Free Republic

A federal judge in New York says that the Huffington Post and its parent company, AOL, don’t have to pay bloggers who provide content for the website. U.S. District Judge John Koeltl dismissed a lawsuit that bloggers filed last year, saying they were unjustly denied compensation for their work.

They were taken before Marilyn Monroe became branded as the voluptuous blonde who oozed sex appeal in dozens of Hollywood films. A 24-year-old Marilyn Monroe poses for Life magazine in August 1950. They were taken before rumors of an affair with President John F. Kennedy swirled and her mental breakdowns became public. They were taken before the beautiful actress's mysterious overdose that resulted in her death at the age of 36. In a collection discovered by Life.com last month, unpublished photographs of Monroe reveal a softer, more innocent 24-year-old budding starlet in a more peaceful time, before her fame peaked....

NEW YORK The New York Times angered hundreds of freelance photographers last week when it distributed a contract some are calling "outrageous," "insulting" and just plain "sad." The contract asks freelance photographers to assign joint copyright ownership to the Times (Click for QuikCap), giving the newspaper the absolute right to exploit the photographs for the life of the copyright and collect all licensing fees, without payment to the photographer. The Times had no previous written agreement with freelancers. Photographers, copyright lawyers and industry trade groups have objected to the new contract, saying it puts the freelancer at a distinct disadvantage....

MP3s Are Not the Devil Since every penny I earn depends on copyright protection, I'm all in favor of reasonable laws to do the job. But there's something kind of sad about the recording industry's indecent passion to punish the "criminals" who are violating their rights. Copyright is a temporary monopoly granted by the government -- it creates the legal fiction that a piece of writing or composing (or, as technologies were created, a recorded performance) is property and can only be sold by those who have been licensed to do so by the copyright holder. Without copyright, once a...