[sweetliberty]

"It would help them and would not be a terrible thing for FR."

Why would we want to help THEM? And yes, it WOULD be a terrible thing for FR. One of the greatest things about FR is the blessed lack of ad assaults (not to mention the ensuing SPAM that follows).

[jpsb]

Because if Jim can't reach somekind of an agreement then FR as we know and love it is finished. How many lawyer do you think Jim can fight off, plus the copy right laws are clearly against us. So we need to make a deal, one that works for FR and one that works for the content providers.

This is all about money, or more exactly hits on their web site. FR can deliever alot of hits so it is in the interest of the content providers to make a deal and get the hits. So we have to put up with a ad in each thread that the content providers provide, big deal, they get the hits we get the article. I can live with that an I am sure most freepers can too.

Hey it's not my call so I really don't know what will happen.

[weegee]

Another nice thing about those spyware programs like Spybot and Adaware is that they permit you with the click of a button to permit them to block hundreds of websites that contain nothing but ads. Meaning that even though I surf to the host news organizations' websites, I don't see every banner ad they have. Sometimes a popup will launch but all I get at my end is a "null" website marker.

So even though I am looking at a website using their own server, I don't see all of their glorious advertising. There are also people who run software that limits or eliminates java scripts and block cookies. Those people legally see the pages without giving the website cookie click throughs. Those people also "deny" the website revenue for viewing the articles.

The legal answer regarding it being a copyright violation because the host website loses some click throughs has been shown to be false. There are other mechanisms that can be legally employed to view the page on their own server without the clicks.