> That's a very close replica of the one that Marco & I got. I was
> ready to fold, but Marco questioned his identity and turned out to be
> right.
>
> Mostly I post the full text of stuff that's short (one screen of
> text), or available only with subscription; otherwise, a summary or
> opening paragraph plus URL is best. If the copyright owners complain,
> we can take it out of the archives.
As somebody who has received a few cease and desist letters over the years, I can relate that they are mostly a bluff. A friend of mine here in Washington used to work for the RIAA and he once told me that their lawyers sent out 300 cease and desist nastygrams a day to people trading MP3s. They didn't intend to take action against all these people, but they were counting on the fear that people have whenever they see any kind of legal nastygram.
The corporate publishers have their head up their ass on the "deep linking" shit. The web was designed to provide hyperlinks to anything that was available on the Internet. If the publishers don't like the links, they should put up a fee barrier.
In reality, these asshole publishers simply move around their articles, in flagrant disregard for basic archiving and research principles. They do this against their best interest, since they are probably better off showing an ad to somebody who want to see that 1997 article for free, than they are in getting that person to pay for access to the archive.
There is another great argument against the publishers and their war on deep linking: public libraries. Libraries have given the public free access to the archives of newspapers and magazines for years.
I think that it is important to fight for fair use and not engage in self-censorship. Let the corporations be the assholes. It's not like they have much of a good reputation these days.
<< Chuck0 >>
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"...ironically, perhaps, the best organised dissenters in the world today are anarchists, who are busily undermining capitalism while the rest of the left is still trying to form committees."
-- Jeremy Hardy, The Guardian (UK)