Pre-internet the news business on a national level was oligopolistic. A small organization could not afford to pay reporters to cover all national and international matters. Newspapers had worked out ways to save money on real reporting by pooling reporters and using wire services. At the moment news "blogs" (now a very inappropriate term) like HuffPo are parasitic on this basic reporting. If newpapers all went under, HuffPo might be forced to do its own news gathering, but why bother at this point?

Protecting the basic reporting is different from protecting novel writing (for example). It would probably not be a good idea for hordes of recent graduates with English or journalism degrees to pay their own way to Iraq to try to cover the war, in the hope that they would eventually get reimbursed through advertising revenue on their blogs. There will probably have to be new large institutions, or current ones will have to be reorganized, to support real reporting on the internet, if papers fail to protect the old model legally.

The Internet itself is a creation of government. It is very unlikely that private enterprise would ever have cooperated to the extent necessary to set it up. There is really no reason to expect that private enterprise and its lawyers will by itself keep it going in an equitable manner without a lot of government supervision.

Love to see the Post gets it way and then have Dan Snyder charge them for Redskins content.

These days, blogs are doing these newspapers a favor by posting their stories. Most of the time, they are linked in order to be mocked.

You seem to have a bizarre lack of appreciation -- from an economic, let alone fairness perspective -- for intellectual property protections. Leaving aside the particulars of this specific case, Shapira's point is legitimate. If a news organization's model is to incur substantial expenses to produce its reporting and blogs/websites can rip it off at almost no expense and steal a lot of eyeballs that otherwise would have gone to the original source (or increased the value to those who did), it makes the news organization's business model weaker and potentially unsustainable. Pretty basic economics. Same with R&D if patents didn't exist, creative work if copyrights didn't exist, etc. We all benefit from an economic system in which innovators invest capital and labor into ideas and initiatives that they think are good bets in terms of ROI. That system and its benefits go away if most of the return goes away because anyone can sell the "product" after the developer has incurred the R&D costs, or if, as you seem to advocate, we socialize R&D across all sorts of sectors of the economy.

Dean,
The "you" in my comment above is you.

Didn't the New York Times demonstrate the failure of trying to have their their columnists accessible only by subscription?
And doesn't the Wasthington Post website also generate advertising revenues when blog readers check the links?

If a news organization's model is to incur substantial expenses to produce its reporting and blogs/websites can rip it off at almost no expense and steal a lot of eyeballs that otherwise would have gone to the original source (or increased the value to those who did), it makes the news organization's business model weaker and potentially unsustainable.

True, unless a blog/website generates a lot of attention for a news item, sending it a bunch of eyeballs that otherwise would never have seen the original source. As when Shapira acknowledges that the Gawker piece gave him "a significant uptick in traffic."

Got to agree with Brooks. If the Post -- and other news organizations -- do not incur the costs of original reporting, who will? Gawker? Bloody likely.

And note that Gawker Media founder Nick Denton doesn't like it one bit when "Twitter aggregators and spam blogs ... reprint his company's stories and headlines." Hypocrisy much?

If a news organization's model is to incur substantial expenses to produce its reporting and blogs/websites can rip it off at almost no expense and steal a lot of eyeballs that otherwise would have gone to the original source (or increased the value to those who did), it makes the news organization's business model weaker and potentially unsustainable. Pretty basic economics. Same with R&D if patents didn't exist, creative work if copyrights didn't exist, etc.

Honestly brooks, I am completely mystified as to how you can make this comment after having read Baker's post. The entire point of the post is that, yes, newspapers have some interest in copyright protections but the situation is significantly more complicated than that. Aside from the issues of free speech and fair use, the economic situation is such that it is possible and perhaps even likely that people are actually reading linked newspaper articles than would otherwise. I for one, had never heard of Shapira before today and now I have read his article because Tapped is writing about it.

The further point is that enforcing the sort of copyright control Shapira suggests would run into enormous logistical difficulties that would likely cause both the paper and the public interest more harm than good.

Of course, you can disagree with these arguments if you like but your comment seems to ignore that these points were even made.

The current newspaper business model is viable. There is still a demand for printed newspapers and magazines and some businesses still find that newspaper advertisements are the most effective and efficient medium. However, media corporations no longer can count on 20-percent-plus profit margins that they got 10 years ago, when they were using those anticipated future revenues to buy overpriced media properties.

The question that news orgs ought to be concerned with is: Why are people going elsewhere for news, rather than coming directly to us?

One need only look at the subject of the piece that Shapira is complaining about to see one reason.

Once they understand the answer to that question, the next one should be: How can we suck less?

What we have is a class of people who were too busy chattering to notice when all the creative people, whose ideas they regularly took credit for, had jumped ship years ago.

I expect this to be described as a 'watershed/tipping point/critical mass" (or some other equally clever and thus overused by the unimaginative phrase) around the time that they get back to following the creatives rather than yelling at them for being themselves.

Dean, you make a great point but, you miss a trick or two. Imagine whiney boy at the Post having to prove that none of his column or story ideas came from other websites or sources. Imagine him having to go back to whoever can claim originality on every issue and having to pay them either a portion of what the Post earned or a portion of what he earned doing the story. It isn't just the specific words that would likely be covered by such legislation as he is proposing. The ideas, the concepts, the conclusions are all fair game for litigation.

I suspect that someone has no familiarity with the law of unintended consequences.

Great point CAFKIA. They should call this proposal: "The Full Employment Act for Lawyers."

Brent,

Some distinctions are in order.

Re:
the economic situation is such that it is possible and perhaps even likely that people are actually reading linked newspaper articles than would otherwise

Yes, it is possible, and I'm sure in some cases the reality, that a blog ripping off a reporters work may actually generate a net economic (and other) benefit to that reporter and his employer, but rejecting on those grounds a reporter's or news organization's objection to such rip-offs is arguing that their premise is invalid rather than arguing that they wouldn't have a legitimate grievance (individually and in terms of societal harm) if their premise is/were valid. It's kind of like saying that someone who has his groceries stolen from him on the way home from the supermarket shouldn't complain because, unbeknownst to him, those groceries would have been bad for his health. Well, maybe and maybe not in that particular case, and regardless, we are better off protecting one's right to consume the groceries he earned money to pay for and then invested his time to select and transport. Sometimes the originator of a report is better off if his/their work gets ripped off by bloggers who link and send eyeballs to that original source, and sometimes not. And the economic calculation (in a given case and as an ongoing dynamic) is a bit more complex than just asking if the bloggers' rip-off produced additional eyeballs for the original source.

Yes, I ignored that conveniently paternalistic argument/implication that no ripped-off journalist or news organization ever (or overall) has any reason to suspect that they might ever lose money by having their content ripped off by bloggers.

Re:
enforcing the sort of copyright control Shapira suggests would run into enormous logistical difficulties that would likely cause both the paper and the public interest more harm than good.

First, again, with regard to the ripped-off party, you are making a paternalistic, "doesn't know what's good for him" argument". We should separate whether or not their is a legitimate grievance from whether or not the injured party taking legal action is a smart investment for that party, assuming that party is capable of getting information and advice to make that assessment himself/themselves.

As for harming "the public interest", analysis to balance the benefits, harms and risks to society of having more or less legal recourse for such copyright protection would require specifics of what was being proposed and would require a broader analytical scope (seeking to take into account a broad set of probable and possible positive and negative effects). I would assume that even you would agree that having NO copyright protection and thus NO legal recourse for alleged violation of copyright would be net harmful to the public, correct? If so, then we are talking matters of degree, right? So at what point of copyright protection does it cease being net positive for society and become net negative? Does the public benefit, all things considered, if bloggers can legally cut & paste entire articles, columns, etc. even without a link or attribution? Or do so with a link and/or attribution? If not, aren't you saying that it is in society's interest that a newspaper be able to sue if a blogger does so? What type(s) of blogger use of others' work do you think should be illegal and actionable?

