No Quoting! No Linking!

The Tulsa World writes a blogger to "demand" that he "immediately remove any Tulsa World material from your website, to include unauthorized links to our website, and cease and desist from any further use or dissemination of our copyrighted content. If you desire to use (in whole or in part) any of the content of our newspaper, you must first obtain written permission before that use. If you fail to comply with his demand, the Tulsa World will take whatever legal action is necessary to assure compliance."

Comments

[Sandy]

Wow, somebody's lawyer didn't even do a cursory reading of precedents.

[Nobody Important]

http://www.tulsaworld.com/

Bwha ha ha ha!

[Neb Okla]

Last I checked, when the blogger's browser asked the Tulsa World's server if it could please have the content in question, the Tulsa World's server disseminated it freely - despite the ability of the Tulsa World to "not have a server" or to "refuse to deliver content to unauthorized parties" should they choose to do so.

Instead, they opted to provide the content to the blogger who sought it, and he used the content fairly to produce his parody of their article (and who could resist?).

[Matt]

Not a vanity thing, honest, in fact don't click my name if this description satisfies you: I've signed up for the Tulsa World's seven day pass, and will be posting daily "What's happening in Tulsa" posts with a few links and excerpts for the duration of it on my blog. If I were any good at starting tectonic movements in the blogosphere, I'd suggest others follow suit. Just, you know, cuz.

[WSDave]

Matt,

Maybe better yet would be to start a crusade to specifically ignore the Tulsa World and see what happens to the ad revenues. After all, it's not like it's the NY Times (and somebody might miss it).

[Semolina]

The newpaper's threat about linking is silly, of course.

But does anyone here actually know the extent of the copying this blogger engaged in? Or is everyone basing their reactions solely on his saying, "I believe I have respected the World's copyrights within the fair-use exemption"?

Unless you've seen every piece of Tulsa World content this blogger had reproduced on his site, and thus can make a reasoned judgment about his fair-use claim, it seems misguided to talk about "crusades" and such. He very well may have been infringing the paper's copyright. Without having seen the evidence either way, why automatically jump to the blogger's defense?

Oh, that's right -- it's the Internet, and the rules are different here, and copyright is neither a legal nor moral issue when it comes to the Web anyway, and the "MSM" sucks, and blogging is about to take over the world. I forgot.

[Matt]

I suppose it's possible that the guy is reproducing entire Tulsa World articles and passing them off as his own, or something. Short of that, though, there's no reason to suppose this isn't substantially true:

Many people in this city are fed up with the World and its allies. For the first time, in Tulsa's March 2004 municipal elections, Tulsa's voters elected a bipartisan majority of councilors who were not endorsed by the newspaper, five councilors committed to reforming city government so that it serves the interests of all Tulsans, not just a favored few. Alternative media outlets played a significant role in helping these reform councilors get their message out and win election -- principally, Talk Radio 1170 KFAQ; the Tulsa Beacon, a conservative weekly newspaper; and this blog. These same sources continue to subject the World's content to critical review on a daily basis. Now all three of us have received some sort of threatening letter from the World.

Anyway, generally, absent misappropriation -- which, again, if you want to entertain it as a possibility, I'll grant you is possible -- newspapers enforcing copyright rights against radio stations, competing newspapers and blogs is silly. Not sure I can prove that to your satisfaction, so take it for what it's worth.

[Ball of Confusion]

Without having seen the evidence either way, why automatically jump to the blogger's defense?

Because Tulsa World's inclusion of *links to their content* in their demands demonstrates beyond any doubt that they are over-reaching.

[Semolina]

Well, the blogger needn't have reproduced "entire articles" or "pass[] them off as his own" to have infringed copyright.

I didn't see the reproductions in question, so I can't form an opinion either way. I guess I'm just wondering why so many others are willing to. Maybe we're all guilty of knee-jerking here: Internet devotees are instinctively defending another Internet user, and I'm instinctively assuming they're doing it because nobody respects copyrights anymore.

[Semolina]

Ball of Confusion wrote: "Because Tulsa World's inclusion of *links to their content* in their demands demonstrates beyond any doubt that they are over-reaching."

It certainly demonstrates that they are overreaching in that particular demand. But it's a logical leap to presume, from that alone, that the blogger was not infringing their copyright in some other way.

