How To Save The Newspapers, Vol. XII: Outlaw Linking [Chicago judge would outlaw links, excerpts]

Tech Crunch / Slashdot ^ | 2009-06-28 | Erick Schonfeld

[rabscuttle385]

Much of what Posner wants to outlaw is public discourse. Why is it okay for people to talk about the day’s news in a bar or barber shop, but not online? People should be able to discuss the day’s news on the Web without fear of violating copyright law. The natural way people discuss things on the Web is by quoting and linking to the source.

*Ping!*

[cranked]

Copy-n-paste still works with proper citation regardless of a working/active link.

Furthermore, screenshots can do the same thing also given proper citation.

[TribalPrincess2U]

I’m going to be sick!

[rabscuttle385]

The judge in question would ban all excerpting and linking, regardless of citation or medium of excerpt (text, screenshot, etc.).

[Texas Eagle]

He suggests that linking to copyrighted material should be outlawed.

It's worth a try.

[Jo Nuvark]

[... Posner is a United States Court of Appeals
judge in Chicago and legal scholar...]

“Chicago scholar”? What’s not to understand?

[pray4liberty]

Removing the links would obliterate the majority of the online readership for many newspapers.

Nice going Judge, crash what's left of the MSM newspaper business!

[rabscuttle385]

fyi

[Jim Robinson]

If you’re gonna outlaw hyperlinking, might as well outlaw the Internet. When free speech is outlawed, only outlaws will have free speech.

Bring it on bitches!

But keep your powder dry!

[cynwoody]

A link is nothing more than a citation. Citations have always been legal.

But if you did outlaw links, you would also have to outlaw citations. This is because it would be simple to write a Greasemonkey script to scan through a page and convert all its citations into links, this taking place after the linkless page had been downloaded from the law-abiding server. LOL!

We need neither newspapers nor Posner.

[Don Corleone]

Pull all the index cards out of the public library's card catalogue too...you moron!

[Valin]

Becker-Posner Blog
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/

The Future of Newspapers—Posner
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2009/06/the_future_of_n.html

The Social Cost of the Decline of Newspapers?Becker
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2009/06/the_social_cost.html

[radiohead]

Man, the syllabus just writes itself. I teach grad level information policy and the past few weeks have been full of ‘OMG, I can’t believe this crap is happening’ technology/info policy stories. I can’t wait for the course to start.

The judge is delusional.

[Anti-Bubba182]

A Link is an address. It is the equivalent of a footnote. A
ruling or law against linking would be Kafkaesque.

[CodeMasterPhilzar]

That's what I'm thinking. You want to completely kill newspapers, and not a few online news sources? Just prevent others from linking to them. That would mean if you google'd for something, it wouldn't show up. (without express permission) If you read a related article or blog, no links to others on the same topic. No traditional citing of sources.

Far from protecting online sides of newspaper, I think this would completely kill them. If FR, google, or Linux Today doesn't point me to a site/story, I just don't get there.

I wonder if a news agency could give blanket approval to say google to link to their material? That'd keep them in the search engines. Of course, then everyone else would merely link to the google link... Probably the only net effect would be to up google's hit counts and advertising revenue...

[AliVeritas]

FYI

[Vince Ferrer]

Where does Posner think most of their traffic comes from?

[raybbr]

That's what I'm thinking. You want to completely kill newspapers, and not a few online news sources? Just prevent others from linking to them. That would mean if you google'd for something, it wouldn't show up. (without express permission) If you read a related article or blog, no links to others on the same topic. No traditional citing of sources.

I am sure the papers would give blanket permission to Google and the other search engines. This is targeted to blogs and site like FR. Of course, the daily Kos would probably have permission so that only the lefties would get the news they want to hear.

[CaptRon]

Who “owns” the news? And excerpting is well within the fair use doctrine.