News Headlines Infringe Copyright, Court Finds

Javad Heydary

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The Intellectual Property High Court - a special branch court of the Tokyo High Court - has ruled that using newspaper article headlines on the Internet without permission infringes copyright. The case was brought by Japan's most widely-read newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun. The defendant, Digital Alliance, is a small company also based in Japan.

The court awarded Yomiri Shimbun damages of $2,000. Although this amount is nominal, the ruling has sparked concern among commentators who have noted that if other countries start to take this approach regularly, it would have serious ramifications for the dissemination of information on the Internet. In particular, search engines and numerous sites that provide some form of headline aggregation could be held to be infringing copyright.

However, significantly, the decision did not include an order for the removal of the headlines from Digital Alliance's website. The court found that since headlines are not explicitly mentioned in Japan's Copyright Law, the topic remains a grey area.