Lastly, we should distinguish between (1) whether or not a grievance is legally (and morally) legitimate, and (2) whether or not the logistics are such that society as a whole would be, on balance, harmed. First of all, in some cases individual rights should supersede the net effect on society. Second, if one is making the argument that implementation (#2 above) would be too net harmful to society to justify providing greater justice to harmed individuals whose rights have been violated, one should at least acknowledge the injustice rather than lumping everything together as if the "logistical difficulties" had any bearing on the legitimacy of the grievance.

Goose and Gander time. Let's go to the WaPo and check out some international stories from today.

"BAGHDAD, Aug. 1 -- Iranian television said Saturday that Tehran arrested three Americans who crossed the border from northern Iraq."

No stations named, no link. Do you think the WaPo thought to compensate "Iranian television' for 'stealing' their material? In fact it is pretty typical for foreign correspondants to clearly rely on local news sources without any attribution at all. For example you get reporting from the Congo that is clearly not the product of the reporter actually having travelled to all the cities described over the months involved, that is how people learn stuff, by watching and reading the news.

I don't have an external thermometer at my house, if I happen to post on my blog something like "record heat today! the weatherman says 102 degrees!" is that 'intellectual property theft'?

The overwhelming percentage of what anyone knows about almost anything is the result of appropriation of social knowledge. I didn't witness the signing of the Magna Carta, that doesn't mean I have to footnote when I say its first version was issued in 1215.

By and large most reporters are conduits for information and not creators of information, that they happened to be the person standing between the news source itself and the reader shouldn't give them blanket publication rights to objective reality.

CAFKIA and Dean Baker,

No, Dean, CAFKIA did NOT make a "great point"; he made a thoughtless, crude, worthless, rhetorical point that amounts to saying "Hey, if we have copyright protection, there couldn't be any useful definitions or standards or any way to tell what constituted a legitimately actionable violation, so we could have way too many lawsuits, so therefore we should have NO copyright protection at all!"

I'd say it's a slippery slope argument, but it's even less thoughtful than that.

There's a real problem with dealing with news stories as 'intellectual property.' Can someone honestly say that a sentence like 'A bipartisan legislative commission Friday found Sarah Palin guilty of abuse of government funds"? Or "32 people were killed today in a train crash west of Lincoln, Nebraska"? Or Yanks beat Orioles 6-4"?
The facts are inarguably public domain-to argue that the newspaper owns the information is absurd. And then, outside some florid metaphors (like from my college days, Maroons blaspheme Trinity 21-11") what 'property are they talking about? Stock prices, sports scores, judicial verdicts, press conferences and press releases are all public domain. And with a few (syndicated) exceptions, Newspapers aren't in the business of selling good writing.

It's an interesting idea that somebody who discovers information, and I don't think that anyone would contemplate it if our concept of the public domain had not been under corporate attack--successfully--for so long. What the newspapers are whining about isn't their exceedingly undeathless prose, but the fact that they work so hard getting that information to the public, and what thanks do they get?

The problem with that is, that if the New york Times deserves credit for their reporting, they deserve to be fined for Judith Miller's articles--and they deserve to get repossessed for the squashing of the wrrantless wiretapping reporting. In the real world, they've already been fined by losing the trust of their audience. And where's my money back over the slandering of Al Gore?

The newspapers have been fighting a losing battle for decades against TV. But at the crucial point in that battle--when the Internet had the potential to be a counteractant to the superficiality of TV--they chose to lie to the American people, lie for their owners,distort the national discourse. In so doing, they threw away the only thing they had going for them.

If the major newspapers were to go under tomorrow, they would be replaced within a year. And the new news organizations would flourish via ad revenues--until they got caught lying.

. It's kind of like saying that someone who has his groceries stolen from him on the way home from the supermarket shouldn't complain because, unbeknownst to him, those groceries would have been bad for his health.

I don't know if I have ever read an analogy that is more ill-conceived than this. You keep on saying that the journalist has been "ripped off" but that is entirely tautological and also misses the entire point that we are talking about ideas and not tangible goods here.

Newspapers, and by extension their writers, are not selling ink and paper. They are not selling words. They are selling readers to advertisers. So to "rip them off" I would need to steal their readers. The "groceries" in this analogy, in other words, are readers, not words. The entire question, the one that you simply ignored in your first comment, is if, in fact, the bloggers in question are stealing their readers and it is not at all clear that that is what is happening.

If on the other hand, one wants to argue that they are selling words, and that the words are the "groceries" then one would somehow have to make the case that the blogger is somehow removing the "words" from the writer's ownership. Alternatively, one could also try to make the case that the blogger is somehow diminishing the writer's ability to receive fair value for those words. That would be a pretty tough case to make and the simple truth is that Shapira doesn't really offer much of a convincing case to that effect.

Now you say that the economic calculation is more complicated than that. Perhaps. But whatever those additional complications are, they are not addressed by either you or Shapira in your arguments by simply asserting theft which was my entire point.

First, again, with regard to the ripped-off party, you are making a paternalistic, "doesn't know what's good for him" argument".

First, "paternalistic" is a silly term to use in this context unless one wants to assert that any argument that suggests that the author may be incorrect in assessing his best interests are inherently paternalistic. Shapira makes an argument about what he believes is in the best interests of papers to ensure their economic survival. Baker points out that he is making assumptions that are fundamentally incorrect both about the economics and the legal requirements to take such actions and is therefore incorrect in his (Shapira's) conclusion. This is about as simple and straighforward as a debate can get. Injecting paternalism into it is just a way (a pretty ineffective one) of avoiding engagement with the arguments against Shapira's position.

I would assume that even you would agree that having NO copyright protection and thus NO legal recourse for alleged violation of copyright would be net harmful to the public, correct? If so, then we are talking matters of degree, right?

If what you mean to say with all of this is that there should be standards of fair use with respect to bloggers and newspaper content, then I am not sure who you are speaking to. That is, of course, true and it is not contradicted by anything that either Baker or myself have said about this issue. Again, the entire point of Baker's post is that determining the best course of action is more complicated both in terms of the newspaper's interests and the public interests then Shapira makes it out to be.

The existing newspaper model is based on a simple and now out of date fact: it costs a lot of money to own and operate a high speed printing press. When printed paper was the only mass communication medium except broadcast teevee and radio, newspapers were free to fantasize that God on Earth had given them an exclusive right to decide which information should be disseminated to the masses, and as important, what slant that information should have. Reporters were not hired based upon the quality of their work, but whether they were sufficiently grovelling and were willing to accept whatever pay the newspaper was willing to offer. Not surprisingly, this resulted in staffs of lazy, disillusioned and/or half drunk writers who hated their jobs and figured out how to do the exact minimum to satisfy their drunk boss and not a bit more. The result, of course, was terrible, lame, sophomoric, braindead news content. For this reason, it was always readily apparent that the readers who wrote letters to the editor complaining about the crappy news coverage were almost always better writers and more informed than the reporting staff itself. But so long as the newspaper owned the printing press, it could tell their long-suffering readers to go screw or buy their own press. And now with the Internet, the readers have bought their own printing press and are using it. Sucks to suck.

