Slashdot Mirror
Pay Or Else, News Site Threatens
WED Fan writes "The North Country Gazette, a news blog, says users who read beyond a single page of an article must pay up or they will be tracked down. They don't have a pay wall. If you go beyond page 1, you owe them. From the article: 'A subscription is required at North Country Gazette. We allow only one free read per visitor. We are currently gathering IPs and computer info on persistent intruders who refuse to buy subscription and are engaging in a theft of services. We have engaged an attorney who will be doing a bulk subpoena demand on each ISP involved, particularly Verizon Droids, Frontier and Road Runner, and will then pursue individual legal actions.'"
Seems like a perfect solution to declining readership - sue them until they pay.
Uh oh, I guess I shouldn't have hit refresh 50 times!
0 Comments when I hit reply, and the site is already down.
Why do I suspect that somewhere in "upstate New York" there's a DSL modem sitting on a static IP that just got reduced to a molten pile of slag?
I'm going to go to the local StarBucks and register in their name and address and read/download about 100,000 pages. I hope they send starbucks a nice fat bill... Never did like them.
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"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
there was some dirt on my screen so I read "I doubt they have the mopey to prosecute..." and I never saw that before, but I thought "cool word, I doubt they have the mopey too"
Reading the news now, using Google's cached pages. I'm sure they can foot my bill for me.
Or, is this like picking up a discarded paper on the ferry and the guy at the news stand demanding you pay him for it?
Don't you yank peoples have an equivalent of the metro? A paper that knows what it's worth?
"Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
All the new articles seem to be password protected. Furthermore, I do not see a "purchase access" link anywhere on the front page. With that kind of usability, I'm sure tens of people will subscribe to them!
How much does a page that reads "Error establishing a database connection" cost? I mean, I think local news is good, but if that's your only headline...
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"Just the slashdot effect alone will likely bankrupt them."
That's horrid! Time to alert 4chan to help save them!
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Yeah, I didn't even get a chance to look at it.
I'll set my computers to refresh the page every couple of minutes until it comes back.....
Oh, Slashdot...didn't you sillies read their "do not 403 this website" warning?
SUED!
My debut novel AMITY now available: http://jeremydbrooks.c
I just read 2 articles. I invite them to hire a Canadian lawyer to come after me.
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
Absolutely! Just fill out the following N401 form and we'll have it deposited soon.
Your full name:
Bank Account#:
PIN:
SSN:
Favorite Dog Food:
Phone Number:
To protect all parties involved, please have at least $2,000 in the account so we can verify it's really yours.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
You would not survive the attempt.
I just read about 100 articles.
Any letters I receive from lawyers will be used to keep warm this winter. Thanks in advance.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
But you can go #1 for free. You only have to pay if you go #2.
Or just use wget --mirror --delete-after?
I don't think FrontPage has a paywall button.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Is this like you go into the grocery store and eat a few twinkies and the manager bum rushes you and makes you gay?
Only in your dreams, mate.
"Look, that woman says a lot of things, yeah she's a real talker, but it comes down to a lonely old lady with something screwy upstairs sitting in front of a computer, with few friends, making enemies."
Dear God, someone get that woman a Slashdot account.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Oh, Slashdot...didn't you sillies read their "do not 403 this website" warning?
What "do not 403 this website" warning? I couldn't see anything; the page 403'd on me.
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
Seems to be working now. But I'm having a hard time with understanding the issue. Can someone please put it in a car analogy?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Don't you yank peoples have an equivalent of the metro? A paper that knows what it's worth?
Yes, it's called (wait for it) Metro.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
The North Country Gazette welcomes letters of up to 300 words. The editor reserves the right to reject letters or edit for clarity, brevity, good taste and accuracy, and to prevent libel. No poetry or letter writing campaigns will be accepted. Submissions are limited to one every 30 days. All letters must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. We will not publish street address, e-mail address or phone number.
Letters can be submitted at news@northcountrygazette.org. All letters become the property of The North Country Gazette.
So...a letter writing campaign consisting of an anonymous 301 word bad-taste poem sent every 29 days would not be well received? Interesting...
Does the 403 page count as my one freebie?
-- Braden's law of data: All data spends some of its lifetime in an excel spreadsheet.
I'm going to sue you!
How many hits did they sucker you guys into giving them?
Also, I hope your .sig was serious or I'm going to feel like a real ass...
I hear the Juan Williams dartboard is bringing in the scratch!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Surely you could do better...
Mozilla/5.0 (EULA; For the privilege of replying to this HTTP request, you agree to remit $10,000 to me within 10 days per HTTP request you answered. Responding with a 200 OK, 302 or 303 REDIRECT HTTP status code constitutes your acceptance of this agreement. Payment is to be made in funds drawn from a US bank, by valid cashier's check or postal money order payable to XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX mailed to XXXXX address)
I will be happy to pay the $100, in fact, I will read it again and pay you $200. However, I will need your assistance in handling some fees on my end in order for the transaction to work. For various reasons, I cannot make these payments directly. Please wire $100 to the specified account as soon as you get my $300 money order from Nigeria.
I would normally just ask one of my many rich uncles to pay it (they're all Generals), but they keep dying on me, and I'm just having the darndest time trying to retrieve the funds.
Hmmm, Tab Mix Plus has a fun "Reload every x seconds" option... maybe I should just leave that on for a day or two, set to reload the North Country Gazette every second. Who's with me? :p