Sunday morning’s ‘fight of the century’ may have seen fewer punches thrown than we had all hoped for, but here’s one battle that is sure to be a slugfest.

It has been a long time coming but finally the Caxton Group and Media24 will have their day(s) in court. Whilst the initial application was launched over 18 months ago the case will be heard in the Gauteng High Court today and tomorrow. Fin24 breaks it down as such:

Moneyweb, owned by the Caxton group, argues in court papers that Fin24, owned by Caxton’s competitor Media24, used 7 of its articles unlawfully and offered it as its own. Fin24 has rejected these claims as patently false. The 7 articles were published between July 2012 and July 2013.

Moneyweb claims Fin24 used the 7 articles without permission and that this negatively impacted Moneyweb’s performance in terms of the number of times the articles were read on Moneyweb compared to on Fin24 itself.

Fin24 made it clear that at no time did it pretend to pass off these articles as its own. The bits aggregated from the 7 Moneyweb articles were clearly attributed to Moneyweb and a link provided to the original articles.

Fin24 also argues that carrying the articles provided added exposure for Moneyweb, as well as benefiting Moneyweb’s SEO.

The court will ultimately have to rule on ‘fair use’, a ruling that many in the media field have claimed could have far-reaching implications for journalism in South Africa.

Quoting from someone else’s article and linking through to the source at the bottom? Scandalous.

[source:fin24]