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."
Just to point out for those who don't know, Judge Posner is probably the single most influential living jurist not on the Supreme Court (and will likely end up being more influential long-term than many on the Supreme Court; certainly more influential than Clarence Thomas). He teaches at one of the top six law schools in the country (Chicago), serves in one of the most important circuits in the country (Seventh, which includes Chicago--other important circuits are DC, 2d, and 9th), and is so ridiculously prolific. He's a pioneer of the currently en vogue jurisprudential theory of law and economics. He frequently feeds clerks from his chambers to the Supreme Court as well
My point is that this man has tremendous influence in the US. He's not an intellectual lightweight. Unfortunately, I can't read what he wrote since the blog entry seems to be down now.