But her ruling had upheld another claim, under New York State misappropriation law, that the league's commercial property rights were being taken without compensation.

New York sought to apply ethical standards to the INS case and created its own body of misappropriation law.

However, the Second Circuit Court found that the New York misappropriation law "goes well beyond the 'hot news' claims and is preempted".

But Mr. Deutsch and his colleagues argue that Federal copyright law supersedes New York state misappropriation law.

Due to the case involving the International News Service (INS) and the Associated Press (AP) in 1918, New York created a misappropriation law.

Many states have misappropriation laws that can be used to bar database piracy, while federal copyright law affords protection to the expression, selection and arrangement of facts within a database, but not, it must be stressed, to the facts themselves.