Website Sues NY Times For Linking To It
from the 1996-is-calling dept
Back in the mid-90s there were a series of lawsuits over "deep linking" practices, where people who didn't quite understand how the web worked would sue other sites for linking to them without permission. We still see this happen occasionally, such as with the Associated Press's ridiculous assertion that various other sites shouldn't link with a headline in a snippet from an article. However, it appears that some smaller news organizations are just as clueless about the internet as well. Reader Ben writes in to point out that GateHouse Media, a publisher of some local free news publications in Massachusetts is suing the NY Times for linking to them. The full complaint shows a near complete misunderstanding of how the internet works. You can read it here:Perhaps most interesting of all, GateHouse is charging the NY Times with breach of contract, because (of all things) GateHouse uses a Creative Commons license on its content -- though it uses the Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives license -- and it claims that Boston.com's use is commercial, and thus a contractual violation. This highlights the problem Creative Commons has with its non-commercial licenses. It's pretty clear the intent of such licenses is to prevent a company from reselling the works. But when it's being used to directly drive more traffic to the original site, it's difficult to see how any sane person would see that as a violation of the intent.
Either way, the end-result of all of this is that other websites have already come to the conclusion that it's just not worth linking to GateHouse sites at all. Consider it a stupid lawyers tax. Suing people for sending you traffic has to be, perhaps, the most braindead business strategy around, these days.
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Filed Under: copyright, deep links, news, trademark, websites
Companies: gatehouse media, ny times
Reader Comments
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Two Words
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That is great. How could clearly showing the source cause confusion about the origin? Doesn't that do absolutely exactly the opposite? Also, the only endorsement that could be inferred here really is that the defendant endorses the Plaintiff, not the other way around!
My last comment is, why in God's name are they capitalising "Infringing"? Is it supposed to add impact or make it stand out. I didn't know we were supposed to capitalise adjectives. I suppose the Quick Brown fox jumps over the Lazy dog now! Not only dumb but illiterate too.
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Re:
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Re: Re:
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Morons
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Massachusettes
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gatewho?
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Blockshopper
I do think the answer is simple. For any darwin-award winner that does not want to be linked to, put them on a media blacklist - and NOBODY ANYWHERE link to them. That will solve these lawsuits real easy.
At one point do we need Congress to step in with clarifying copyright and trademark language to stop this stuff.
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Commercial Use
But even so, the point is that this can only help gate house with more awareness and more readers.
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Re: Commercial Use
But the creative commons license doesn't matter, as using a headline and single sentence of the original article is clearly fair use.
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Re: Commercial Use
That's pretty tortured logic. How does a headline, a single sentence and a link to another site increase readership? Do you come to this site to check out the links? Sheesh, are you the lawyer for Gatelouse? (Yes, I purposely misspelled the name -- why help these bozos in the search engines?)
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is that still in fashion?
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Like the 'do not call' list - they need a 'do not link' list.
That way, people can be SURE to never link to their site. NO sites link to them; including search engines - no people end up finding them, problem solved.
Give it 90 days or 180 days and the web server has a grand total of 3 hits from mistyped URLS and it'll go away.
So in the case of the web - if you ignore it, it will in all probability - go away.
If I Google the company now - I bet I'll find a link too - but I wouldn't want to get on their server without their written permission, so I'll stay away.
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Re:
This problem is already solved. They shouldn't be putting their content on the internet if they don't want it available to the public.
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Commericial Use
Yeah, this is not a bad thing for GateHouse, but that still doesn't mean that what Boston.com is doing isn't wrong.
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Re: Commericial Use
Commercial use does not invalidate a fair use argument. The first factor in the fair use test covers this - the use is both informational (favors Boston.com) and commercial (favors GateHouse).
The Four Factor Test
1. the purpose and character of your use
2. the nature of the copyrighted work
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market.
Yeah, this is not a bad thing for GateHouse, but that still doesn't mean that what Boston.com is doing isn't wrong.
Boston.com is linking to another website, giving proper credit for where the article is hosted, and is using an incredible small portion of the original material. The first factor in the fair use test is basically tied, the second factor may favor Gatehouse slightly, but factors 3 and 4 are strongly in favor of Boston.com. It isn't wrong at all - it's exactly what fair use is intended to allow.
Gatehouse apparently doesn't understand that the internet is built websites linking to each other. If they don't want people linking to their material, they honestly shouldn't have it available on the internet.
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Re: Commericial Use
Newspapers publish reviews of books, movies, music, live theatre, and so on. Fair use. However, the newspapers use those reviews to attract readers. Commercial use.
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The way I see it
The effect is two-fold:
1. Boston.com has happier readers who know more about the things they are interested in
2. Gatehouse gets traffic which is what every website needs
I say that Gatehouse either needs to learn to appreciate links (I'd love if NY Times affiliates linked to my blog) or ask them to stop. Boston.com was very much in the right here, but should aknowledge that Gatehouse doesn't want links and stop linking to them.
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Gatehouse could easily fix this
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I Hired That Same Lawyer
Based upon this lawsuit and the fact that he sounds so confident and erudite, I am think about following his advice and putting my two cents of retirement funds in the care of Mr. Madeoff. He assures me I'll be quintupling my money each year if I stick with him. What a deal. I love associating with such smart lawyers and bankers. Doesn't my experience just restore your confidence in our good old American system of Capitalism?
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Gatehouse's efforts to close the online gate
Here's my own opinion piece on the lawsuit:
http://pulaskicountyweb.com/smf/index.php?topic=13450.0
Darrell Todd Maurina
Pulaski County Daily News
www.pulaskicountydaily.com
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NSD
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blog comment
This has been very helpful.
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