Late last year, a legal battle between the Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) and Yahoo! Southeast Asia was sparked by alleged copyright infringements by the internet giant. According to Today, a free, English-language publication, Yahoo! has been accused of reproducing works originally published by SPH. These purportedly original works had strikingly similar “paragraphs, sentences, phrases and/or words,” to the articles presented by SPH, with many words changed by “merely replacing them with synonyms.”
In response, Yahoo! has continued to stand by the public’s “right to be informed of news and current events in Singapore.” However, SPH declared that these statements are egregious, claiming that their only intention was to “drive up its page views and advertising revenue.” Currently, twenty-three articles have been presented as evidence, with SPH stating that there is a substantial amount they have yet to release.
Yahoo! has since filed a similar suit against SPH, claiming the latter had reproduced three of its works on its own website. In response, SPH stated that the purported infringements were conducted by third parties. Furthermore, SPH has provided evidence of Yahoo! acquiring contracts “claiming their copyright to the source articles just one day before [Yahoo!] countersued SPH.” Originally filed last November, this legal battle is ongoing.
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