Brooks - But the point is that we DO have copyright protections that are defined and they DON'T apply in this case. The WaPo is attempting to say that we can't discuss their stories, which is ludicrous. When WaPo columnists write their opinions, they use info that they got from NY Times, CNN, and bloggers. Are you suggesting that this should be illegal? George Will should no longer be able to opine on anything Paul Krugman writes? And Krugman can't correct a news story that Fox News made? And if I write a blogpost slamming the Post for something, they can't respond to anything I wrote? That would definitely be the implication of this, as we'd no longer be able to discuss anyone else's story. Seriously, I don't think you've thought this through all the way.

Again, no one is suggesting we do away with copyright laws. Merely that these proposals to save newspapers are impossibly absurd. Hell, you yourself are in violation of these proposed rules, as you're discussing a story you read at the Washington Post. Plus, you're "stealing" from Dean Baker, by discussing what HE wrote. Honestly, I can't believe this discussion is real. The idea that we can't discuss news articles is the dumbest f-ing thing I've heard in a long, long time.

Again, if current copyright laws are violated, we do something about it. But telling people they can't write about what they read in a newspaper is simply absurd. The fact that these dummies think they want this just shows how entirely clueless they are. Again, by discussing the ideas that you read from other people, you've violated these rules repeatedly in your comments here; and so have I.

brent,

Re: my “groceries” analogy, you write:

I don't know if I have ever read an analogy that is more ill-conceived than this. You keep on saying that the journalist has been "ripped off" but that is entirely tautological and also misses the entire point that we are talking about ideas and not tangible goods here.

News flash for ya’:
(1) Your failure to understand something doesn’t mean it is “ill-conceived”,

(2) although the semantic point you raise is not central to our discussion (unless you don’t believe in IP at all), my use of “ripped off” refers to cases in which someone produces original journalistic work and someone else essentially (or theoretically, completely) copies it wholesale, often presenting it as one’s own work, and uses it for commercial purposes, so if you have a better term than “ripped off”, I’m all ears, and note that I used neutral phrasing when I asked you “What type(s) of blogger use of others' work do you think should be illegal and actionable?”

(3) your “entire point” that I am supposedly missing, the distinction between tangible goods and ideas, is not the key distinction that you think it is: we protect intellectual property (to protect the income potential of those who have invested time and money into producing it and thus to benefit society from such activity) whether it is manifested in the form of what you are calling “tangible goods” or the form of what you are calling “ideas”. The essential concept is the same, whether we are talking about R&D going into a physical product (for which they can obtain design and/or utility patents, and perhaps also a new trademark) or an author and publisher investing time and money into a book (for which they have copyright protection). And yes, assessment of possible violations of IP rights takes different forms and have their own particular complexities and difficulties, but the concept is still essentially the same, and involves assessment of whether or not the subsequent producer’s “product” (or component[s] thereof) so closely resembles the protected IP that it violates the protection. Surely that’s not hard to see.

Re: Newspapers, and by extension their writers, are not selling ink and paper. They are not selling words. They are selling readers to advertisers. So to "rip them off" I would need to steal their readers. The "groceries" in this analogy, in other words, are readers, not words. The entire question, the one that you simply ignored in your first comment, is if, in fact, the bloggers in question are stealing their readers and it is not at all clear that that is what is happening.

You are confused about my analogy. As with all analogies, some elements are relevant and exist to make the point, and others are extraneous. My point with the groceries analogy was that it illustrated invoking presumptuos paternalistism at the expense of individual rights (justice) and the broader societal impact. The shopper had the right to consume the groceries rather than having them stolen, and it would be unjust and harmful to society if the law said “Well, people are generally buying stuff that is bad for their health from those supermarkets, so it’s not illegal or actionable for someone to steal groceries from those shoppers”. That’s the point of the analogy, your confusion over extraneous matters notwithstanding.

You then compound your exhibition of confusion (and/or inattention) by referring to my ignoring in my first comment the argument that the producer of the original work (the journalist and/or his employer) may err in thinking that he/they suffer financial loss from having their work largely copied by bloggers. In my prior response to you I addressed that point directly and very substantively AND explained why I didn’t think it worthy to comment on initially, so what point you think you are making now is baffling.

Again, yes, in some individual cases I’m sure a journalist and news organization experiences a net financial gain from bloggers essentially copying their work. But how can one rationally, reasonably jump from that premise to the premise that in no individual case does the copying cause a net loss for the original producer, or that overall every original producer will come out ahead from allowing free copying of their work by bloggers, or that we can be so sure of such a premise that the law should preclude the original producer from making that assessment himself and taking legal action if he/they desire(s)?

Re: Now you say that the economic calculation is more complicated than that. Perhaps. But whatever those additional complications are, they are not addressed by either you or Shapira in your arguments by simply asserting theft which was my entire point.

First, some “additional complications” beyond just attracting eyeballs that wouldn’t otherwise be there are obvious (1) net gain/loss of eyeballs, (2) net impact across all cases, not just an individual case, (3) impact on subscriptions and subsription and advertising pricing (in print and online) due to loss of exclusivity and associated value, and I’m probably leaving out some factors. Re: “theft”, if you agree that there should be copyright protections at all, you agree that such theft is possible and is, by definition, illegal (although in a civil law sense, I assume). Generally speaking, people and organizations should have legal recourse when they have reasonable grounds for believing they have been the victims of theft, right? So why would you “simply assert” that no rights have been (or can possibly be) violated and that no harm has been (or possibly can be) done, and on that basis object to someone’s advocacy of greater copyright protection, as opposed to asking “What should constitute ‘theft’ in the law, and should those who consider themselves victims of theft based on a reasonable reading of the law have a right to decide for themselves if they have been harmed by the theft and if suing the alleged thief is worthwhile for them?”

Re: First, "paternalistic" is a silly term to use in this context unless one wants to assert that any argument that suggests that the author may be incorrect in assessing his best interests are inherently paternalistic.

Wrong (and pretty stupid, if I may be frank). And if I may add another news flash: Your not understanding something does not mean it is “silly”. Of course an “author may be incorrect in assessing his best interests”, just as a consumer of groceries may be, but what is paternalistic is dismissing one’s grievance and desire for protection from theft based on the assumption on your part -- or the government’s part as reflected in law -- that one is incorrect in thinking he has been harmed by the theft. Get it?

Re: If what you mean to say with all of this is that there should be standards of fair use with respect to bloggers and newspaper content, then I am not sure who you are speaking to.

I ask you again: “So at what point of copyright protection does it cease being net positive for society and become net negative? Does the public benefit, all things considered, if bloggers can legally cut & paste entire articles, columns, etc. even without a link or attribution? Or do so with a link and/or attribution? If not, aren't you saying that it is in society's interest that a newspaper be able to sue if a blogger does so? What type(s) of blogger use of others' work do you think should be illegal and actionable?”

What would you say is the difference between “fair use” legal limitations and what Shapira thinks should be law, and why is one appropriate/better from the standpoints of individual rights and societal benefit, respectively, than the other?

Re: the entire point of Baker's post is that determining the best course of action is more complicated both in terms of the newspaper's interests and the public interests then Shapira makes it out to be.

cough, cough, lol. That was comedically absurd. Yeah, Dean wasn’t trying to shoot down (via specious arguments) Shapira’s argument, just poining out additional complexity. Yeah, right. LOL. Hoo boy.

Dean,

Your suggestion that Shapira is upset that Gawker makes money is a strawman. Shapira is upset that Gawker has built a business out of strip-mining other people's content and burying the external links, thereby removing any semblance of a quid pro quo from the "aggregation" relationship. (Chalking the whole thing up to a conspiracy from a Washington Post that Just Doesn't Get It is yet another bogus strawman.)

