Slashdot Mirror
Judge Thinks Linking To Copyrighted Material Should Be Illegal
An article at TechCrunch discusses a blog post from Richard Posner, a US Court of Appeals judge, about the struggling newspaper industry. Posner explains why he thinks the newspapers will continue to struggle, and then comes to a rather unusual conclusion: "Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers from so impairing the incentive to create costly news-gathering operations that news services like Reuters and the Associated Press would become the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion."
It would, if the anyone clicked on the articles to read them. IF anyone clicked on the articles to read them.
New at this, aren't we?
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
And since half the articles are dupes, Slashdot is infringing on itself and must self-destruct!
Old man yells at cloud.
Hypertext links are just the beginning. We must close the analog hole! Every time someone chats with a friend about the day's news, a poor, helpless newspaper loses money. And God kills a kitten.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.