GateHouse, New York Times trial postponed

A federal judge has pushed back the trial date for GateHouse Media Inc.'s lawsuit against the parent company of Boston Globe until Jan. 26 at the request of both companies.

GateHouse, which publishes 125 papers in Massachusetts, sued the New York Times Co., owner of the Boston Globe and Boston.com, earlier this month, complaining that it violated copyright law and other statutes by routinely posting the headlines and first sentences from GateHouse stories, along with links to full articles, on Boston.com's new community web sites.

When the suit was filed, a New York Times Co. spokeswoman said the complaint was without merit, adding that it's common practice for companies to link to other web sites on the Internet. The case could potentially help define what type of linking is acceptable on the Internet.

According to court filings, both parties anticipate they will waive their rights to jury trial at a Jan. 5 status conference and complete discovery and expert depositions in the next few weeks.
(By Todd Wallack, Globe staff)