The issue here is that some organizations pay people a lot of money to generating original work. There needs to be some sort of symbiotic relationship there or the original content organizations will die and then the parasitic organizations will follow.

Shapira's suggesting that Gawker goes so far in synopsizing his content that nobody would ever both to click through, and by minimizing the Post's origin of that story, it's actually trying to keep its readers from clicking through. There is obviously some sort of balance to be struck here, and -- at least in the case of this one story -- Gawker didn't struck it.

Go to Engadget some time. I love the site, but they have an editorial policy on all articles that all in-story text links be to other Engadget articles. The only external link on the entire piece is hidden at the very bottom of the article, among the tags and timestamps, and all it says is "READ." I had read Engadget for years before realizing that the READ link was the only way to find the original article.

I admit that the idea that there needs to be some sort of act of congress to restrict the use of content is over-egging the pudding. But Shapira's key point isn't that Gawker shouldn't be allowed to make money on aggregation. It's that there needs to be a two-way flow -- a reasonable degree of content goes to the aggregators, and a reasonable degree of traffic/citation/prestige needs to flow back to the original source. For many blogs, the policy is to strip-mine the sources and conceal those sources as much as possible. That imbalance needs to be corrected.

Doctor,

As I've said, we are talking matters of degree, legal definitions and standards. I think most/all of us would agree that at some point a blog post containing content from a news source can cross the line between legal and a violation of copyright protections. I would think most of us would also agree that if someone's rights have been violated by another party, the default assumption should be that the injured party has the right to sue, and the burden of argument rests on advocates of denying the alleged victim that right based on a strong argument of a compelling public interest (e.g., no-fault resolution of two-car accidents to avoid public and private court expenses in the aggregate, although I [fortunately] am not very familiar with how that works or how pure it is).

As for what should constitute a violation of copyright, I would hope we could agree that bloggers regularly copying entire articles/columns, even with attribution and link, should be illegal. Otherwise thousands of bloggers could just copy everything from the New York Times website onto their own and earn ad revenue. So the question is where to draw the line, and the next question is, in cases in which reasonable interpretation of the law indicates a substantial possibility of a violation should the alleged victims have the right to assess for themselves if harm has been done to them and decide for themselves wither or not it is worthwhile to sue? What is the net harm/benefit effect on society of individuals/organizations having such recourse, and if there is net harm to society, what is an appropriate balance between collective interest and individual rights?

But it is thoughtless for some to dismiss Shapira's argument by either assuming he must be wrong that news organizations or reporters can be financially harmed by bloggers' use of their work, or by simply throwing up our hands in the air and saying that whatever Shapira is suggesting would cause too much societal harm without addressing the above questions regarding where we should draw the legal line and the other questions.

Above "Anonymous" is me.

I guess I would simply re-iterate Dr. Biobrain's point: it's not as though there are no copyright protections. In fact, we have truly extensive copyright protections. If, as Brooks and other are suggesting, Shapira/the Post have actually been "ripped off" (e.g. plagiarism has taken place) then they can sue.

If, instead, we're talking about someone using content with attribution, then what we're talking about is wishful thinking. You calling it being "ripped off" does not make it so (quite aside from the argument over whether copyright infringement may be properly considered "theft": we're not talking about copyright infringement in the first place).

We're talking about folks here (and in the newspaper industry) who evidently can't manage within rules that are designed to protect both the generation of content and the free exchange of information that is the lifeblood of democracy. Both goals are laudable, and both are enshrined in law. If, despite these protections, newspapers aren't making money, then the problem isn't lack of protection. It's lack of a viable business model.

Kythe, Doctor, others,

1) Can we agree that it should be a copyright violation for bloggers to regularly copy and post entire articles on their blogs without attribution and links to the original source, and that the original sources should be able to sue?

2) What about regularly copying entire articles with attribution but no link?

3) What about with attribution and link?

4) I assume we all agree that some use (excerpts) should be legal, so again, we are talking matters of degree. How is what Shapira is advocating in terms of legal protection on the wrong side of the line you would draw in the law (i.e., what tyep/degree of copyright protection would it provide that you would consider excessive, and what factors are you considering when deciding what is excessive)?

5) In cases that you consider a violation of someone's copyright protection, shouldn't our default assumption be that the victim should have the right to determine himself/themselves whether or not they have been harmed and whether or not it's worthwhile to sue, as opposed to our just starting and ending with the assumption that they couldn't possibly be harmed by the violation (since it presumably resulted in more "eyeballs" for them, per the argument).

Brooks,
You ask:
"Can we agree that it should be a copyright violation for bloggers to regularly copy and post entire articles on their blogs without attribution and links to the original source, and that the original sources should be able to sue?"

Since that's not really the point of Mr. Shapira's story nor Dean's analysis, I think we can stipulate to it while also noting that it's not really the topic of discussion here.

The gist of Shapira's discussion seems to be that he doesn't like Gawker making any money based on his work. The Post goes on to make a tortured argument that the mere presence of sites such as Gawker who make money linking to and summarizing the work of original producers of reporting cheapens the "whole medium", somehow resulting in the problems newspapers such as the Post are facing.

That is a business model issue, cut and dry. It's not about copyright infringement.

It is a fact that bloggers are "ripping off" the real news-gathering of traditional papers, whether or not this is a violation of copyright law. Whether blogs are the papers' main problem is debatable - they were already in trouble from TV news, especially 24-hour cable news. Shapira probably did benefit from the lifting of his story - anyway he is still being paid as a reporter.

But there is no reason that newspaper organizations can't meet the competition with their own blogs rather than taking the matter to court. Instead of getting into blogging initially they looked down their noses and published disparaging articles (and obviously still do). They have been playing catchup and have hired some bloggers who aren't too anti-establishment, but many newspaper bloggers are the same stale establishment pundits that inhabit the op-ed pages.

If newspapers and wire services die out and there is still a demand for real factual reporting, beyond the cameras and talking heads supplied by TV, then this demand will probably be supplied by the larger on-line organizations.

Kythe,

It's unfortunate that you merely responded to my first question, obviously intended to refer to one extreme as the start of a progression and to ask about a matter of degree, rather than addressing my other questions. I thought perhaps we could have a serious discussion. If you're interested in such a discussion, you'll answer my other questions.

If the Washington Post makes any comment about this reaction to Shapira's piece, I think you should definitely sue them.

In fact, if the Washington Post in the future refers to any piece of writing whatsoever, or anyone speaking, in fact if it refers to any expression of any kind, then whoever expressed what they're referring to should sue them.

What's funny is that in the article, the writer said that his first reaction was pride, that he had been linked by a blog. It was some idiotic editor who turned him around, saying "You were ripped off! Where's your outrage!" at which the writer saw things the editor's way.

First reaction was right, Shapira. Your article got MORE hits because it was linked, and this is exactly why the New York Times dumped its attempt to put all their best writers behind a subscription-only wall.

There are a bunch of people like your editor who really don't grasp that we're not talking about print anymore. If someone cited your article before, it was very unlikely that people would instantly go and find it and read it. Now, that's very often exactly what they do. And the link takes them to it instantly.

But this is now like I'm trying to explain the Internets to someone from the 19th century, so I'll stop.

"It is a fact that bloggers are "ripping off" the real news-gathering of traditional papers, whether or not this is a violation of copyright law."

I'm not sure what argument you're making here, but I'm also not sure I'd like to live in the sort of society I would guess you'd propose. I doubt you would, either.

Brooks,
My choice not to address your slippery-slope argument was deliberate, as I think it's beside the point. Simply because the line between copyright infringement and non-infringement is not bright (usually, it's up to a court to decide), that doesn't mean such distinctions can't be made.

