The U.S. Supreme Court case International News Service v. The Associated Press in 1918 was a landmark decision that established the principle of "hot news" misappropriation. The dispute arose when the International News Service (INS), unable to access World War I news directly, began copying bulletins from The Associated Press (AP) and selling them as its own stories. AP sued INS for unfair competition, arguing that although facts cannot be copyrighted, their collection required significant resources and effort which should be protected by law. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of AP on the grounds of quasi-property rights over collected information while it still has value or is 'hot'. It held that INS's actions constituted unfair business practices because they free-rided on AP's efforts without investing similar resources themselves into gathering news. This ruling effectively created a limited-time property right for time-sensitive information, setting an important precedent for future cases involving intellectual property rights and fair competition laws.

In the dissenting opinion for International News Service v. The Associated Press, Justice Holmes argued that news is not property and therefore cannot be stolen. He contended that once a piece of information has been published, it becomes public knowledge and can no longer be owned by anyone. Furthermore, he stated that there was no legal basis for preventing one party from using facts obtained from another's publication as long as they did not copy the exact wording or presentation of those facts. According to Holmes, creating such a law would amount to giving an unfair monopoly over information to certain parties which could potentially stifle competition in the news industry. He also pointed out potential issues with enforcing this kind of rule internationally given differing laws around intellectual property rights in different countries.