For the second time in less than a week, the Philadelphia Daily News is being sued for copyright infringement after allegedly using photographs without permission for their front page.
In the lawsuit, filed in Philadelphia Federal Court today, the Daily News is accused of "knowingly using a photograph hosted on The Phunyun's website without permission for use on their July 22 issue." The photograph in question ran on The Phunyun's website on July 21, the following day that same picture allegedly appeared on the front page of the Daily News.
Phunyun spokesperson Jay Geils said the news organization felt the need to file the lawsuit after seeing a similar suit filed by Brad Maule last week.
"It's pretty clear to us that the Daily News feels that they can just take anything they want whenever they want and we're saying 'no, you can't do this,'" said Geils. "I mean this isn't like the Internet where you can just steal music and whatnot. The Phunyun is not the Daily News' Limewire."
Last week Maule, founder of phillyskyline.com, filed suit against the Daily News, The Colbert Report and Family Dodge alleging they used images from his website without permission and is seeking $1.25 million in damages.
In their lawsuit The Phunyun is seeking $500 million in damages from Philadelphia Media Holding, owners of the Daily News and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Geils said the enormous amount they are seeking is due to "irreparable damage" which was done to The Phunyun.
"To be honest, this lawsuit wouldn't be happening if we were talking about the New York Times using our photo, or even the Inquirer," he said. "But the Daily News? Really? People only read that for sports and gossip. And 75 cents? Please."
Representatives for Philadelphia Media Holdings could not be reached for comment.
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