Generally speaking, courts do not find fault with minimal use of content plus extra commentary, with proper attribution.

Brooks,
To elaborate a bit on what I wrote above, Shapira's original piece was nearly 1,600 words. The Gawker piece, which added extra commentary and included several links to the original WaPo article, was about a quarter that long. Clearly, we're not talking about wholesale use of Shapira's work.

Brooks - The mistake you're making is that the people complaining about current copyright laws are the newspapers. I fully agree that copyright laws are good and that people who violate these laws should be punished. I don't want people ripping off MY blogposts either. But that's NOT what newspapers like WaPo are saying. They want a whole new level of copyright protection, in which we're not allowed to write about their stories without paying them and we're not allowed to excerpt anything they write without permission. And that's absurd.

Plagiarizing their content is wrong and can be punished under current law. Discussing their content and even quoting it within the rules of fair use is what they're against. Hell, they've even complained about search engines like Google sending people to their websites and want to force Google to pay each time that happens, which is an absurdity.

So yes, we all agree that outright plagiarism is wrong and we're not trying to change copyright laws. But the newspapers are trying for an EXTRA level of protection, which you have already violated by discussing anything they've written. And if the only issue is what is in our current copyright laws, then we're all in agreement.

BTW, everyone has the right to determine whether or not they can sue anyone else and no one can stop them; so I have no idea what your fifth point could possibly mean. I have the right to sue you right now for insulting me (though you haven't) and every court in America will throw out the case and make me pay your legal fees. But I still have the right to sue. The difference is that the WaPo wants laws changed so they can WIN these lawsuits in ways they can't currently win. And that's not only wrong, but completely impractical. And that's what Baker was writing about.

Oh, and just so you understand, Baker's economic argument is that newspapers are STUPID for wanting to limit eyeballs, as it hurts them financially overall. That's a separate point from whether such laws should be made.

my use of “ripped off” refers to cases in which someone produces original journalistic work and someone else essentially (or theoretically, completely) copies it wholesale, often presenting it as one’s own work, and uses it for commercial purposes,

Which would be a highly important and relevant point if anyone was arguing that this should be proper, which, as far as I can tell, includes precisely zero people.

But how can one rationally, reasonably jump from that premise to the premise that in no individual case does the copying cause a net loss for the original producer, or that overall every original producer will come out ahead from allowing free copying of their work by bloggers, or that we can be so sure of such a premise that the law should preclude the original producer from making that assessment himself and taking legal action if he/they desire(s)?

One doesn't make that leap. Content producers already have that right to take legal action if they feel that that is what happened. No one is advocating to degrade the current state of IP and copyright protection which would certainly address the type of "ripping off" to which you are referring.

On the contrary, Shapira is arguing that the current set of rights are inadequate to address the current state of law structuring it on a platform of "unfair competition rights." Baker, for his part, believes that Shapira's proposal to "beef up" this law are poorly thought out. You decided to enter the conversation with the argument that Baker's argument lacks appreciation for the importance of IP and then proceeded to explain said value as if anyone, anywhere was confused about it. My point, which I admit now I could have distilled in far fewer words, is that whether Baker is right or wrong, his argument does not in any way contradict an appreciation for the importance of intellectual property laws, only Shapira's assessment of what new IP laws should be. Talking about the importance of copyright does not address Baker's argument.

And yes, assessment of possible violations of IP rights takes different forms and have their own particular complexities and difficulties, but the concept is still essentially the same, and involves assessment of whether or not the subsequent producer’s “product” (or component[s] thereof) so closely resembles the protected IP that it violates the protection. Surely that’s not hard to see.

Yes it is easy to see which is why no one, anywhere on this blog, has suggested otherwise.

cough, cough, lol. That was comedically absurd. Yeah, Dean wasn’t trying to shoot down (via specious arguments) Shapira’s argument, just poining out additional complexity. Yeah, right. LOL. Hoo boy.

I am not sure what distinction you think you are making here but my point was that Baker was arguing that Shapira's argument was incorrect and he thus "shot it down" because it didn't properly consider those additional complexities. So it is not either/or for me and the plain meaning of my words would not suggest that it was. Nonetheless, I am happy you got a good laugh out of it.

Of course an “author may be incorrect in assessing his best interests”, just as a consumer of groceries may be, but what is paternalistic is dismissing one’s grievance and desire for protection from theft based on the assumption on your part -- or the government’s part as reflected in law -- that one is incorrect in thinking he has been harmed by the theft.

The point is that one's grievance may be dismissed on the basis of whether or not it is theft. Baker says that it is not clear that it is and your response boils down to: Baker apparently does not believe theft exists and futher, paternalistically, does not accept assertions of theft as sufficient evidence of theft.

I ask you again: “So at what point of copyright protection does it cease being net positive for society and become net negative? Does the public benefit, all things considered, if bloggers can legally cut & paste entire articles, columns, etc. even without a link or attribution? Or do so with a link and/or attribution? If not, aren't you saying that it is in society's interest that a newspaper be able to sue if a blogger does so? What type(s) of blogger use of others' work do you think should be illegal and actionable?”

Why do you believe any of these questions relevant to our dispute? The bottom line in all of this is that you seem to be operating under the assumption that the problem that people have with Shapira is that they don't appreciate the value of intellectual property or that they have no problem with violations of copyright protections. This is incorrect.

Brooks, your "news"paper is, was and always will be a total waste of good trees.

The day the last "news"paper closes and all of you second rate, undereducated jerks can go on unemployment, I will throw a party that dwarfs any other party in my city.

In short, eat shit and die you worthless motherfucker.

Kythe,

You obviously mischaracterized my inquiry into matter of degree as a "slippery slope argument". As a note, when someone explicitly acknowledges both extremes and asks someone to explain why he/she thinks someone else is drawing the line in the wrong place, that is not a slippery slope argument. A slippery slope argument would be identifying one extreme as unacceptable and then claiming that the opposite extreme is therefore desirable. Obviously not at all what I'm doing.

Yes, I realize that there is some subjectivity involved, but of course we still need to apply principles, set legal standards and definitions, etc., and in some cases or to some degree explicit lines can be drawn.

I'm glad you added your second comment with some substance related to my questions, addressing the matter of degree. I do think it would be useful, though, for purposes of discussion, for you to take a shot at answering my other questions. Surely there is no harm in doing so, is there?

Doctor,

newspapers like WaPo … want a whole new level of copyright protection, in which we're not allowed to write about their stories without paying them and we're not allowed to excerpt anything they write without permission. And that's absurd.

Isn’t that a great exaggeration and straw man? “not allowed to write about their stories”?? Come on. Wild exaggerations don’t advance discussion.

Discussing their content and even quoting it within the rules of fair use is what they're against…So yes, we all agree that outright plagiarism is wrong and we're not trying to change copyright laws. But the newspapers are trying for an EXTRA level of protection, which you have already violated by discussing anything they've written.

Again, it would be helpful (to me, and perhaps to others) if you would back away from the exaggerations (I rather doubt they are seeking laws that would enable them to sue me for my comments here. Again, come on. Be serious.), and instead tell me how you think what they are (really) seeking differs from what you consider “fair use”.

BTW, everyone has the right to determine whether or not they can sue anyone else and no one can stop them; so I have no idea what your fifth point could possibly mean. I have the right to sue you right now for insulting me (though you haven't) and every court in America will throw out the case and make me pay your legal fees.

Exactly. What I mean is to have some plausible case. If you filed some suit against me for insulting you I assume the case would be thrown out by the judge in the first minute, if it even went that far. If by suing we mean filing a lawsuit, then I assume you are correct that anyone has a right to sue for anything and my language was technically incorrect, although hopefully my meaning was clear to most people.

