Copyright violations: Please do not post full text from SF Chronicle and SF Gate

Email message from sfgate.com | April 2, 2004 | John Angelico, SF Gate

[Jim Robinson]

Subject: Copyright violations in re: SF Chronicle

Date: Fri, 2 Apr 2004 14:15:25 -0800 (PST)

From: John Angelico

To: jimrob@psnw.com

Dear freerepublic.com,

It has come to our attention that you have copyrighted SF Chronicle and SF Gate articles posted within your Message Board area. Here's an example:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1091396/posts

Our policy is to allow other sites to link to our site, but not to host our material. This policy ensures that our traffic numbers will be sufficient enough to maintain our free archives, which benefits everyone.

Please remove these full text posts (or replace them w/ abstracts and links to the full article on our site). Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

John Angelico sfgate.com

[Jim Robinson]

Please do not post full text from SF Chronicle and SF Gate. I've added them to our growing list of excerpt only publications. I'm afraid it won't be long until we have to excerpt and link only for most.

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[commish]

At least they were nice about it, and didn't come bashing your door down with lawyers.

I personally don't have a problem posting excerpts. It might be time to consider just making it FR policy that any copyrighted material must be posted as an excerpt unless the author gives consent.

[IncPen]

It's inevitable... until we get a better reading from SCOTUS re: fair use on the web...

[Condor51]

I think you are correct. Excerpts will become the norm.

Which btw is not a bad thing IMO. Sometimes it's easier on the eyes to read the original due to formatting and such.

[Drango]

Bite me John Angelico. I'm proud to say I canceled my subscription to your worthless rag. I'll excerpt, but never, ever will I buy your filthy paper no matter how constipated my bird is.

[FreedomCalls]

The real reason for posting in full is because the original sites have no qualms about breaking the links or even (like the BBC does) going back and altering the original without notice. It seems FR serves the same purpose as a library's back issues stacks.

[leadpenny]

Give 'em what they want, Jim. Prohibit anything to do with the SF Cronicle.

No links. No excerpts. Nothing! Who needs 'em?

[BCrago66]

There's not much of value in that paper anyway, except for comedic value.

[leadpenny]

Chronicle.

[Drango]

commish> I personally don't have a problem posting excerpts.
Condor51> Which btw is not a bad thing IMO

I'm guessing both of you have high speed and don't need to connect to the link at 28K?

[IronJack]

We all knew this would become a problem after the LAT/WP suit.

[.38sw]

Please remove these full text posts (or replace them w/ abstracts and links to the full article on our site).

So, they expect you to go back and remove full text posts? Not just "don't do it anymore", but actually remove previous posts?

[glock rocks]

Oh darn. We're gonna miss out on stuff like this?

"Maybe it's still to come. Maybe total screaming misery and unspeakable sociocultural collapse coupled with wanton bestiality and incest and the giving away of free anal beads to innocent teenagers takes more than a month. Maybe I'm just a little impatient."

...from article linked in the thread.

[SF Republican]

Don't post, hell, don't read (unless you want a blood pressure check)

[Rodney King]

You'd think that if FR was truly in bed with Karl Rove that you would be able to get some help from the White House.

[Condor51]

I'm guessing both of you have high speed and don't need to connect to the link at 28K?

Oops, you got me. Yes I have broadband. I've forgotten how long it takes a page to load via a modem. I do see your point.

[hellinahandcart]

Bad news for fans of Miss Morford.

[Glenn]

It might be time to consider just making it FR policy that any copyrighted material must be posted as an excerpt unless the author gives consent.

Or create a managed URL list. Spider the supplied URL to find the posted text for verification so the DU trolls don't sandbag us.

And whatever happened to the proposal of comparing supplied URL's with existing posts to prevent duplicates? It was a fine idea.

While I am critiquing the world:

How about an option to turn off everything fundraiser after an ID has made a donation?

I just know John can do all that in quick time.

[presidio9]

Bad news for fans of Miss Morford. Where Is My Gay Apocalypse?

If you click on the link provided by Mr. Angelico, you will come to a thread started by me. It is Morford's last column, posted a month ago. Since that time, she has missed 8 deadlines, with no explanation. Harley Sorensen, their other resident lefty nutcase, also stopped writing during this period, but the SFC notified the readers that he was "on sabbatical." Morford's AWOL status was swept under the rug. Just this week, her name was removed from the Op/Ed columnist's page, so she may quite possibly be gone for good. I'm guessing she's back in rehab. Her stories were getting lazier and more confused in the lead-up. Either that, or the doctors are still looking for the other gerbil.