US legal ruling hits Reed shares
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Shares in the Reed Elsevier, the Anglo-Dutch media giant, fell heavily yesterday on fears that the company would suffer some fallout from news that the rival legal publisher, West Publishing, had lost much of its US copyright protection in a Federal court ruling.
Reed was also hit by a downgrade of its shares by analysts at Merrill Lynch, sending its price tumbling 3 per cent to 607.5p - wiping more than pounds 200m off its stock market value.
Mark Armour, Reed Elsevier's chief financial officer, said: "We believe that the impact will not be significant, even if the ruling is not overturned on appeal."
The ruling arose from a copyright dispute between West Publishing, bought by publishing giant Thomson last year, and US rival HyperLaw. West argued that HyperLaw infringed its copyright after HyperLaw electronically scanned court judgment documents belonging to West and resold them.
However the Federal District Court in Manhattan ruled against West, saying that because the information in the documents was already in the public domain, there was no copyright issue.
Reed which bought over 40 legal publications from Thomson in January, said that its own electronic legal publishing business Lexis, part of Lexis-Nexis bought for $1.5bn (pounds 920m) in 1994, was not at risk of losing customers. Mr Armour said: "We are not relying on copyright for the sales we make to customers. The value of Lexis-Nexis is the comprehensiveness of its legal databases."
He said that copyright protection had only been lost on court judgments. "What is not at issue is copyright over summaries or commentaries that surround these judgments."
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments