IT'S NOT FREE! ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Do you think news floats around in the air like magnetic waves or something?
Hey, Meyer .... step outside, take a sniff of the news, and come back and tell what's happening in Kabul this afternoon, ok? Oh, and if you could search around the cosmos for a channel, could you report on what's happening in the Knesset about retaliation for the latest murders?
Do any of you work?
Its free by virtue of it being accessable for no cost. I can't step outside and read the news but I can walk to the corner library and read papers from around the country. For free.
And, I can discuss them with my friends. For free.
You see, if they didn't want their stories read with no exchange of cash, they wouldn't post them in such a way that poeple could read them that way.
FreeRepublic and sites like it are nothing but the extention of the library function. Its a non-profit site. It carries articles and allows anybody to read them for nothing. It allows its community members to comment on them. Tell me this; if libraries have been doing this for years and years, why isn't the LAT/WashPost sueing them?
Yes it does. Information is freely available.