FACTS, ruled America's Supreme Court in 1918 in the “hot news doctrine”, cannot be copyrighted. But a news agency can retain exclusive use of its product so long as it has a commercial value. Now newspapers, fed up with stories being “scraped” by other websites, want that ruling made into law.

The idea is floated in a discussion document published by the Federal Trade Commission, which is holding hearings on the news industry's future. Media organisations would have the exclusive right, for a predetermined period, to publish their material online. The draft also considers curtailing fair use, the legal principle that allows search engines to reproduce headlines and links, so long as the use is selective and transformative (as with a list of search results). Jeff Jarvis, who teaches journalism students to become entrepreneurs at New York's City University, says this sounds like an attempt to protect newspapers more than journalism.

Germany is mulling something similar. A recent paper by two publishers' associations proposed changing copyright law to protect not only articles but also headlines, sentences and even fragments of text.

Critics say that would extend copyright to facts. It would also be hard to make either regime work in practice. In America, a regulator would presumably need to determine the period of commercial value: perhaps two hours for news of an earthquake, 30 minutes for sports results. In Germany, publishers want a fee on commercial computer use. Germany's justice minister last week hinted at support for the news industry, but also said that a new law would not stir young people to buy newspapers. New products, she says, would be a better response to flagging demand.