Copyright violations: Please do not post full text from SF Chronicle and SF Gate

Email message from sfgate.com | April 2, 2004 | John Angelico, SF Gate

[Jim Robinson]

Subject: Copyright violations in re: SF Chronicle

Date: Fri, 2 Apr 2004 14:15:25 -0800 (PST)

From: John Angelico

To: jimrob@psnw.com

Dear freerepublic.com,

It has come to our attention that you have copyrighted SF Chronicle and SF Gate articles posted within your Message Board area. Here's an example:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1091396/posts

Our policy is to allow other sites to link to our site, but not to host our material. This policy ensures that our traffic numbers will be sufficient enough to maintain our free archives, which benefits everyone.

Please remove these full text posts (or replace them w/ abstracts and links to the full article on our site). Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

John Angelico sfgate.com

[radioman]

we should save the articles to disk when we post them...

That's a good idea. It would be nice to be able to show their dishonesty when needed.

How about a website devoted to catching them cheating? That could be interesting, and legal I think.

[radioman]

I might play around a bit

Cool...I'd like to see how that works out. I'm trying to learn my way through a Linux installation. Coding is next on my list of things to learn. Worst on the net?

[jpsb]

logic would look like this

void printThread(int ThreadId)
{
String abstract-null;
if (!overRide)
{
abstract = getAbstact(TheadId);
}
else
{
abstract = getArticle(TheadId);
}
String thread = getThread(threadId);
writeHtml(abstract);
writeHtml(thread);
}

[jpsb]

Well if you insist you can post articles on my forum and retrieve whenever you want. I have a very low volume site and if the copy rights become an issue I will write the software outlined above so you can over ride and get the entire article.

[ladyinred]

Nothing personal I am sure, right? :-)

[Revel]

The day FR no longer posts any full text articles...It will not be FR anymore...Just a chat room. Excerpts are not much use for research purposes. One of the real reasons why FR is so valuable is that the material is always there. No one can hide the truth. There is so much information posted here that could never be found again anywhere else. That includes the original source in many cases.

[roadcat]

I like reading the SF Chronicle every day - for humor. What else am I to do for comic relief since their comics page became an editorial section over the last 20 years? It's not a newspaper, because it isn't fair balanced truth and news. It's a tabloid written by amateurs out to yank our chain. Link we will, for comic relief.

[NormsRevenge]

sigh ...

The LA Potemkin ... The Monkie News .. The SF Carbunckle .. What next? The Slick Bee

obladi oblada ..

Oh well.

The days of print and news rags are fast coming to a close anyway. No loss.

[Freedom2specul8]

I think that would be way too big of a project..

I wonder if there is a way to teach people how to save their own articles on their own geocities webpage? It's free...of course there is a limited amount of space, but they could delete the oldest articles if necessary... I know one person who had 3 different geocities websitse. The possibilities are endless.

It could be something to suggest to JimRob perhaps? Maybe it's an option that could be suggested to posters when they are told the article has to be a excerpt..

[Freedom2specul8]

PS: It's definitely legal because it would be used for personal use.

[EveningStar]

Wow. These folks were actually nice about it. And honest too.

[M Kehoe]

I guess the "Town Cryer" is a thing of the past. In addition to the so called "Campaign finance reform," the First amendment is eroding fast. Kinda like the Second amendment.

Then they say this:

This policy ensures that our traffic numbers will be sufficient enough to maintain our free archives, which benefits everyone.

I have seen instances of them changing material in their archives. To either fit their liberal agenda or protect their ideology. Fish wrap or cage liner is the choice.

5.56mm

[TaxRelief]

The easiest thing to do to give the article a date stamp, is to Freepmail the full text to yourself. Or email it to yourself.

The best thing to do, when it's an option, is to get the event report from a publication that would not limit the use of the article, like the Washington Times and Fox news.

[Truth29]

If you get a reply from SFgate, would you please post it? Thanks.

[presidio9]

I actually like Adam Sparks.

[dennisw]

At least he communicated in a pleasant way, without idiotic legal verbiage.

[In_25_words_or_less]

Why not change the posting and display process as follows:

1. Posters copy and paste the original article in a window as usual. This archives the article in its original form. However this will not display on the thread, unless a "display archived article for comparison" link is clicked. The article is displayed for reading and commenting, though, in this way . . .

2. ALL articles are displayed only from their original URL source, in either a frame or popup window. If the original article is removed from the URL address, readers can click on the "display archived article . . ." link to read it.

Bingo. The sources get all the hits as they want. And the archiving is for historical record purposes only. And the intent is always demonstrably there to continue to give the source its hits.

[AppyPappy]

Remember, it is not necessary to merely excerpt. You can summarize the article in your own words.

[EveningStar]

...in your own words.

That's the key phrase. There are summarizing software products on the net that will summarize an article using the author's words. Using these products might still leave the site liable.

[texasbluebell]

It might be a good idea for those posting articles to just start paraphrasing the parts of articles that can't be posted in full -- as long as it's done accurately.

At least then people wouldn't have to go to the links, many of which are no longer available after a time.