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New York Times Sued Over URL Linking
Davros writes "GateHouse Media, which publishes more than 100 papers in Massachusetts, accuses the Times of violating copyright by allowing its Boston Globe online unit to copy verbatim the headlines and first sentences from articles published on sites owned by GateHouse."
According to TFA, when this happened to Google News, Google settled with the complaining news agency.
I don't see NYT trying anything different.
This is EXACTLY why the majority of media companies DESERVE to go under. These idiots want to nail them for free links. What amazes me, is that by now, you would think that not only would they support this, but since the REAL cost of a news paper is the paper and the printing of such, they would get rid of it. .txt and .html directly), then add the capability to do news (make it seek out their site for updated news) PROFITABLY (add ads geared towards the user; provide cheap subscription that does just several ads total while none prescription gets small ad /page) all sold for under $100. Then drop your paper within several years. The important item is having the reporters. If ny times was STEALING the story (and not just the title, then they MIGHT have a real issue).
The major media companies could take ebookwise design and improve hardware (change USB to ethernet and wifi; change out the flash to something newer) as well as software (allow other formats esp.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It's funny how you never seem to hear the follow-up story titled "X's lawsuit thrown out because it's utter nonsense".
When did unsuccessfully suing people become a marketing tool?
What's next? Suing over the article about the linking? This is completely absurd.
and get your pitchforks in the meantime.
it's on again...
Read radical news here
The problem with the "fair Use" doctrine of copyright it requires and assumes parties to be reasonable and conscionable. Once either party behaves unreasonably or unconscionably, it ends up in court.
The worst part it is a type of legal situation that can't be defined easily. It must be vague to be flexible enough for there to be "fair use" of material.
Since the media companies HATE everything about fair use (except when it applies to their actions, i.e. HIPHOP sampling and so on) they constantly try to whittle away at it with precedent, using egregious cases that are far more reaching than the judges suspect before they make their rulings.
Unfortunately, lawyers, like all corrosive elements, feed of decay and destruction. Even the "good" ones make a living off the evils, yes by fighting it, but still by engaging it.
We need to find a new way to deal with injustice. The courts belong to big business and the unreasonable. Most people never seriously do anything to harm another, yet the courts are making precedent on the exceptions and that is destroying freedom bit by bit.
One could reasonably argue that copying verbatim headlines and first sentences in their entirity is fair use. I think it is, but that's a valid discussion to have. It's not about linking as much as copying the Gatehouse content and using it to label the links.
Boston.com's position as a competing entity (vs. Google's position as a search engine) lends credence to this point. Boston.com is essentially getting Gatehouse to write it's site's local content for them.
It's not as though the links were titled "Aritcle 7 from Gatehouse" instead of Gatehouse's actual title. The former case would indeed be about linking vs. about copyright.
otoh, Gatehouse ought to love having a megasite drive traffic to them. All I can imagine is that they're looking at their metrics and seeing people back right out. They ought to work on keeping those visitors once they get em.
I clicked through the links, and sure enough, it looks like they're suing over having their RSS feed aggregated...isn't the act of providing an RSS feed affirmatively granting permission fort others to aggregate the material contained in the feed for other sites and systems?
Good lord, a vast amount of blogs out there pretty much copy/paste at will. I don't know about Fair Use, because the nature of this is commercial, but the NYT can do a good step by removing all links to the offended organization, and never do them the favor of driving traffic to them again.
Is this thing on? Check. Check.
When someone links to your site you will get some visitors who wouldn't otherwise of stopped by. /. reader.... :-)
By using the title and the first sentence, this (IMHO) is enough of a taster that people who were interested in reading more would then click on the link and read the whole story.
Unless:-
1) The story is only 1 sentence long.
2) you are a
Surely the NYT can beat this because they are only using a very small part of the story. If I were a book or Film critic, I would be able to use verbatim a few of the words in the book or spoken in the film in my review so what is the difference here.
It is not as if they are using the whole article (or are they)
This is not the first case of this type and won't be the last.
As another poster put it, I wonder how much they have estimated they are going to lose when the NYT/Globe stops linking to their sites. Less hits means less pay/per click advertising revenue.
This is pure silliness if you ask me. They should be getting more people to visit their site not less.
Perhaps their Lawyers found themselves with nothing to do and felt thay had to be seen to be earning their fat/huge/obscene retainers?
And no it is not the 1st April
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
TFA doesn't mention that Gatehouse licenses content on their sites as CC by-attribution non-commercial license. The dispute here is specifically about the commercial use of content. It's a little different from the AP situation, where it appeared that the AP was going after everyone who linked to one of their articles. (Though, in practice, only commercial entities are worth the cost of a lawsuit.) Whether you agree with the Gatehouse position on the Globe's links, they're certainly not clueless. They have a strategy that allows pretty much unlimited non-commercial use of their content, while reserving rights to commercial use.
They're not suing for linking, they're suing for ripping off their material verbatim. I'm sure the New York Times wouldn't like it if I printed out copies of their newspaper and sold it for free.
RSS feeds simply fail the test of being copyrightable works of authorship.
The first case to go to court will see the whole silly idea collapse.
