Re: Copyright Status of Press Releases

On 8/10/99, Kerry L. Konrad <k_konrad[_at_]stblaw.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 9 Aug 1999, Julie A. Cason <jcason[_at_]u.washington.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Are press releases officially considered to be public domain?
>
> Responding to Julie Cason's question, the issue does come up once in a
> while in practice and I've never seen a good answer either. Obviously,
> the press release is intended to be used -- it can be surprising to a
> reader (but no doubt pleasing to the corporate PR department) how much
> of a corporate press release is quoted verbatim in a newspaper article,
> even by a wire service. Perhaps one could argue that, under the
> circumstances, there's an implied license to the world or a deliberate
> forfeiture of copyright. But in theory, I think the press release is
> eligible for copyright protection notwithstanding the "fair use" made
> of it by the press, and under other circumstances, I would expect the
> company to object to its duplication -- if, for example, the release
> announced bad news and a competitor ran off a thousand copies of it
> to share with potential customers.

I think, too, that if a press release authored by, for example, a public relations agency, were copied by another public relations agency for a different client, there's no question that the first public relations agency would have a valid claim of infringement.

Example: Ari's PR Firm authors a press release for Yummy Cookies, Inc.'s new product, making all sorts of extravagant claims about the new product's swift acceptance in the marketplace, tastiness, etc.

Kopykat cookies hires Bela's PR Firm to issue a press release on Kopykat's cookies which are enjoying similarly swift market acceptance, and also taste good. To save time and money, Bela copies Ari's press release word for word, but changes the name of the product to reflect Kopykat's product's name, and a few other details, ultimately sending out substantially the same release as Ari's PR Firm did on behalf of Yummy.

Regardless of any widespread practice permitting copying of press releases, I think it's pretty clear that Ari's would have a strong case against Bela's. This suggests to me that the copying normally done of press releases is done under an implied license, which permits copying for purposes that are standard in the industry, rather than under "fair use".

-Ari

Ari Kahan
<akahan[_at_]netcom.com>