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Pay Or Else, News Site Threatens

Posted by samzenpus on from the good-luck-with-that dept.

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.'"

3 of 549 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Clueless by clambake · · Score: 5, Interesting

    By that same token, you might consider their site offering you a page of data an implicit agreement to YOUR contract (the one that says you own all data that is given to your browser and expect royalties), no?

  2. Re:Clueless by Mistlefoot · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No, someone needs to change their browsers user agent string to a EULA.....

    Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:2.0b4) Gecko/20100818 Firefox/4.0b4

    to

    Mozilla/5.0 (EULA; By allowing me to browse your website you agree to allow me to browse your website for free)

    It works just fine.

    If they allow you to browse then they are agreeing to your license agreement AS MUCH AS you are agreeing to theirs.

    Heck, just for fun, add a charge for your viewing the ads on their webpage and bill them.

  3. Re:Clueless by hrimhari · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Wow! This might actually work!

    --
    http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13