Ekstrand explores the legal protections for the newsman's scoop, the hot news doctrine. This U.S. Supreme Court doctrine, now more than 80 years old, protects facts for a short period after publication -- in direct opposition to U.S. copyright law, which dedicates facts to the public domain. It remains highly controversial, but extremely valuable – not only to news organizations who seek its protections but now to others who seek to protect facts within highly complex and profitable digital databases. Though imperfect and ill-defined, the hot news doctrine may offer the best measured approach to protections for uncopyrighted works delivered by new technologies.

Ekstrand探索了新闻记者独家新闻的法律保护，即热点新闻理论。美国最高法院的这一理论已有80多年的历史，它在事实公布后的一段短时间内保护事实——这与美国版权法直接对立，美国版权法将事实公之于众。它仍然极具争议性，但极具价值——不仅对寻求保护的新闻机构如此，现在对寻求在高度复杂和盈利的数字数据库中保护事实的其他机构也是如此。尽管不完善且定义不清，但热点新闻原则可能为保护新技术所交付的未经版权保护的作品提供最佳衡量方法。