[Matt]

Well, the blogger needn't have reproduced "entire articles" or "pass[] them off as his own" to have infringed copyright.

No, and you don't have to sue, or threaten to sue, every time you have a case, either. The point, which I did wait till the end of my reply to make instead of making up front, for which I'm sorry, is that the Tulsa World people are being jackasses. (If true that the blog, the radio station and the competing newspaper all got nastygrams and were all involved in campaigning against the paper's endorsed candidates, that points toward malice instead of their defending their property rights, too.)

If the guy didn't rip off their material and pass it off as his own, I don't think it's much of a logical leap to believe he reproduced what he needed to comment on or critique. When a news consumer -- blogger or otherwise -- criticizes something published in a daily newspaper, the newspaper ought to grow some, swallow their lawyers and be thankful for the publicity. Has nothing to do with the minutae of copyright law. I'm sure the Tulsa World will tell you they favor free speech and press; threatening legal action against someone who critiques what they publish is contrary to that, whether they have a case or not. Again, absent blatant misappropriation.

[Semolina]

Again, my main point here is that without having seen the material in question -- the alleged material, just to be really precise -- it's not worth rushing to judgment.

If your main point is simply that the Tulsa World folks are being jackasses, regardless of the case's legal merits, then I don't have anything to argue with you about. Because I don't know if they're jackasses or not.

[Mr. X]

Linking to a site is not a violation of the copyright on that site. The Tulsa World, which almost certainly is in a better position to hire expensive lawyers than a blogger, is bringing up the link issue to censor someone who spoke ill of it.
Copyrights are carried to ridiculous extremes. I don't remember the exact percentage, but 90 something % of the manuscripts sold to publishers are never published, which is a real problem considering the contracts don't normally leave the author with the rights to his work. A person can't even write and distribute the sort of line by line critique of a book that used to be commonplace in newsgroup threads. Because it would take an impossibly large sum of money to buy the right to publish such a book from a publisher reluctant to reduce demand for one of its products, people who would like to write such books have their ideas censored.
Nevertheless, Semolina had a good point. It is possible that the blogger included the full text of a significant portion of the articles that ran in the paper. That would do damage to the paper if the Tulsa World is loaded down with pretty colors and annoying popups that make its site too slow for busy people.

[The Lonewacko Blog]

My two and a half year-long boycott of the Tulsa World continues.

What's interesting here is the mob effect. Some blogger no one's heard of gets this threat. Insty gives him a link. A multitude of trackbacks from bloggers no one's heard of follows. Of course none of them, except perhaps the original blogger, will do anything about the larger situation mentioned by the OB.

As Popeye might say, it's the like the children of the corn, dude.

[herostratus]

There's such a thing as being skeptical.

And there's such a thing as being an idiot.

Semolina amd Mr X: I don't have to see the guy's blog to know that he is not reproducing great swaths of the Tulsa World to the extent that a significant portion of the population of Tulsa (well, those that can read) are all like Hey I think I'll just skip tulsaworld.com and go that blogger's site where he has a reproduction of the entire paper.

OK?

Now, how do I know this? In the same way I can assure you, even without ever met him, that the blogger in question is not a 300-foot-tall red jellybean with the head of Nancy Sinatra.

Sheesh. You people.

[Serafina]

>I don't remember the exact percentage, but 90 something % of the manuscripts sold to publishers are never published, which is a real problem considering the contracts don't normally leave the author with the rights to his work.

Oh, this is utter nonsense. Publishers have such small margins that they can't afford to pay authors for works that they don't intend to publish. And only work-for-hire contracts leave the author completely without rights to his or her work. Most publishing agreements go into great detail on how rights revert.

[Kid Handsome]

One way you could tell if he is improperly utilizing the Tulsa World material is to check out his site. That's what Hit & Run and Instapundit seem to be doing when they link his site.

I went over there, read what he had to say about the letter and determined that the blogger is probably not misusing content. Rather, the Tulsa World doesn't like the fact that he criticizes its editors, management and overall quality.

See, and I didn't assume anything.

[Agammamon]

Those of you who have blogs (even crappy ones like mine) - strike a blow for freedom and link to http://www.tulsaworld.com/ and piss 'em off even more.