News Corp and Daily Mail in copyright row
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s news organisation is embroiled in a copyright row with a rival news website over claims the rival has lifted vast swathes of its content.
News Corp, the owner of several publications worldwide, has sent Daily Mail Australia (DMA) a legal letter accusing it of copyright infringement and of lifting “substantial slabs” of original content.
However, in a press release, DMA has hit back at News Corp, claiming it also lifts stories without permission.
“Rupert Murdoch is a brilliant, buccaneering innovator who built a global media empire,” a spokesman for DMAsaid on Sunday, June 15.
“How sad that the King Canutes now running his Australian print operation are so unfamiliar with how the modern digital world works.”
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp owns publications including Herald Sun and The Times.
Among the items DMA accuses News Corp of lifting is a video apparently showing members of boy band One Direction smoking cannabis.
DMA, an Australian arm of the UK website MailOnline, was launched earlier this year.
According to The Guardian newspaper, DMA also confirmed it had received a legal threat from News Corp and would reply “in due course”.
In the letter to DMA, News Corp cited 10 articles that had been lifted, including a feature on “the best dress a woman can own”.
A News Corp Australia spokesman said it stood by the fact that it believed DMA was breaching its copyright, adding that it lifted “substantial slabs of original content from a large number of articles from our mastheads".
News Corp did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
