TAMPA - A U.S. District Court judge has ruled that a St. Petersburg company's Internet-searching software program did not infringe on copyrights held by another Web site.
Nautical Solutions Marketing Inc. of St. Petersburg runs a Web site called YachtBroker.com which uses a software program to harvest yacht sale information from other Web sites, including one owned by Boats.com of Lake Forest, Ill., and then compiles it for its subscribers.
Nautical's practice of collecting yacht listings, photos and product descriptions from various Web sites represented lawful use of facts that weren't protected by copyright law, Judge Steven D. Merryday ruled April 1.
In a seven-page ruling, Merryday also said the rights to the photos and descriptions listed on Boats.com's YachtWorld.com were held by individual yacht brokers, not Boats.com itself. In addition, Merryday said, Nautical did not infringe on any Boats.com copyrights related to the design of YachtWorld.com or the manner in which the Web site compiled and presented information.
Merryday's ruling comes after a federal jury in Tampa found in favor of Nautical in a defamation lawsuit against Boats.com, awarding Nautical $300,000 in damages last December, including $50,000 in punitive damages.
Representatives of Boats.com couldn't be reached Thursday for comment. G. Donovan Conwell Jr. an attorney representing Nautical, said Merryday's ruling will lend a boost to online brokers and so-called "aggregator" Web sites such as Nautical's YachtBroker.com.
"The broader ramifications are, it really spells out what's lawful activity for a search engine on the Internet," said Conwell, head of the technology group at the Tampa law firm of Fowler White Boggs Banker.
- Louis Hau can be reached at hau@sptimes.com or 813 226-3404.
