More copyright complaints

Free Republic | April 8, 2004 | Jim Robinson

[Jim Robinson]

As most of you are aware, we've recently received several copyright complaints. In the last few weeks, we've received complaints from the SJ Mercury News, Independent (UK), SF Chronicle and The Boston Globe. Just a couple days ago the Post-Gazette send a cease and desist notice and yesterday I heard from the Tribune-Review.

Tonight, I got a call from Amy and there were two more registered letters at our PO Box. The McClatchy News (Sacramento Bee) and USAToday are now added to the list of publications that have complained about copyright violations.

Well, folks, the handwriting is on the wall. The complaints are now coming in faster than I can respond to them. John is currently in the process of writing programs to search out and automatically excerpt all existing threads from these sources.

I think we're gonna have to go to excerpt and link for all news sources very soon unless we have written permission on file.

[TheBigB]

excerpt: A passage or segment taken from a longer work, such as a literary or musical composition, a document, or a film.

Definitely an organized campaign. But I have no problem with excerpting.

After all, posting every word in an article except the last one would certainly fall under the definition from the American Heritage Dictionary given above. :) Heh, heh, heh...

[Publius6961]

Well, Jim, let's fight fire with fire. We can all just paraphrase the outrageous crap that they pring.
And if there are errors made, well, that is one of the reasons why quoting original sources works best, isn't it?

Works for me. My memory isn't all that great though.

[BigSkyFreeper]

"In any case, we knew a long time ago that it would be just a matter of time before we'd get whacked. Looks like the time is upon us."

Yep, the time is upon us. Election season.

[CyberAnt]

Can I ask a question?

I read Drudge a couple times a week, and I notice that HE NEVER EXCERPTS .. why? What's the difference. Does he have permission to print the whole article?

[Nita Nupress]

What is the legal limit as far as # of words? IOW, if I do a word count using Word, what's the maximum number of words we can post for any given article?

[The Old Hoosier]

We still have the conservative press--CNS, NRO, Human Events. We also have the alphabets and the NY Times.

[StriperSniper]

Just a crazy idea, reincorporate in some untouchable offshore hamlet?

There is(was) a peer to peer network called Earthstation5 or something like that, that was supposed to be untouchable since it was run out of the Jenin (Palestine) refugee camp. That is the last location I would suggest, but there has to be somewhere.

[seastay]

There is a site called The Internet Archive. It stores almost everything on the web, on it’s sever, so anybody can use to research old web sites that are no longer in existence. I wonder how they avoided the copy write issues, and perhaps sites like this one could legally link or copy data off of their site?

http://www.archive.org/

The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.

What is the Internet Archive Wayback Machine?

The Internet Archive Wayback Machine is a service that allows people to visit archived versions of Web sites. Visitors to the Wayback Machine can type in a URL, select a date range, and then begin surfing on an archived version of the Web. Imagine surfing circa 1999 and looking at all the Y2K hype, or revisiting an older version of your favorite Web site. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine can make all of this possible.

[Publius6961]

this won't slow us down - frankly most of the time there's far more interesting stuff in the responses than in an article itself!

Most of the time? What are you talking about?

BTW... what percentage of an article is considered a legal excerpt?

[ChicagoHebrew]

It smells like an organized campaign.

Maybe so, but it's their property right to do so.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Basically, what you are saying is that as the owner/operator of a business that features live entertainment, you pay an annual "Performance Clause" to the appropriate organizations, based on the number of seats you have, right?

Or are you saying you don't have those contracts, and you don't pay those fees?

As a member of a band, I always assumed that any establishment I performed in was covered in that manner...

[Rocky]

"It smells like an organized campaign."

Oh, I can't believe that. The newspapers would certainly not launch an organized campaign against a conservative internet site, would they? After all, they keep telling us that they have no political agenda. They are not biased. Not much.

[BigSkyFreeper]

Most of his stuff is linked to the actual article, no copyright infringement, and what he doesn't excerpt, is his own writing, gleaning excerpts from articles, much like the media would do with say an AP story, like quotes and such.

[Alberta's Child]

We should initiate a "bullet point" system where FReepers go through articles and list all the new/salient details when we aren't allowed to post. That will piss them off even more, without violating anything!

I like that idea. In addition, the "excerpt" should also include liks to the newspaper's advertisers -- so we can all send e-mails telling them why we won't do business with them anymore.

[StriperSniper]

(16.75 N 3.07 W)

;-)

[Jim Robinson]

There is no legal limit. Fair use is very vague. Each case is considered on its own merits. Supposedly, (in a noncommerical environment and or without damaging the publishers marketability) you can quote as much material as you need to make your point. We stretched that to the limit. If your point is, the entire article is biased, or the entire article needs to be exposed, dissected, compared fact by fact, lie by lie with others, or with subsequent articles on the same topic, etc, then you've got to post the whole thing. That's the point.

[Nita Nupress]

BTW, this is an organized campaign, you can be sure.

For any newbies who don't understand the implications of this: Once they shut down FR's ability to post the entire article, the masses can no longer do research on past events. If they're forced to report on something that makes Kerry look bad, they'll simply pull their link in a few days and then pretend like it never happened.

It's the left's only answer to their inability to hide their hypocrisy from everyone who can read.

It also shows you how desperate they must be.

[GeronL]

For example-Can I post the 2 or 3 key paragraphs from throughout a 12+ paragraph story and call that an exerpt if Iam linking?

That would still be excerpting, yes

[Chad Fairbanks]

Or, alternativly, as FReepers respond to the posted, excerpted article, they could "quote" the next paragraph in the article, and eventually the whole article is posted anyway, just in bits and pieces ;0)