Associated Press sues VeriSign over news Web site

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Associated Press is suing VeriSign Inc to stop its online subsidiary Moreover Technologies Inc from publishing AP news reports without permission.

The AP lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeks unspecified damages and a permanent injunction against VeriSign and Moreover.

A VeriSign official was not immediately available for comment.

The lawsuit says VeriSign and Moreover "are reproducing, publicly displaying, caching and archiving AP's articles on defendants' services without AP's permission."

The lawsuit also says Moreover is "ultimately selling access to those works immediately upon their publication to paying subscribers ... In one or more their services, defendants deliver the entire AP article."

Moreover operates and promotes fee-based and advertisement -supported services it promises will deliver real- time news in as fast as two minutes of publication, the AP said.

The news organization filed the suit after the companies failed to comply with a September 11 cease-and-desist letter, the AP said in a statement.

"Defendants responded through counsel their refusal to comply and continue to intentionally infringe on AP's rights," the lawsuit said.

Moreover's Web site says the company "has brought about a monumental shift in the nature of the distribution of news content." It says its technology "continually scours the Internet to capture and distribute breaking news and business information from thousands of qualified, handpicked sources."