how to set up a coffee news layout ?

Hello all! First time poster here who plans on being a regular. I've decided to start looking for opportunity as an entrepreneur.... and work toward my ultimate goal of leaving the 8x8 cube I've spent the last 8 years in!


So I'm curious.. anyone that was involved in this discussion ever move forward with doing this newsletter idea? I've started creating my own and I'm going to give this an earnest attempt. My main concern is doing enough to differentiate from Coffee News. Any ideas on how one could find something like this out? If I just surround "light-hearted news" with ads, am I still risking a lawsuit? Is changing fonts, paper color, etc.. with a completely different name enough? I don't want this to resemble Coffee News in any way, but with just a single double-sided news page letter, surrounded by ads, it's bound to resemble.

Flying Cow gives the following info on what happened in their Nova Scotia lawsuit:
"I heard that there was a lawsuit going on between Coffee News and Flying Cow. Is this true and what happened?
The verdict came out on January 9th, 2006. In the ruling, the Supreme court of Nova Scotia said that they did not want to limit competition and that Flying Cow was free to continue operations with a slight format change. On January 10th, 2006 Flying Cow was back to business as usual and on January 23rd, 2006 we debuted our new format to rave reviews."

I found a bit more information here that says:

2703203 Manitoba v. Parks, January 6, 2006 NSSC (Richard J.) Copyright Infringement/Get-Up/Punitive Damages

The plaintiffs sell a publication entitled COFFEE NEWS which has established a particular get-up over a long period of time. The defendant embarked upon a program with the aim of replacing the COFFEE NEWS publication with their FLYING COW publication. To accomplish this objective, the defendant used the design, format and other aspects of the COFFEE NEWS to cause confusion so that advertisers, distributors and readers might be persuaded that the two publications were "sister" editions rather than competitors.

Held: Injunction granted to prevent the defendant from publishing the FLYING COW in its present format and from further infringing on the plaintiff's copyright and from passing off. It is not material that the defendant's product is identified by a different name since the get-up is sufficiently similar that the public would be confused into thinking that the two are associated. Because the conduct of the defendant was highly reprehensible, punitive damages of $100,000 were awarded.

Even more in depth info is here.

My other main concern.. content. I notice that Coffee News and Tidbits (Flying Cow) both offer the "lighter side of the news" with stories from around the world. I assume their getting their content off the web as well? Is it legal to write a story from another story that you've read somewhere... rewording this article... or is this copyright infringement?

By the way.. some good info here on the process.

Thx all! Nice to meet everyone!
Jeff