Blogs and Copyrights
By Adam C Posted in Law — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Michael Bates is a local Republican activist in Tulsa, OK (my hometown). He runs a blog, Batesline, that focuses on local politics with a dash of national right-to-life issues and conservative Christian writings. I read his blog (and City Councilor Chris Medlock's) to follow local politics while I am out of town. There have been some bitter battles going on between the two local Tulsa bloggers (along with the bipartisan majority on the city council) and the local monopoly newspaper, The Tulsa World.
I am not really taking sides in the ongoing infighting, but it has now crossed over into a MSM vs. blogger incident. The Tulsa World has threatened legal action against Mr. Bates and Mr. Medlock. The whole story is long and sordid. But the basic issue is that Mr. Bates and Mr. Medlock have linked to and excerpted articles and editorials from the Tulsa World on their websites. Here is the cease and desist letter from the Tulsa World address to Mr. Bates.
Mr. Bates is defending himself with several arguments. First, he argues the fair use exception allows excerpting of articles. Second, he argues that linking to an article is not violating copyright because nothing is copied. I am not a lawyer, but this was my general understanding. To my knowledge, no full articles have been posted which could be a copyright violation.
This should be another warning that the MSM is scared of bloggers encroaching on their tightly held grip on information.
(Full Disclosure: I know Councilor Medlock socially, but not professionally.)
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Blogs and Copyrights 3 Comments (0 topical, 3 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Watching this story evolve from Tulsa it is unbelievable that the Tulsa World would be so stupid as to call attention to itself in this way. It's as if the side of the paper running the shadowy, back-channel recall attempt of 2 city councilors forgot to tell the legal team to stop breaking kneecaps in public.
The Tulsa World not only makes itself look guilty here in Tulsa, but pops their head up on the national blogs-vs-traditional media whack a mole game as well.
Glad to hear we have someone "on the ground." Let us know what the World does in response to the blogging storm.
And I and some other bloggers have been making a point of linking to the newspaper in question as much as possible.
I'm no intellectual property attorney, but if linking to the newspaper is a copyright violation then this post is made of cake.
This paper is taking part in an old legal tradition: intimidation. It's considered standard to threaten in the hopes of causing someone to cease and desist, even if you have no intention of taking it further.
It's pretty dumb of them to do so to a guy with trafficked blog, however. I have no doubt their inbox is proving that.