More copyright complaints

Free Republic | April 8, 2004 | Jim Robinson

[Jim Robinson]

As most of you are aware, we've recently received several copyright complaints. In the last few weeks, we've received complaints from the SJ Mercury News, Independent (UK), SF Chronicle and The Boston Globe. Just a couple days ago the Post-Gazette send a cease and desist notice and yesterday I heard from the Tribune-Review.

Tonight, I got a call from Amy and there were two more registered letters at our PO Box. The McClatchy News (Sacramento Bee) and USAToday are now added to the list of publications that have complained about copyright violations.

Well, folks, the handwriting is on the wall. The complaints are now coming in faster than I can respond to them. John is currently in the process of writing programs to search out and automatically excerpt all existing threads from these sources.

I think we're gonna have to go to excerpt and link for all news sources very soon unless we have written permission on file.

[GeronL]

perfectly understandable

Hey.. I trademarked those two words used together.. You owe me $0.12 /kidding

[JustAmy]

Ahhhh .... c'mon, I didn't write the letters. LOL

[Piranha]

Why don't you just change the software so that no more than, say, 100 words can be included in an article at the beginning of a thread? I don't see the harm to FR in making people click through to the original sources (especially while there are sites like www.bugmenot.com that provide pre-registered names and passwords for sites that require registration).

[jpsb]

Yea, that is correct. I stopped hiring bands and stopped doing karaoke. Most (all) of the clubs in my little town did the same.

[Tree of Liberty]

What's the name of that small island/oil platform just off of England? It's an independent country that offers internet hosting services for just this kind of thing.

[Indy Pendance]

"What is the Internet Archive Wayback Machine? "

That's the same site. The 'wayback machine' is part of it.

[Nita Nupress]

There is no legal limit. Fair use is very vague. Each case is considered on its own merits. Supposedly, (in a noncommerical environment and or without damaging the publishers marketability) you can quote as much material as you need to make your point. We stretched that to the limit. If your point is, the entire article is biased, or the entire article needs to be exposed, dissected, compared fact by fact, lie by lie with others, or with subsequent articles on the same topic, etc, then you've got to post the whole thing. That's the point.

No legal limit, huh? Well, I can do a pretty good hacking job myself when posting an article, mainly because so much of the content in most articles is full of fluff. :-)

This stinks.

[LasVegasMac]

we will not be able to go back and research, and the opposition will be able to conveniently forget that the politicians have directly contradicted themselves.

I know it's not FR, but what was the web site that cache's everything published on the web ??

This is just another attempt, in the on going assault, by the Left Loonies to get control of the media.

BTW, I had the pleasure, a couple of weeks ago, of pulling up beside a car, at a stop light, that was festooned with Dean stickers.

A very nice day, windows down, etc....I could not resist....I started screaming at the driver of that car...Yyyeeaaahhhh.....were gonna get 'em....Yyyeeaahhhh.

I was very loud and very proud. Stupid, probably. Silly, definitely. Feel good ? Oh man, did it ever. I could see other drivers laughing.

Female at work. Nice looking lady, the sad part. Blonde's really are dumb (only if they don't vote Republican! - my apologies). She is my proof. She has no qualms about telling anyone - even those that did not initiate conversation - about how bad GWB and the Republican Party is.

I have always believed that you don't talk about politics or religion at work, but I had had enough of this airhead's unchallenged line of crap. So the next time I heard her talking crap, I rudely interrupted and asked, "So you think Bill Clinton getting blow jobs in the Oval Office was ok? You think that the sitting President lying to the public about that was ok??? My, my, you do have low standards, don't you! That's ok, we don't have very high expectations for Democrats, either." She doesn't talk sh*t anymore.

Fight....fight.....fight!!!!!!!!

The Democratic Party - it's not just a political party - it's a disease!

LVM

[Piranha]

Under copyright law, people can excerpt for fair use. While news agencies may pull their sites, we can link through Google's caches and also can post the relevant passages under the "fair use" doctrine.

It's a pain, but I don't think it's a fundamental handicap to FR's value and effectiveness.

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

I get around this by never posting any articles. ; )

[Indy Pendance]

who reads the articles anyway? It's more fun to make an idiot of yourself by posting a comment without reading the article. Better yet, is to read an article an miss a sentence or paragraph, then comment about the part you missed....

[Jim Robinson]

Well, they can't copyright the facts (or the so-called facts, LOL).

We can always pull the basic facts out of the articles and say, "The Washington Post is reporting that 'blah, blah, blah, etc' and 'Blah, blah, blah.'"

Just list the facts or points made by the article one by one and include a reference the source, title, author, date and include a link back to the source and they can't touch us.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Do you feature a jukebox? I may be wrong (it's been a while) but I thought that the fees you paid to prrovide jukeboxes also covered liver performances... did that change?

[Zeppo]

Would it make sense to investigate exactly who has been complaining to these publications? It is unlikely that they are doing this under their own initiative - there is almost certainly a single "invisible hand" behind this. It would be interesting to smoke out the culprit.

[Lester Moore]

This Copy right stuff is out of control.

Check here for an essay about the rules.
http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm

[Chad Fairbanks]

errr "live", not "liver". The people drinking are th eones with "Liver Performance" related things ;)

[jern]

great idea, would be great if the person who posted the article could go back and get google's cache (which takes about 2 days to hit the web after it posts on the internet)

[Indy Pendance]

What about quotes from sources within an article? Can all those be copied without the author's spin?

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

I'm still wonder who the "Elves" were. ; )

[Zeppo]

One more comment - many of the news organizations syndicate their works - what about the possibility of FR becoming a licensed news outlet so that FR can reproduce the content in its entirety?