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!
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
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."
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 don't think FrontPage has a paywall button.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
"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.
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.
You missed the part where the bus driver lets repeated free riders in, but does a drive-by at their house with his homies at midnight.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
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)