New York Times Sued Over URL Linking

Davros writes "GateHouse Media, which publishes more than 100 papers in Massachusetts, accuses the Times of violating copyright by allowing its Boston Globe online unit to copy verbatim the headlines and first sentences from articles published on sites owned by GateHouse."

Re:RSS = Copyright Violation?

[yelvington]

If you look at a Gatehouse RSS feed, you'll see that it is clearly marked as copyrighted material and licensed under a Creative Commons "no commercial use" provision.

There's a Creative Commons Angle

[lal]

TFA doesn't mention that Gatehouse licenses content on their sites as CC by-attribution non-commercial license. The dispute here is specifically about the commercial use of content. It's a little different from the AP situation, where it appeared that the AP was going after everyone who linked to one of their articles. (Though, in practice, only commercial entities are worth the cost of a lawsuit.) Whether you agree with the Gatehouse position on the Globe's links, they're certainly not clueless. They have a strategy that allows pretty much unlimited non-commercial use of their content, while reserving rights to commercial use.

Re:No wonder media companies go under

[yelvington]

Some facts that might get in your way:

* Newspapers have experimented with specialty devices -- and premium/pay services -- for years. Doesn't work. Generalized computing devices and free services have flooded the marketplace and there's no turning back.

* Newspapers are already dropping print editions [yelvington.com] all over the country. Gatehouse itself announced yesterday that it's killing the printed Kansas City Kansan, and going online-only. I have yet to see a case in which this is anything other than a desperation move by a failing business. In the case of the Kansan, I think they only have 7,000 monthly unique users on the Web. That's not a viable business, regardless of what you might "save" by not manufacturing and distributing a printed product.

* Gatehouse's complaint -- and I've read it -- contains a laundry list of issues, some of them in direct conflict with one another. But there is one charge that isn't easily dismissed. The Boston Globe is essentially creating a derivative product to enter hyperlocal markets where it previously had no presence. Gatehouse points out that nearly all the links on the local Globe products are Gatehouse content. That may flunk the fair-use test. (On the other hand, that argument effectively puts Gatehouse in a position of claiming it's entitled to preservation of a monopoly.)

* Gatehouse licenses its content under a Creative Commons no-commercial-use provision. Defining what's commercial use is a big hairy mess, but it's not possible to argue that the NYT company is a noncommercial effort.

Other perspectives:

Mark Potts: http://recoveringjournalist.typepad.com/recovering_journalist/2008/12/gatehousegate.html [typepad.com]

Dan Gillmor: http://www.citmedialaw.org/blog/2008/gatehouse-v-ny-times-co-not-so-simple-after-all [citmedialaw.org]

Re:Google says "take the deal."

[Kindaian]

Not exactly.

They settled the matter with authorization from google to use the full article, for a fee.

That is very diferent. ;)

Re:No wonder media companies go under

[ubrgeek]

Windbourne, what the hell are you talking about??

1) Knight Ridder has always been at the forefront of trying new technologies, including that abortion of a partnership that was New Century Network (I suffered through the thing, and tried to convince the paper where I was running so-called "new media" efforts that it was a waste or resources). IIR, they also tried developing a handheld device so you could "read the paper on the subway." Newspapers aren't staffed or designed for R&D. Oh, and Amazon says the Kindle gives you access to online newspapers and magazines. I can't vouch for that as I won't pay ~$360 for a thing. Let me guess, in your opinion the high cost is the papers' fault?

2) The real cost of a newspaper is people, not paper. Paper is a _huge_ cost, but it's bought in such gigantic quantities by a chain (or in partnership with other papers if that makes more sense in the particular case) that it makes it cheaper than the cost of reporters, advertising folks, printers (and their union, which is a giant cost-suck) etc.

3) "This is EXACTLY why the majority of media companies DESERVE to go under" - This part of my response has nothing to do with logic, just pure sentiment, but does a statement like that apply to the auto industry? It "deserves" to go under? Take into account the workers and ancillary businesses tied to it (shipping, material suppliers, etc.) and your statement leads tomakes no sense. Neither "deserves" to go under, it's just that it most likely will ... I don't see a massive bailout of newspapers being offered by the government.

4) I'm assuming "prescription" is "subscription" but regardless, ad revenue is of course tied to how much a paper can charge for ads. Ad prices are based on the number of subscribers, and papers have to sell more than 50 percent of their print run to count as "subscriptions" (i.e. if you give away 51 percent of your run by leaving it outside of hotel rooms, then your number of subscribers is much less than the number of readers so have to charge less.) Your argument sounds like those often-heard on /. - "I pay for cable, why should I have to watch ads?" Why? Because that's the way the economy and business model works. Don't like it? Don't buy a newspaper. Plenty of other people are doing the same, but it has nothing to do with the fact that they have advertisements. (And, as an FYI - Sunday's newspaper is generally the most voluminous of the week because people want to see the advertising supplements. They depend on coupons, etc. And don't ask for a "citation" - In this case, I'm the citation; I've worked in newspapers long enough to know this subject. )