Saturday, December 10, 2005
ALL THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO REPRINT
Wayne Sanderson, publisher of The Daily Briefing, threatened legal action against me last week after I pointed out that his for-profit site was lifting columns from the New York Times. In total, I think Wayne has tried this move on me four times; an unusual tactic for a claimed free-speech advocate. His emails—demanding that I apologise and retract, etc—usually warn that “the matter is now in the hands of my lawyers” or something similar, but no subsequent legal letter ever arrives.
At least Chris Sheil had the required level of craziness to actually contact a legal firm and have them send a ridiculous letter after I’d called him out on his Wesley Clark crush. (I must find that letter; been meaning to get it framed.) Anyway, Wayne declined to duplicate any NYT columns in the wake of that post. Possibly he’d realised he was in breach of copyright, or maybe he was simply distracted by the whole Webdiary meltdown. In any case, by Friday Wayne had recovered to the point he felt able to run 404 words from a David Brooks NYT column—cutting about 250 words from the original piece, which is behind an NYT subscriber barrier.
One of Wayne’s defences, in his absurd legalish emails, was that other rogue sites also reproduce subscriber-only NYT pieces. Which is true, although those other sites don’t run a $77 per year email alert business based in part on the republication of NYT columns. Scroll though this list of Daily Briefing posts and you’ll find some 16 items sourced from the New York Times, cut-and-pasted at The Daily Briefing, and subsequently deleted.
It doesn’t particularly matter that the NYT’s TimesSelect policy is goofy, or that TimesSelect is actually less expensive than Wayne’s weird lift-and-profit service. What’s important here is that Wayne is dragging down online media by doing something that is plainly wrong. The NYT can offer its material in any way it sees fit: available to all; to NYT subscribers; or only to gophers with Latin degrees and a minimum of two Grand Slam tennis titles. You don’t need to be a TimesSelect subscriber to read this TimesSelect Q & A:
Q: Will I be able to e-mail a TimesSelect article to a non-subscriber?
A: You can e-mail TimesSelect links with brief summaries to anyone but only TimesSelect subscribers will be able to read the full article.
Nearly two-thirds of a column isn’t a “brief summary”. Something of Wayne’s attitude may be understood by this:
Maureen Dowd fans can give thanks to Truthout.com for not having to pay ...
Wayne can also give thanks—for being able to link to Truthout.com’s Dowd reprints, which add value to his subscriber service without him shelling out a cent.
Let’s see if this provokes a fifth legal threat.
UPDATE. Sanderson has deleted the Brooks column.
UPDATE II. Some helpful guidelines for Wayne:
2.1 The contents of the NYTimes.com Internet service are intended for your personal, noncommercial use. All materials published on NYTimes.com (including, but not limited to news articles, photographs, images, illustrations, audio clips and video clips, also known as the “Content”) are protected by copyright, and owned or controlled by The New York Times Company, NYTD, NYTimes.com, or the party credited as the provider of the Content. You shall abide by all additional copyright notices, information, or restrictions contained in any Content accessed through the Service.
2.2 The Service and its Contents are protected by copyright pursuant to U.S. and international copyright laws. You may not modify, publish, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce (except as provided in Section 2.3 of this Agreement), create new works from, distribute, perform, display, or in any way exploit, any of the Content or the Service (including software) in whole or in part.
2.3 You may download or copy the Content and other downloadable items displayed on the Service for personal use only, provided that you maintain all copyright and other notices contained therein. Copying or storing of any Content for other than personal use is expressly prohibited without prior written permission from The New York Times Rights and Permissions Department, or the copyright holder identified in the copyright notice contained in the Content.
We at the Home of the Oafish Infant™ are pleased to assist in all your legal and publishing needs.