Copyright infringment via the Internet is becoming a hot topic, and some copyright holders are becoming very aggressive in their efforts to protect their property — and make no mistake, it is intellelectual property.
Jim Robinson himself stated just recently that the day was not far off when excerpting would have to be required on FR.
We are seeing more very good sites, such as the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, placed behind subscription-only firewalls.
And more and more sites are putting their content on-line in the form of non-copyable PDFs.
And if the stuff really hits the fan and the Associated Press decides to sue FR and a couple of hundred posters for copyright infringment then my excerpted posts are going to be the least of your problems.
While my communist comment was primarily joking, the real argument concerns capitalism (I'm in favor). You are correct that it is all intellectual property and one by one, publishers are coming to a realization that there is gold in them thar pages. Perhaps by giving our clicks to the sites, honoring their property rights (after all, Mark Steyn is not donating his articles to them, is he?), we will generate enough ad revenue and hit count to allow them to remain free of charge. Or perhaps all we will do is demonstrate that there is enough demand that a modest access fee is feasible. What a can of worms.