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.'"

Comments

This woman is detached from reality.

[Hero Zzyzzx]

She got in a fight with a retired attorney here, where he calls out her sockpuppetting and claims that "fair use doesn't apply," like just saying it would make it so.

Anyway - she's clearing using an autoblogging plugin like wp-robot (won't link, they are scum) to rip articles from other sites via RSS while stripping attribution in her attempt to extort money from people more ill-informed than her - if they exist. Basically, she is guilty of exactly what she's accusing others of doing.

I love cranks. They really keep the world interesting.

Full disclosure: I sysadmin blogs.law.harvard.edu.

Re:Clueless

[Man Eating Duck]

So, if you don't agree to the contract, you can keep browsing as it is online for everyone to access, or does it mean that you aren't allowed to keep viewing the site unless you agree to abide by the terms they place on the website (purely from a law point of view)?

Unfortunately I get only 403 errors. I'd love for them to get my ip address and come after me. Norwegian courts wouldn't be amused with people suing a user for accessing freely available web pages, a court-ordered fine might very well be in order.

I believe that "North Country Gazette" has been misguided in this case by some consultant who is not worth his salt, but I'll say this anyway: If you publish your material freely accessible on a website listening on www:80, don't expect to successfully prosecute anyone accessing it.

As for the "contract": If I made a web page saying "Anyone who views this web page legally owes me 100 USD" I think it would be difficult to enforce it in a court of law.