Fair Use for Me, But Not For Thee

The Idaho Pravda-er-Statesman has cracked down on Idaho Conservative Blogger telling him to take down links to the Statesman. Here’s the new policy from Pravda:

“Every story in the Statesman, in print or online, is copyrighted under federal law, either by us or by the organization supplying it to us to use by permission, and none of it may be reproduced without permission. We ask that you please ask permission to link to any Statesman story, and please provide only a brief summary on your site and a link from your site to the story on ours.”

Now, in some ways, their beef with Idaho Conservative Blogger is somewhat legitimate as he’d put up huge portions of their stories, in fact, I think sometimes the whole article, as did Dennis Mansfield. However, their policy is far out and fails to consider something called fair use.  To ask permission to give a summary of the Story? Let me refer the Idaho Statesman to the U.S. Copyright office:

The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author’s observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson…”

Now, given that definition, it’s hard to see how linking to an article is NOT fair use as defined by the United States Copyright office.

So from whence comes the policy? It seems to me that it was written by someone who has no understanding of the Internet as a result of corporate dictates. I can see the conversation right now, “You know what’s killing our paper? People linking to it online. If we didn’t allow bloggers to link to our stuff, our traffic would go through the roof.” Because we all know how links absolutely kill traffic, right?

Either that, or it’s possible that the person who wrote the policy doesn’t actually UNDERSTAND what linking is. If I say Drudge Report like that, I’m linking it. If you’re reading this Idaho Statesman, welcome to the 1990s. Maybe, in a few years, you’ll reach the 21st century if your business survives that long.

What makes the Statesman’s “policy” so galling is that it’s hypocritical.  For about two years, the Statesman poached every blogger in the political spectrum and quoted them at length, at times for far greater lengths than fair use required.

As an up and coming blogger, I tolerated the Statesman’s violations because I didn’t want to be  a sore head and hoped that it would help when I had work I actually wanted them to publish. The Statesman was perfectly willing to take pieces of their choosing (both the beginning and the end excerpts) but turned down a couple reader’s views and then accepted two others but failed to run them.

However, the Statesman is trying to impose extra-legal restrictions on the use of their content to restrict the same bloggers whose work the Statesman used without permission for nearly two years.  Folks like me and Dennis Mansfield shouldn’t have to worry about whether we can link a Statesman article after they took the fruits of our intellectual labor for free.

Despite , the injustice, I intend to honor the Statesman’s request. If I find an article of interest on the Statesman, I’ll find another article somewhere else and give them the Google Juice the Statesman was getting.  Failing that, I’ll paraphrase the facts of the case without actually quoting the Statesman. Saying, “Police don’t have any clues in the the killing of Robert Manwill.” is not something I can be sued over.

I would recommend people plan on cancelling their Statesman subscription. It’s going away sooner or later. Kevin Richert might as well be on top of a stagecoach. The Statesman is in love with the buggy whip model of business while other papers like the Spokesman Review and the Idaho Press Tribune are coming to grips with reality. My prediction for the last issue of the Statesman is September 2, 2013.

Also, let me put Statesman reporters on notice that this blog is covered under U.S. Copyright laws as is any other published work after 1978, and since 1989, content creators haven’t had to put a copyright notice on their work.  And none of this blog can be quoted by the Idaho Statesman without permission.

Every other newspaper, blog, and publication, can quote it freely as long as they attribute it.

I know it’s a Nero Wolfe, “No Sandwiches for You” moment, but they asked for it.

UPDATED

Video added:

Also was highlighted today by Huckleberries. DFO hopes this all can work out:

I enjoy a good dust-up in the local or Idaho blosophere. But I hope cool minds prevail here — and the Statesman and sundry blogs go back to their previous relationship. Online newspapers need the blogosphere and vice versa.

I about panicked when I read I needed the Statesman. I was afraid Idaho Reports had gone out of business without telling me.