Before the case settled in January 2009, GateHouse Media (“GateHouse”),
a publisher of newspapers and corresponding websites, made a similar claim
against the New York Times Co., which aggregates local news on Boston.com,
for copying GateHouse’s headlines and leads.264 GateHouse specializes in
local content and advertising in both print and online media, filling the void
left by larger daily newspapers such as the Boston Globe.265 The New York
Times, however, decided to compete with GateHouse’s local websites with its
Boston.com website.266 The website included original headlines and leads of
multiple articles from GateHouse’s various local newspapers and websites.267
Because GateHouse was the “sole provider of local news from small suburban
neighborhoods,” this was a significant distinction from aggregators like
Google News that use thousands of sources for national news.268 GateHouse
argued that it needed protection because modern readers tend to look only at
headlines and excerpts, rather than actually visiting the site to read the whole
story.269 In addition to its claim of direct copyright infringement against
Boston.com for copying GateHouse’s original material, GateHouse also took
issue with Boston.com’s practice of deep-linking to a specific news article and,
thus, bypassing GateHouse’s homepage.270 GateHouse primarily earns revenue
through the advertisement placement on the homepage of its websites, whichexposes users to the advertisements while they peruse the headlines and
leads.271 Thus, the deep-links created the false impression that GateHouse
authorized Boston.com’s distribution of the copyrighted content, as well as
created confusion concerning the original source of the news stories.272 The
case, however, settled after the New York Times agreed to remove
GateHouse’s content from its websites.