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FreeRepublic Case in Appelate Court Next Week

Posted by timothy on from the attribution-retribution dept.

An anonymous reader submits: "ETHER ZONE is running this article about the court case between the Los Angeles Times / Washington Post and FreeRepublic, LLC, which hosts the conservative politcal forum FreeRepublic. On Monday, February 11, the 9th District Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco will convene to hear oral arguments in the ongoing copyright case. At issue is the propensity of FreeRepublic.com and its owner, Jim Robinson, to allow the posting of whole-length articles from news organizations nationwide onto his server--a policy the Post and Times, respectively, assert infringe upon the intellectual property rights of both the news corporations and of individual writers."

5 of 22 comments (clear)

  1. What is Free by ThePilgrim · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Having read what Jim Robinson is aleged to have posted. It would seem he has the same mind set as those he claimes to dispise.

    He claims that Free Republic was set up in order to allow people to report and discuss the issues of the day with out hinderence. Then as soon as the USA gets one terrorist attack he supends the rules and declairs that decent will no longer be tolerated.

    Comming from the other side of the Pond, yes I am British, this smacks of the knee jurk reactisonism we have come to expect only from our politishions.

    If Jim was in the UK I'd say he was gunning for a knighthood, do you have an equivalent over there?

    Any way I think he'll loose this one on the grounds that he has cencerd some of the posts so his argument about not being able to cencer others don't stand up.

    Of cause when G. doublya Bush gets to hear about this he might want to do somthing to help.

    Watch this space.

    --
    Wouldn't it be nice if schools got all the money they wanted and the army had to hold jumble sales for guns
    1. Re:What is Free by JCMay · · Score: 2

      Decent [sic] will no longer be tolerated? I suppose that only indecent posts will be allowed to stay. Trolls, links to goatse.cx, that kind of thing.

      Isn't that called Slashdot?

      I think you meant dissent.

    2. Re:What is Free by kindbud · · Score: 2

      Curious spelling in a few places ("knee jurk"? "politishions"?) but no matter...

      If Jim was in the UK I'd say he was gunning for a knighthood, do you have an equivalent over there?

      Appearing on the Tonight Show.

      --
      Edith Keeler Must Die
  2. non-fair use and non-fair editorial policy? by rw2 · · Score: 2

    (Disclaimer, I run poliglut.com and am therefore somewhat in competition with FR (I say somewhat because he's conservative and we don't play favorites))

    The fair use thing is pretty obvious IMHO. He violated the standard and should be held accountable.

    What really bugs me though is that he ran his site nominally on a free speech platform and now not only deletes aritcles, but bans users who's opinions he disagrees with. (We don't do that at poliglut and I don't even *like* half our users ;-))

  3. FR is wrong here by L-Train8 · · Score: 2

    Right-wing nutcase or not, the principal of this case seems to be firmly established, and Mr. Robinson is in the wrong. Linking to articles or quoting small relevant portions is the simple way around this problem. If someone were to mirror the FR site in its entirety, but include some of the anti-government commentary Mr. Robinson is so busily deleting, you can bet he would take steps similar to those taken by the LA Times and the Washignton Post.

    Even free speech champion /. knows this sort of thing is not allowed.

    --

    Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.