AP wins ruling in copyright case against news aggregator Meltwater

NEW YORK (REUTERS) - The Associated Press won a ruling in a copyright lawsuit against news aggregator Meltwater News Service over its use of AP story excerpts without paying licensing fees.

United States District Court Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan ruled in favour of the Associated Press before a trial with one exception, according to a court filing on Wednesday. The judge did not explain the exception and her full decision has not yet been released.

Meltwater is a subscriber-only electronic clipping service for corporate customers who want to monitor news coverage of their industries and themselves. AP views the company as a competitor, and sued in February last year for copyright infringement.

"This ruling makes it crystal clear that Meltwater wrongly used news content from AP to create its own content, while paying none of the costs associated with creating original news content," AP chief executive Gary Pruitt said in a statement on Wednesday.