox’s work, and “palm[s] it off” to consumers. (Compl.
infringement. See, e.g., Computer Assocs. Int’l, 982 F.2d at 717 (“unfair competition
F.2d 905, 919 (2d Cir. 1980) (“[t]o the extent that Tomy’s unfair competition claim
this Court has dismissed such a claim as preempted because the plaintiff “simply
attempted to dress up its claim that [the defendant] had copied [plaintiff’s work].”
Eyal R.D. Corp. v. Jewelex New York Ltd., 784 F. Supp. 2d 441, 447 (S.D.N.Y. 2011)
(Hellerstein, J.).
Finally, to the extent that Fox claims its allegation regarding TVEyes’
purported “palming off” (Compl. ¶ 74) of Fox content constitutes an extra element,
this does not save the claim. “Palming off,” or any other “evidence of
‘essence’ of such an action.” Nash v. CBS, Inc., 704 F. Supp. 823, 834 (N.D. Ill.
1989) (quoting INS, 248 U.S. at 242). Thus, in Nash, the court found a
Indeed, in a recent case where Fox was the defendant, Fox argued—and the court
found—that a claim for “reverse passing off,” the allegation Fox (at most) makes
here, “does not constitute an extra element for preemption purposes because it is
News Network LLC, 719 F. Supp. 2d 312, 322 & nn.67-68 (S.D.N.Y. 2010) (citing
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cases); see also id., No. 09-cv-7910, Doc No. 18, at 7 (March 5, 2010) (Fox arguing
that plaintiff’s claims of “misappropriation” and “passing off” are “preempted by the
Copyright Act”).
Fox alleges that: (1) Fox “expends considerable time and expense in
producing and distributing” its content (Compl. ¶ 72); and (2) “TVEyes uses Fox
programming online” (id. ¶ 73). These allegations are indistinguishable from Fox’s
allegations in support of its “hot news” claim. (Compare id. ¶¶ 72, 73 with id.
¶¶ 64, 67.) Fox’s “direct competition” claim is nothing more than a watered-down
version of its “hot news” claim. Because Fox’s “hot news” claim is preempted, so is
empted by the Copyright Act, Fox cannot succeed on the merits of its claim.
“is the bad faith misappropriation of the labors and expenditures of another, likely
to cause confusion or to deceive purchasers as to the origin of the goods.’” Eyal R.D.,
784 F. Supp. 2d at 447 (quoting Jeffrey Milstein, Inc. v. Greger, Lawlor, Roth Inc.,
58 F.3d 27, 34-35 (2d Cir. 1995)). Thus, Fox’s misappropriation claim is, at base, an
unfair competition claim. “To recover for unfair competition, a plaintiff must show
equitable relief, and must show that there was bad faith.” Id. at 447 (quotations
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First, there is no evidence in the record of consumer confusion. Fox has not
believe that TVEyes’ service emanates from or is approved by Fox, nor is there any
other evidence demonstrating that consumers are deceived or confused about the
origin of TVEyes’ service. TVEyes does not claim to have a business relationship
with Fox, and nothing in the manner in which TVEyes markets and promotes itself
bad faith for purposes of a misappropriation claim, the “only relevant intent is
N.J., 894 F. Supp. 2d 288, 329 (S.D.N.Y. 2012) (quotations omitted). Fox has not
introduced any evidence that TVEyes intended to confuse the public as to the
does not support an inference of bad faith. Cf. Fun-Damental Too, Ltd. v. Gemmy
Indus. Corp., 111 F.3d 993, 1005 (2d Cir. 1997) (“bad faith should not be inferred
simply from the fact of copying”). Indeed, TVEyes attributes the source of any
broadcast content by identifying the channel from which all content originates.
(SUF ¶ 126).
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CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, TVEyes respectfully requests that the Court grant
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