Honestly, what do they teach in law school these days?
I work for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle newspaper, and a Gatehouse site, The Batavian, uses our headlines in their sidebar.
This is a boneheaded, hypocritical move by a desperate company - their market cap has dropped to about $2 million.
Nope.
Anybody want my mod points?
This is theft of material, pretty much plain and simple.
How is that?
Treating stuff on the web as a free-for-all and just republishing/redistributing it freely is fine as long as it benefits the person doing it.
They weren't "republishing" they were linking to it with a brief synopsis of what the like points too.
Nobody likes getting their stuff stolen and redistributed but most people on Slashdot can't see that far in front of their nose.
It isn't "stolen" as no one is deprived of its use.
Only a group of Massholes could stoop to such a lowly position.
the problem goes away.
If they want to cite NYT material, the NYT can't stop them either. Apart from that, its English. There are only so many ways to express a concept before they are forced to reuse words and phrases.
"On pourrait essayer un autre language, mais cela ne vaut rien su on veut ètre compris."
Translated: "We could always try using another language, but it would be worthless if we want to be understood."
Of course they'll 'twinkle' out of existence like stars in a cold dark sky.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
What I find funny is that so many believe in Obama for solving things while others are blaming the man for everything. I have seen ppl who blame Obama for the Mumbai attack as well as Israel/Hamas stuff now. Then there are others who think that he will fix all the racial issues in America while others think that we will be in worse shape than Zimbabwe on Jan 22.
I feel sorry for the man. He has probably inherited the WORSE situation since FDR who inherited a coming nightmare from Hoover/Coolidge fame. Maybe even Worse. At this point, if he is able to help the economy, put in amendments to solve the deficit issue that we have (Balanced Budget Amendment) AND will go after the corruption that we have (put W, Cheney, Delay, Hastert, Stevens, Blagovich, Jefferson, etc in prisons and pass amendments to prevent the illegal actions that we have seen for last 28 years), I would rate him in the top 5.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Let's see...
If the NYT lost such a case (not likely), what would the outcomes possibly be?
1 - NYT hires some junior reporter wannabes whose job it is to read articles on other sites, rewrite them without plagiarizing, and post as NYT material. The winner gets neither fees and advertising revenue. NYT gets the stuff cheap.
2 - NYT pays licensing fees for linking to the winner's site. The winner gets both fees and advertising revenue. NYT gets shafted.
3 - NYT goes to the winner's competitor(s) and gets approval to aggregate their material instead. The winner gets neither fees and advertising revenue. NYT gets the stuff cheaper than option 2, but probably more than #1.
To me, given the possibility that the NYT would win a 'fair use' case, especially since the stuff was on an open RSS feed anyway, and a cheap possible solution if they lose, the complainant is a fool.
If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?
thinking, "Not another:
a. hom-,
b. racist-,
c. gender-, or
d. age-
o-phobic lawsuit over civil rights violations and/or LIBEL?
RR
After RTFA, here's what I see: Gatehouse shows ads on the story pages, and they are getting paid whenever someone follows a link from Boston Globe and reads the story. On the face of it, their claim of copyright infringement is ridiculous. The excerpted material is small, and if someone wants to read the article, Gatehouse will make money.
Their problem is that they also want the homepage impressions. If someone goes to Gatehouse's site(s) instead of Boston Globe's site, and clicks through a story link, they will have seen two pages of Gatehouse's ads, not just one.
That their revenue model is inappropriate and unrealistic, is of course irrelevant to their lawyers. That's what they're doing so anything that threatens it will be resisted.
Furthermore, sometimes advertisers request ads to run on the home page only. So Gatehouse has some users who are never seeing a certain class of ads.
This is tricky. Papers need ad money or they will go away. But there just isn't provision in the law that somehow makes a special case of home pages (and it's hard to think up a way such a change could really be rationalized); that's just an ad industry thing, and it might even be a fleeting one (so much of monetizing the net is still kind of experimental).
Law shouldn't "legitimize" new/experimental ideas (e.g. treat home pages or links as a special case and protect them by infringing other peoples' rights) that don't really have any philosophical foundation and may even be obsoleted within a few years. (When the law does screw up these kind of decisions, you get crap like the DMCA, which not only took sides on the ridiculous question of DRM, but took the wrong side and ended up damaging both the technology and media economies. DMCA is a great example of the damage that trigger-happy impulsive government embracing of ephemeral nonsense can do. Passing new copyright laws that prohibit linking, would be even worse, IMHO.)
IMHO, Gatehouse should deal with the fact that users are choosing someone else's home page of links instead of their own. Make theirs better.
Or do what my local daily newspaper does: if the referrer isn't themselves, show a super-annoying interstitial. (Actually, as a user I really hate that, but I have the luxury of not working there and tearing my hair out, worrying about the finances.)
Likewise, advertisers should think twice about treating home pages as a special case, and running home page only campaigns. They should be buying ads where ever people are going to see them and soak into their brains. I'm really skeptical that home pages somehow make readers take the included ads more seriously. Home pages are some of the noisiest things out there; I'm surprised that they don't pay less than the "real content" pages.
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