The difference is that the WaPo wants laws changed so they can WIN these lawsuits in ways they can't currently win. And that's not only wrong, but completely impractical. And that's what Baker was writing about.

Why are the lines that are currently drawn so much more practical than the lines Shapira advocates? Perhaps the latter would be more subjective and vague, but are the lines right now so clear and the lines they seek so vague that they would have a much greater, terribly stifling effect on commentary and impose so much larger societal costs?

Oh, and just so you understand, Baker's economic argument is that newspapers areSTUPID for wanting to limit eyeballs, as it hurts them financially overall. That's a separate point from whether such laws should be made.

Glad you realize it should be considered a separate point. Not so sure others do, or that everyone realizes that the law, in effect, making that determination for victims is presumptuous and paternalistic, as well as dubious in its validity if applied universally as such laws probably would.

This entire topic is bizarre.

Let's take a quick tour of how a work can be "stolen" without recourse:

Books
Jose Canseco's new book hit the shelves, with the blockbuster revelation that baseball in the 1990s was rife with steroids and harmones. (I just saved you $20 and 200 odd pages, no recourse for Canseco or his publisher)

Movies
This disaster of a movie concludes with an incomprehensible 10 minute motorcycle chase through Zurich, with the heroes saved by a combination of incredible coincidence and suspension of the laws of physics. (Just saved you $8 and 2 hours, no recourse for Universal Studios)

Newspapers
Woodward and Bernstein reported today that Nixon covered up his re-election campaign's criminal activity. (Just saved you $.25 and a 800 word story, no recourse for WaPo)

It seems clear that WaPo would like to change the rules for the last one of these three. But why, and what about the other two examples?

Are we seriously talking about outlawing "Let me save you some time and money, here's what happened."?

Seriously?

evil is evil,

Very classy comment.

Not that you are to be taken seriously, but for whatever it's worth, you incorrectly equate "newspaper" with "print". For purposes of this discussion, WaPo could just as easily be just an online publication.

Brooks wrote, ...a blog ripping off a reporters work...

As long as it conforms to standards of fair use, it's not a rip-off.

It's kind of like saying that someone who has his groceries stolen from him ...

A terrible analogy. "Intellectual property" goods are entirely unlike other goods, because the former can be copied for (essentially) free, whereas the latter cannot. Anyone who actually knows something about the economics of the situation would know that.

I would assume that even you would agree that having NO copyright protection and thus NO legal recourse for alleged violation of copyright would be net harmful to the public, correct?

That's hardly clear. Especially since the greatest works in Western Civilization were done without the aid of copyright and patent protection.

Lastly, we should distinguish between (1) whether or not a grievance is legally (and morally) legitimate,

There's no grievance under current law if the copying was done in accordance with fair use.

Morally---there's no grievance whatsoever, because the artificial intervention here is the creation of government-granted monopolies in the form of so-called intellectual property protection.

First of all, in some cases individual rights should supersede the net effect on society.

Absolutely false. The only argument in favor of these government-granted monopolies is to create incentives, as the Framers themselves understood. Why? Because there's no natural right to rent-seeking.

I doubt you understand what "rent-seeking" is, however.

Bruce Webb wrote, The overwhelming percentage of what anyone knows about almost anything is the result of appropriation of social knowledge.

Yes, but right-wingers like Brooks are upset whenever a chance for rent collection goes unfilled.

brent,

You sure spent a lot of words confusing my arguments and avoiding my questions.

How is what Shapira is advocating different from what you consider good copyright law? What should be legal vs. illegal, and why?

And should the law, in effect, assume that no harm is ever done to the original source even if copyright law has been violated, or should it let the victim decide that and decide if it is worth suing?

You can write another long comment avoiding these questions or asserting their irrelevancy if you wish, or you can step up to the plate and respond directly and substantively.

Doctor Biobrain wrote, So yes, we all agree that outright plagiarism is wrong and we're not trying to change copyright laws.

The sin of plagiarism and the crime of copyright violation are distinct.

The former involves identity of authorship; the latter, not necessarily.

Jason wrote, It's that there needs to be a two-way flow -- a reasonable degree of content goes to the aggregators, and a reasonable degree of traffic/citation/prestige needs to flow back to the original source. For many blogs, the policy is to strip-mine the sources and conceal those sources as much as possible. That imbalance needs to be corrected.

Why?

If the aggregator is conforming to fair use, then there's no problem.

Incidentally, the claim that we have to legally force aggregators to link back is silly. Many of us are intelligent enough not to use aggregators that only link to themselves.

liberal,

Although history strongly suggests that intelligent discussion with you is impossible, I can't resist commenting on your absurd arguments.

Re: "Intellectual property" goods are entirely unlike other goods, because the former can be copied for (essentially) free, whereas the latter cannot. Anyone who actually knows something about the economics of the situation would know that.

Oh, so I suppose no person or business can ever get harmed by a violation of his/their copyright protections, so we shouldn't have any (lol). "Anyone who actually knows something about the economics of the situation" or about economics generally would be familiar with the concept of "opportunity cost" as well as with the effect of changes in expected ROI on the quantity of R&D and the equivalent for creators of literature, and in turn the level of innovation, creative content, etc. Go Google that stuff and maybe today will have been a big learning day for ya'.

Oh, and you also missed the point of the groceries analogy entirely even though I explained it clearly to the last guy who missed the point. Good job.

Oh, and just for laughs, you write: "right-wingers like Brooks". On what basis do you characterize me as a right-winger? Go ahead -- this should be pretty funny.

Re: There's no grievance under current law if the copying was done in accordance with fair use.

Gee, thanks for the tautology. We are talking about what the law should be, and you remark essentially that if it's not currently illegal, it's not currently illegal. thanks again.

Re: Morally---there's no grievance whatsoever, because the artificial intervention here is the creation of government-granted monopolies in the form of so-called intellectual property protection.

Well, this assertion, combined with your other silly points, shows just how oversimplified, narrow and just plain dumb your thinking is. Apparently you just don't see any connection between IP protection and the level and quality of innovation, creative output, etc. You're such a deep, rational thinker, man.

Oh, and you throw around the label "rent-seeking" so broadly that you reveal yourself as someone who picked up a bit of econmics jargon and wants to sound like he has some insight, but doesn't really have any clue what he's talking about.

All in all, just what I've come to expect from you :-)

You can write another long comment avoiding these questions or asserting their irrelevancy if you wish, or you can step up to the plate and respond directly and substantively.

No. Instead I will try to keep it short and assert their irrelevancy once more: Your questions are irrelevant. Once again, that is because I am not arguing about the proposed changes to the copyright law. I am saying that whether Baker is right in his assessment of Shapira's argument or not, nothing in his argument implies an under-appreciation for the fundamental principle of intellectual property, or for "pretty basic economics" which is precisely what your first comment asserts. These assertions are incorrect. One can believe that

1. Dean Baker is 100% correct

2 Shapira and his newspaper should be concerned about wholesale theft of their content

3. Shapira's proposal to address these concerns is poorly conceived

4. intellectual property is an important principle to protect

with no contradiction. You are arguing otherwise. My opinion on the precise proper balance between IP rights and fair use rights are not relevant to the fact that you are fundamentally incorrect on that point.

This reminds me of Federal Appeals Court judge Richard Posner's suggestion that, in order to save newspapers, copyright law should be amended to make it illegal to link to copyrighted material without the copyright holder's permission. Aside from the glaring free speech issues (banning hyperlinks!), Posner's proposal seems like a quick way to kill off the newspaper industry for good, not save it.

