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"I guess you haven't discovered that URLs can be changed en masse, in a matter of seconds. I could disable all the links on a site built up over years in under a minute, given access to the administrative PC. Is this so hard to understand?"

Archiving and reporting are two separate FR features. Archives are not lost to the public as I mentioned to NittanyLion in #121. If FR is intent on being an online library for back issues, their software could easily be set up to periodically check for broken links and then display the original copy made at time of posting (if that's really important). But then the copyright issue pops up again.

I personally don't think it's important. There are other paid services for archiving periodicals. Lexis/Nexis comes to mind. I don’t know how they deal with the copyright issue.

I think that 90% of FR's value doesn't involve article archiving. I think 75% of FR's appeal will remain if we had to link to full text. I think that's a fair price to pay for maintaining our principles. I think it was Dr. Laura that said, "It's not a principle until it costs you something."

And sure, I'll have a drink with you. Make it to the Keys, and we'll argue in person.

Going back to your #121:

Well, not likely an impossibility, just a big inconvenience. I think there are almost always ways to find an article in a back issue. So we're back to a "conflict" between property rights and convenience.

Actually, my previous post about accounting geeks and legal geeks was spot-on when it comes to this "convenience" issue. Let's pretend that a fellow named Hawking decides to take up critical media analysis of the Los Angeles Times. (Let's also pretend that he's an American citizen, too, while we're at it. **smile**)

There's this little deal called the ADA, that mandates making things "convenient" for guys like our Mr. Hawking. In the normal course of affairs, when Mr. Hawking wants to look up an old LAT article, and doesn't want to pay for it, he bops down to the local public library, which has spent our tax dollars to acquire microfiche of old LAT newspaper articles - full text, mind you. Of course, there's a little problem with our Mr. Hawking: he has a hard time getting into the local public library, and there are further problems with his use of the microfiche equipment. This is what's known as a straight-forward, in-your-face violation of the ADA (brought to you in part by ceratin liberal media rags!). I believe that this situation is actionable without notification.

Is there another way, you ask? (to be continued...)