[LINK] Shirky: Murdoch's Times paywall is pretty much like all the other paywalls

[Stilgherrian]

On 11/11/2010, at 12:10 PM, Jan Whitaker wrote:
> Perhaps there is a misunderstanding. I don't think links are copyrighted, are they? If only the link and the title was included, instead of a reproduction of the article, I don't believe it was a breach. The link could have been there from the time the article was originally published. That they didn't change those links would mean to me that they are still accessible and useable.
> 
> What I did was take down the offending text and put a URL in its stead.

Aha, I misread what you wrote. This bit...

> the guy who created the original webpages didn't include 
> the links, just the text of articles. Well, rather than get him in 
> trouble with copyright (it was a rather visible site), I suggested we 
> put the links.

... didn't mention that the text of the articles was removed.

There is recent US legal precedent to the effect that a wording of a headline is too minor a thing to count as a copyrightable artistic work. I daresay this is being appealed, but I have not followed the story.

On this point, though, I do note plenty of people copy and pasting entire news articles from commercial websites into Link emails. This, surely, is wrong?

Stil


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