How are we, or bloggers, to know if the WaPo or Times or anyone else is publishing original content or analysis?

I don't see any footnotes anywhere, nor any links to anything other than newspaper-specific subject searches.

For instance, this is what I get when I click on "Hugo Chavez" at the Times:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/hugo_chavez/index.html?inline=nyt-per

Not Hugo Chavez's website, not his public speeches, not something else, but the Times' own tagged reporting on Chavez.

So I'm assuming he doesn't own his words. When you quote him, I'm assuming you don't own those words either.

"Whine" is a loaded word. I wouldn't resort to it, when "complain" makes your point just as effectively. And what's with the Captcha rejecting my original post? I got those letters correct.

Brooks, re: "bizarre lack of appreciation... for intellectual property protections"

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that IP protections are a guarantee that a particular business model must be profitable. That isn't the case.

How is what Shapira is advocating different from what you consider good copyright law?

Um, if what he was advocating was, in fact, "good copyright law," then Shapira already would have access to the legal recourse he seems to want. It is precisely because what he wants is *not* covered by current copyright law that he is advocating a change to the law.

The burden is on him to establish the need for the change. Thus far, he and you have entirely failed to meet that burden.

You can write another long comment avoiding these questions or asserting their irrelevancy if you wish, or you can step up to the plate and respond directly and substantively.

ROFL.... Oh, the irony....

Take too much time to compose and Captha will time out. As it just did to me in replying to you.

the economic situation is such that it is possible and perhaps even likely that people are actually reading linked newspaper articles than would otherwise

I am sick at the debasement and corruption of journalism at the once-formidable Post. So ill that I will no longer read the paper or visit the website. I do, however, often follow links to their articles and op-eds on my favorite blogs. If not for these links, I would never see word one of Post content.

Their self-defeating threats of lawsuits reminds me of the business model of another once prosperous industry that self destructed by transitioning stupidly from producing creative content to supporting hordes of attorneys--the music industry.

brent -- I'll probably deal with your persistent silliness tomorrow (no time right now, which is to say not worth my time right now).

tmaxPA -- re: You seem to be under the mistaken impression that IP protections are a guarantee that a particular business model must be profitable. That isn't the case.

Thanks for that obvious stupidity. We didn't get quite enough from liberal.

PaulB -- stupid point. We are talking about what the law should be, so it's pretty dumb for you to point out that if current law protected him, he'd already have legal recourse. And yes, Shapira is advocating a change in law (gee, thanks for clarifying that for everyone), but no, as for burden of proof/argument, if someone here expresses opposition to the change in law that Shapira advocates, yet supporst some copyright protection, the burden is on them to explain the distinction and why one is desirable and the other not (isn't that just common sense?), as opposed to using straw men arguments referring to some extreme of copyright protection that Shapira gave no indication of seeking, or arguing that the law should presumptuously, paternalistically assume on the behalf of all original journalism generators that, whether they realize it or not, they are better off with other websites/blogs using large chunks (or more) of their work.

Simple question, folks: If you support some degree/type(s) of such copyright protections but you oppose what Shapira is advocating, how are they different and why is one appropriate/good/better and the other inappropriate/bad/worse?

Only one person here addressed this central question at all, albeit only partially and after initial evasiveness and my prodding. I'm starting to get the feeling that no one here has any clue what standards they consider appropriate vs. inappropriate, and that all you guys can (or want to) do is erect and knock down straw men.

So go ahead, folks who are vocally, passionately opposing what Shapira is advocating: draw the relevant distinction(s) and offer your rationale per my question above.

Or you could just engage in more silly hyperbole.

Oh, and most of the arguments in Dean's post are almost comically irrelevant. Maybe I'll take the time tomorrow to explain point-by-point.

I've had previous troubles trying to get Brooks to follow reasoning that falls outside his assumed extremely narrow and conformist philosophy(defense of inefficient patent protections, a parroting of free-market fundamentalist absurdities). Whenever someone disagrees with his opinions, he frequently resorts to ad hominem logical fallacies or pathological judgments(calling an argument silly, for example, based on a single criterion: Brooks' fiat), making it difficult and tiresome to have a discussion with him because he applies standards to others that he refuses to apply to himself(such as demanding that others answer his questions and refusing to reciprocate).

"Oh, and most of the arguments in Dean's post are almost comically irrelevant. Maybe I'll take the time tomorrow to explain point-by-point."

This impending "point-by-point" explanation will most likely be a series of straw men, bombast, and opinion. Brooks would have us believe his arguments and opinions are valid and relevant based solely on Brooks' fiat.

PMA,

That comment was extraordinarily pathetic, even by echo chamber blog standards, in its level of gross misrepresentation and obvious exhibition of someone who ran away from substantive debate when challenged and who is now trying desperately to get even.

In case anyone is interested (not that I expect most/anyone here to be at all objective, since for most folks here it's all about whether or not someone is on your "side", not on the validity of arguments or accuracy of claimed facts), here's the thread in which I sought to engage PMA in thoughtful, rational, mutually-responsive discussion/debate, and in which that proved impossible http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive?month=07&year=2009&base_name=congressional_ignorance_of_hea#comments

How ironic, not only after that thread but on this one, after I posted numerous comments directly addressing the arguments of others and pointing out their flaws (not just engaging in ad hominem as PMA so obviously counter-factually asserts) that PMA posts a comment filled with nothing but ad hominem attacks on me. Oh well, such an Alice in Wonderland / Orwellian quality is nothing new to echo chamber political blogs and hyperpartisan participants.

PMA, I've presented plenty of arguments on this thread, and address plenty of arguments of others (and apparently, amazingly, you either can't distinguish -- or disingenuously pretend you can't distinguish -- between someone posting only insulting remarks and someone including insulting remarks in posts that primarily contain substantive arguments and refutations of others' arguments). If you have any interest in posting a substantive comment rather than just ad hominem (a big "if"), there's an abundance of material you could work with.

"Why?
If the aggregator is conforming to fair use, then there's no problem."

But Jason's point was that in many cases, it's *not* fair use. If, for example, Gawker quotes so much of an original article that there's no need to click through to that article, and "hides" the original source by burying it in an inline link that doesn't identify that source, that's clearly not fair use.

And that's the problem with Gawker, Engadget, and similar blogs: it's almost as if they purposely make it difficult to find the original source. If a blog wants to generate traffic based on other sites' original reporting, they need to adhere to fair use, provide clear links, and give due credit.

Is there any level on which this *isn't* obvious?

Just look at this nonsense: "Loehr is 44. She spent the entire decade of the 90s running hotel and safari operations in Kenya." That's information I got after an hour-plus phone call with Loehr and typing out 3,000 words of notes.

For heaven's sake, it took me less than a minute with Google to find the info about Loehr's time in Africa at cornell.edu (which should be a reliable source). Ok, in that bio, her age is put at 41, but, who knows, maybe Shapira got this wrong. The point is, if it takes you an hour on the phone to establish information for two simple statements, you're extremely ineffective as a reporter. And if those two sentences are your strongest evidence that someone else freeloaded on your work, you're just a clown.

"If, for example, Gawker quotes so much of an original article that there's no need to click through to that article, and "hides" the original source by burying it in an inline link that doesn't identify that source, that's clearly not fair use."

And if that's so, you may have a good case in court. WaPo sure has lots of lawyers on its payroll. So what's the effing problem???

