Reuters is taking steps to protect the copyright in its on-line news stories by deploying a software solution that will trawl the internet for unauthorised copies of its material and alert the agency to any infringements.

From April, Reuters will begin using the FAST software from Norwegian developer Fast Search & Transfer.

Paul Hansford, Global Head of Content Quality at Reuters, said:

"As the world's largest international multimedia news agency and content provider, it is important to know as much as we can about how Reuters' copyrighted news content is being used by our subscribers, as well as the general public."

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