Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Inc. v. Comline Business Data, Inc.

166 F.3d 65, 1999 WL 24791
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedJanuary 22, 1999
DocketDocket No. 98-7842
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 166 F.3d 65 (Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Inc. v. Comline Business Data, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Inc. v. Comline Business Data, Inc., 166 F.3d 65, 1999 WL 24791 (2d Cir. 1999).

Opinion

JOHN M. WALKER, JR., Circuit Judge:

Defendants Comline Business Data, Inc., Yoshinobu Okuma, Hiroyuki Takagi, and Haruhisa Morimoto appeal from the June 3, [69]*691998 judgment entered in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. After a bench trial, Judge Denise L. Cote found that defendants had infringed the copyrights and trademark of plaintiff Ni-hon Keizai Shimbun, Inc. For the following reasons, we affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for reconsideration of damages in light of this opinion.

BACKGROUND

Nihon Keizai Shimbun (“Nikkei”) is a Japanese corporation that publishes financial, business and industry news. Nikkei publishes the Japanese newspapers Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Nikkei Kinyu Shimbun, Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun, and Nikkei Ryutsu Shim-bun, as well as an English newspaper, the Nikkei Weekly. Nikkei sells these newspapers around the world, in their original languages and in translation. Nikkei also makes many of its. Japanese articles available in English through wire services, an English language website, and a licensing agreement with LEXIS/NEXIS.

Defendant Comline Business Data, Inc. gathered news articles from a variety of sources and sold “abstracts” — or, less charitably, rough translations — of those articles to its customers. Comline editors selected the articles and forwarded them to “abstractors” or “translators,” sometimes pre-editing them to a desired length. The abstractors translated the stories into English; Comline “rew-riters” then edited the abstracts into a consistent style. The district court found that it took a total of approximately 36 minutes per piece for Comline to convert a news article into a Comline abstract. Comline published about 17,000 abstracts in 1997, approximately one-third of which were derived from Nikkei news sources.

In August of 1997, Nikkei began to file periodic applications for United States copyright registration of its news articles. Nikkei also holds certain registered United States trademarks, including “Nikkei” -and “Nikkei Weekly.” On January 29,1998, Nikkei filed this action against Comline and the three officers named in the caption alleging that Comline’s abstracts unlawfully infringed Nikkei’s copyrights and its “Nikkei” trademark.

The district court conducted a two-day bench trial. Comline’s principal defenses were that it had copied only facts that were not subject to copyright, and that in any event its abstracts constituted fair use. In a detailed decision issued from the bench,-the district court rejected Comline’s fair use argument and found that Comline had infringed 22 of Nikkei’s articles. The district court awarded Nikkei statutory damages of $220,-000, attorney’s fees of $200,000, and a declaratory judgment that the 22 abstracts were infringements; in addition, the district court permanently enjoined Comline from publishing abstracts that were substantially similar to Nikkei articles. The district court also 'found that Comline had infringed the “Nikkei” trademark and enjoined Comline from using the mark. The defendants appealed.

DISCUSSION

Defendants argue that: (1) Comline’s abstracts did not infringe Nikkei’s copyrights because they only copied unprotected facts; (2) Comline’s abstracts constituted fair use of Nikkei’s copyrighted works; (3) the use of “Nikkei” as a reference to the source of the abstracts was not a trademark use, and therefore did not infringe Nikkei’s trademark; (4) the district court abused its discretion in awarding statutory damages on the copyright claim; (5) the district court abused its discretion in awarding attorney’s fees; (6) the district court’s injunction is an unconstitutional prior restraint; (7) the principles of laches and acquiescence bar any relief for Nikkei; and (8) the district court lacked personal jurisdiction over defendants Okuma and Takagi.

I. Copyright Infringement

The Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101-803, grants copyright holders the exclusive rights to “reproduce the copyrighted work in copies” and to “prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work.” Id. at § 106. To sustain a claim of copyright infringement, a plaintiff must demonstrate first that a copyrighted work was actually copied, and second, that the copying [70]*70amounted to an improper or unlawful appropriation. See Castle Rock Entertainment, Inc. v. Carol Publ’g Group, Inc., 150 F.3d 132, 137 (2d Cir.1998); Laureyssens v. Idea Group, Inc., 964 F.2d 131, 139-40 (2d Cir.1992). After proving that the copyrighted work was actually copied, a plaintiff must establish that the copying was improper or unlawful by showing that the second work bears a “substantial similarity” to protected expression in the copyrighted work. Repp v. Webber, 132 F.3d 882, 889 (2d Cir.1997), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 119 S.Ct. 52, 142 L.Ed.2d 40 (1998); Laureyssens, 964 F.2d at 140.

Defendants do not dispute the element of actual copying. Comline worked directly from Nikkei’s news articles in creating its news abstracts. The only question presented is whether Comline’s abstracts evidenced a substantial similarity to any protected expression in the Nikkei articles and thus amounted to an unlawful or improper appropriation of Nikkei’s copyright. We review the district court’s finding of “substantial similarity” de novo, employing our own comparison of the works in our analysis. See Knitwaves, Inc. v. Lollytogs Ltd., 71 F.3d 996, 1002 (2d Cir.1995); Fisher-Price, Inc. v. Well-Made Toy Mfg. Corp., 25 F.3d 119, 123 (2d Cir.1994).

A. Substantial Similarity

Defendants argue that the only similarity between their abstracts and Nikkei’s articles is that they report the same unprotected facts. That copyright does not extend to facts is a “most fundamental axiom of copyright law.” Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340, 344, 111 S.Ct. 1282, 113 L.Ed.2d 358 (1991). The reason for this rule is that the law of copyright is founded on originality of expression&emdash;facts, by their nature, are never original to an author. See id. at 347, 111 S.Ct. 1282. Compilations of facts, however, may be protected by copyright because they can display originality in their selection, arrangement or presentation of facts. See id. at 348, 111 S.Ct. 1282. Descriptions of facts afford even more room for originality. The question, then, is not simply whether Comline copied from Nikkei’s articles, but whether they copied expression original to Nikkei. See id. at 361, 111 S.Ct. 1282.

The standard test in determining substantial similarity is the “ordinary observer test”: whether an average lay observer would overlook any dissimilarities between the works and would conclude that one was copied from the other. See Knitwaves, 71 F.3d at 1002; Fisher-Price,

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166 F.3d 65, 1999 WL 24791, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/nihon-keizai-shimbun-inc-v-comline-business-data-inc-ca2-1999.