In International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918), the U.S. Supreme Court held that although uncopyrighted news itself is not property against the general public, a news-gathering organization has a quasi-property right in the fresh commercial value of the news it collects — a right good against a direct business competitor who copies that news and sells it in competition. The Court affirmed an injunction stopping the International News Service (INS) from lifting Associated Press (AP) bulletins and reselling them while they were still commercially fresh. This is the birthplace of the 'hot news' misappropriation doctrine, and in your Property course it is the case professors use to test whether you really understand why we call something property in the first place.

Case Summary: International News Service v. Associated Press

International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918), was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, opinion by Justice Mahlon Pitney, with a celebrated dissent by Justice Louis Brandeis (and a separate dissent by Justice Holmes). AP, a cooperative of newspapers, sued INS (a competing news service owned by William Randolph Hearst) for copying AP's news reports. INS was taking AP's already-published stories — sometimes from early East Coast editions and bulletin boards — and wiring them to its own West Coast subscribers, in some instances beating or matching AP's own members with AP's own reporting. The Court granted equitable relief in AP's favor.

Facts

AP and INS were competing news agencies that both gathered war and general news and sold it to member and subscriber newspapers across the country. Gathering news is expensive: AP maintained correspondents, paid for cables, and invested heavily in being first. INS, by contrast, obtained AP's news without paying for the gathering — by reading AP bulletins posted publicly and early AP-affiliated newspapers on the East Coast, then transmitting that news to INS papers, particularly on the West Coast, where the time difference meant INS could publish AP's news simultaneously with or even before AP's own members. INS was not copying AP's exact words in a way that would clearly infringe copyright; it was taking the facts — the news itself — and profiting from AP's investment.

The legally significant fact to hold onto for the exam: INS and AP were direct competitors, and INS was appropriating the news while it still had commercial (fresh) value. Those two facts drive the entire holding.

Procedural History

AP sued INS in federal court seeking an injunction on several theories. The district court granted a preliminary injunction in part; the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed and broadened relief. INS appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which affirmed the injunction against INS's copying of AP news for commercial use during the period of its freshness.

Issue

Can a news organization assert a property or quasi-property interest in the news it has gathered — sufficient to enjoin a competitor from copying and reselling that news — even though the news, as uncopyrighted factual information, is not the exclusive property of anyone against the public at large?

Holding & Rule

Yes — as between competitors. The Supreme Court held that AP has a quasi-property interest in the news it collects, enforceable against a competitor like INS. The rule you put in your outline: news, as against the general public, is not property once published; but as between two competitors in the business of gathering and distributing news, the news retains a quasi-property character for so long as it has commercial value, and a competitor who appropriates it to divert profits to itself commits actionable unfair competition ('misappropriation').

The Court drew a crucial distinction that is the whole point of the case: property rights are relational. AP might have no right to exclude the world from the facts of the news, but it can still have a right to exclude a competitor who is trying to reap where it has not sown. The remedy was equitable — an injunction lasting only as long as the news's commercial value.

Reasoning

Justice Pitney (majority): The Court reasoned from the labor and expense AP invested. Gathering news is a legitimate business built on effort and money; the news therefore has commercial value to AP that is 'stock in trade, to be gathered at the cost of enterprise, organization, skill, labor, and money.' For INS to take that news and sell it in competition is 'endeavoring to reap where it has not sown' and to 'appropriate to itself the harvest of those who have sown.' That, the Court said, is unfair competition in business. The Court was careful to limit the right: it exists only between competitors and only while the news is fresh, because once the commercial value expires, so does the interest.

Justice Holmes (concurring in part / dissenting in part): Holmes was skeptical of calling this 'property' at all. He would have grounded any relief in a narrower theory closer to misrepresentation — requiring INS to attribute the news to AP — rather than recognizing a broad quasi-property right.

Justice Brandeis (dissent — the one your professor wants): Brandeis argued that 'the general rule of law is, that the noblest of human productions — knowledge, truths ascertained, conceptions, and ideas — become, after voluntary communication to others, free as the air to common use.' Publication surrenders exclusivity. Creating a new property right in news, he insisted, is a legislative task, not a judicial one; courts lack the tools to define the right's scope, duration, and limits, and should not improvise a new form of intangible property to fit a hard case. Brandeis's dissent is the heart of the modern skepticism about judge-made 'hot news' rights.

Why International News Service v. AP Matters

This case is taught early in Property (or in the intangible/intellectual property unit) because it forces the foundational question: what makes something property? INS v. AP is the leading judicial statement of the labor theory of property — the Lockean idea that mixing your labor and investment with something gives you a claim to it. It sits directly opposite the Brandeis view that information wants to be free. Your professor is using this case to make you argue both sides of the deepest debate in property theory: reward-for-labor versus free-flow-of-information, private incentive versus public access.

It also introduces the idea that property is a bundle of relational rights — you can have a right good against one person (a competitor) but not against the world. That relational framing recurs all over the course.

Cold-Call Prep

Here is what the professor will actually ask, and how to answer:

• 'Is news property?' — Answer with the distinction, not a yes/no. As against the public, uncopyrighted news is not property; as between competitors, it is quasi-property while it retains commercial value. Naming the relational distinction is the whole game.
• 'What did INS actually do wrong? It didn't steal AP's words.' — Right — that's the point. INS misappropriated the value AP created through labor and expense, selling AP's fresh news in competition. The wrong is unfair competition / reaping where you have not sown, not copyright infringement.
• 'What's the theory of property the majority relies on?' — The labor/investment (Lockean) theory: AP earned an interest by expending 'enterprise, organization, skill, labor, and money.'
• 'Why does Brandeis dissent?' — Because once information is published it should be free as the air; creating new property rights in intangibles is a job for the legislature, which can calibrate scope and duration, not for courts deciding one dispute.
• 'How long does AP's right last?' — Only as long as the news has commercial value. This built-in time limit is what keeps the right narrow.
• 'Would this come out the same way today?' — The doctrine survives but is narrow (see NBA v. Motorola). Point to federal copyright preemption and the courts' reluctance to expand quasi-property in information.

On the Exam

INS v. AP shows up in two ways. First, as a theory question: 'Should X be treated as property?' The professor wants you to run both engines — the labor/investment argument (INS majority: they invested, they should reap) against the free-flow argument (Brandeis: information published becomes public, courts shouldn't create new rights). A top answer weighs both and reaches a limited conclusion, exactly as the majority did with its freshness limitation.

Second, as an issue-spotter: whenever a fact pattern has a competitor free-riding on another's costly effort to produce time-sensitive information (data, scores, financial quotes, breaking news), flag misappropriation/hot-news. The trap students fall into: (1) confusing this with copyright — remember, facts and news aren't copyrightable, so misappropriation is the residual theory; and (2) forgetting the two limiting elements — it must be a competitor and the material must still be commercially fresh. State those elements explicitly and you separate yourself from the crowd.

Related Cases

INS v. AP is usually taught alongside other property-theory anchors — Pierson v. Post (first possession and the labor/pursuit debate) and Moore v. Regents of the University of California (property in intangible/personal interests). In the modern line, NBA v. Motorola, Inc., 105 F.3d 841 (2d Cir. 1997), preserves a narrow federal 'hot news' misappropriation claim that survives copyright preemption, laying out modern elements. If your casebook goes into intellectual property, expect it paired with cases on copyright's fact/expression distinction.