Brooks, I second the view that you're beside the point and only diverting the discussion here. Shapira doesn't claim that there was a copyright infringement, and it looks like that Gawker author carefully avoided this trap by rephrasing the informations. So, Shapira, in his frustration, calls for new laws that would regulate the usage of informations. From all the copyright cases I read about in the last years, this goes way beyond what the Supremes see as the valid scope of the copyright laws. So, it's really an entirely new premise, that someone should have rights on informations, instead of a copyright on the writing that transports these informations. Imho those who advocate such a broad new legal axion have the duty to make their arguments for that. But I don't see you doing that.

Instead, you somewhat trollishly blame people for not giving arguments about why it is a good idea to stand with the established scope of copyright, which has been in use for centuries now. If you want to take this into a whole new dimension, its up to you to make your case, not the other way round.

As far as this blog is concerned, the idea is to try to determine what makes the most sense from an economic point of view to accomplish the desired objectives. The main objectives are probably 1) to ensure that real news-gathering takes place, hopefully in a way that does not involve excessive bias and censorship; and 2) to ensure that people are rewarded appropriately for real original work, whether it is work of the imagination or just news interviews. Copying and regurgitation are actually a fundamental part of economic activity, but for progress there has to be some original work.

We seem to be in a period of transition such that both objectives are threatened, though I'm not sure that it is a fundamental change rather than just a transition from one group of news people (newspapers and TV) to another (blogs and other on-line sources).

Ideally the objectives would be accomplished with minimum involvement of lawyers and wasteful court cases or arbitrary decisions by officials whether bureaucrats or judges. Dean has proposed changes in the laws to this end. It doesn't make much sense to argue about how the old laws apply when the premise is that they are not doing the job well.

Uh, free speech is that speech which is guaranteed free from government restriction or censorship. Otherwise in life there's no such thing. A publisher doesn't have to publish my book, a theater owner can expel me for talking during a movie, a restaurant owner can ask me to leave because the topic of my conversation offends nearby diners. You guys really should spend some time learning about free speech before you opine about it. But then, if that were a requirement, we wouldn't have many posts on the Internet, would we?

"And if that's so, you may have a good case in court. WaPo sure has lots of lawyers on its payroll. So what's the effing problem???"

You missed the point completely. This isn't about who can sue whom. The problem is that, as Jason wrote, above, this is a symbiotic relationship. The "new media" blogs get traffic based on the work of traditional media; the traditional media get traffic thanks to links from blogs. It works when blogs drive traffic to the original sources while benefitting from the stories themselves. If that traffic doesn't happen because the blogs are quoting far more than fair-use amounts and/or aren't encouraging readers to click through, the original reporting suffers. And without "real" reporting to repurpose, Gawker has nothing to write about.

I'm not arguing for more lawsuits. I'm arguing for ethical cooperation between traditional media and new media. (And that goes both ways; when the New York Times gets a lead from a blog, the blog should be credited.)

Uh, free speech is that speech which is guaranteed free from government restriction or censorship. Otherwise in life there's no such thing. A publisher doesn't have to publish my book, a theater owner can expel me for talking during a movie, a restaurant owner can ask me to leave because the topic of my conversation offends nearby diners.

I have no idea who you think disagrees with any of that or what point its meant to contradict in this discussion. Why do you think anyone is confused about the meaning of free speech? To whom is your comment directed?

Gray,

I don't see why you consider my comments "beside the point and only diverting the discussion here".

Again (boy, this is tedious, but I'll try a bit more),

1. Shapira advocated a greater degree/type of copyright protection.

2. Dean Baker and some commenters here strongly objected and strongly criticized what Shapira is advocating.

3. Their rationale (to use the term loosely) was:
(a) What Shapira wanted was unreasonable/unfair,
(b) What Shapira wanted would harm society greatly by stifling free speech,
(c) Shapira doesn't realize that he, WaPo, and others in their position are benefitted by, not harmed by, the use of their content that Shapira wants to prohibit.

4. These harsh critics acknowledge that they favor some copyright protections in this area, based on the same criteria in #3 above, but with the opposite premises if the law went in the other direction (i.e., less copyright protection than what they favor).

5. I ask these critics:
(a) What distinguishes what they support vs. what Shapira seeks, and why is the former acceptable and good and the latter unacceptable and very bad? (And yes, the burden of argument is on them. If someone advocates some change and a commenter here strongly objects but supports the status quo [or something else], they should be able and willing to explain the difference and their rationale. That's just common sense. They said X is good, Y would be awful and something we should strongly oppose, and I'm just asking them to tell me how X is different than Y and why X is good and Y would be awful.) Unlike all here except one person who offered a partial answer after my prodding, you offered at least a bit of substance in response to this question. Others have merely engaged in gross misrepresentations and straw men, painting what Shapira seeks as some wild extreme and mixing up arguments that should be kept distinct (such as the principle of individual justice, the logistical cost imposed on society by litigation, the harm or benefit to society in terms of quality/quantity/diversity of content, and whether we should let an aggrieved party decide if he/they were harmed or just have the law assume they weren't)

(b) Is it valid and appropriate for the law to reflect a presumption that parties such as WaPo/Shapira are never and can never be harmed by the practices they seek to prohibit, or is it more valid and just to establish the "best" law and then let a party who thinks his/their rights have been violated decide if they have been harmed and if initiating legal action is worthwhile?

Now, on to what seems to be a substantive distinction that you've made. You say that Shapira is seeking "rights on informations, instead of a copyright on the writing that transports these informations" and you add that you don't see me making the case for that.

First, I haven't been making the case for Shapira's position or any other case. I've been pointing out weaknesses and flaws in others' arguments and asking them for clarification and rational argumentation. I don't claim confidence that I have a good understanding of what Shapira is advocating and of all the consequences, and I don't know if I support it or not. I'm just trying to engage folks in a rational discussion.

Now, enough meta discussion and on to substance. If I understand what you are saying correctly, you are saying that Shapira wants copyright protection for the raw, core (or isolated) facts (basic information) he reports as opposed to his presentation of those facts (i.e, his writing), reflecting his organization and analysis, writing style, etc. Is that what you are saying? If so, can you point me to your basis for that distinction in Shapira's column? I see him, among other points, claiming "a cut-and-paste of my own stuff", which doesn't sound like what you are describing.

Anonymous above is me (sorry)

Wow, 70 comments, did this hit a nerve or what?

Personally, I will cheer the day the last corporate print rag finally folds.

Good bye to you.

And that last anonymous was me.

Speaking of "corporate media", if anyone is interested in something I find disturbing but on which Dean has not (to my knowledge) commented, see this http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/01/business/media/01feud.html?scp=1&sq=olbermann%20murdoch&st=cse from last Saturday's NYT. Seems that O'Reilly's strategy worked: Olbermann was hammering him, so O'Reilly launched a propaganda campaign against...GE (hurting GE's corporate image), leading GE CEO Immelt to strike a sort of non-aggression pact with Murdoch.

Gawker’s Gabriel Snyder's critique on the NY Times website seems most apt to me.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/steal-this-professionally-reported-content/

Why did Shapira miss the humor in his article? & where was an editor to say, this could be a funny piece?

The original article was a "feature story", a "fluff piece", not a straight-up news story. So ... think of what Gene Weingarten would have done with it? Oh, that's right, he's been "downsized" along with most of the Post's better writers / editors.

I think Mr. Shapira's angst comes more from failing to use humor in his article than from anything else. He should be thankful for Gawker's "value added" editing.

Brooks wrote, ...if anyone is interested in something I find disturbing but on which Dean has not (to my knowledge) commented...

Huh? Something we agree on?

Well, Dean can't comment on everything, and it's not really his bailiwick anyway.

Here's Glen Greenwald's take on it.