10/2/11

Blogger Sues Blogger for Copyright Infringement: Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood vs The Hollywood Reporter

Nikki Finke reports on the comings and goings of the Hollywood biz at her blog, Deadline Hollywood, and I've read her for years -- she has been instrumental in making blogs more respectable as a legitimate news source.  Nikki Finke's background as a journalist - working at Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times and The New York Observer, in addition to having her writing appear in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and The Washington Post means that she had top of the line journalistic credentials when she jumped over into the blogging arena. 

Nikki Finke's decision to become a blogger is important to all bloggers, and in doing so, she undoubtedly felt a lot of backlash from the traditional journalists who do not consider blogging to be respectable as a news source.  That's a rabbit trail topic - something to discuss in more depth on another day.

Point here is, I'm not the only one who admires her work, apparently.

Over the past few weeks (or maybe months), Finke has been posting about her battles with The Hollywood Reporter and her claims that her stuff has been popping up without authorization over at THR, which is another blog.  Today, I read on Reuters that Finke's filed suit:  "Deadline blogger sues The Hollywood Reporter." 

Among her claims (and by "her" I mean Finke as well as her parent company, both plaintiffs in the litigation), an allegation that source code was swiped from Deadline Hollywood.  That's plagarism, 21st Century style. 

Finke goes on: she's also alleging that there has been theft of "intellectual decisions" in what she follows in her blog posts.  As bloggers understand all too well, posts go up minute by minute (almost as fast as tweets) when there is a big story -- and deciding what to post and when is a big thing when you're publishing a blog.  Blogging will get more consideration and exposure as a venue for words, and news, and opinion, because of this lawsuit - if for no other reason than everyone's got to catch up with what exactly Nikki Finke is alleging is the harm that has been done and how it happened. 

Once again, Nikki Finke may be helping bloggers everywhere gain more respect for the medium - this time, not on the screen, but in the courtroom.