Stupid Newspaper Tricks
A Tulsa blogger is being threatened by the local dominant newspaper, which demands he
immediately remove any Tulsa World material from your website, to include unauthorized links to our website, and cease and desist from any further use or dissemination of our copyrighted content.
Disregarding the odd request that he specifically
include unauthorized links, this is a transparently baseless demand. Between 1st Amendment rights (which the
Tulsa World presumably supports), "fair use" and common internet usage of links, the paper hasn't a leg to stand on. Frankly, I thought the notion that one could control inbound links was disposed of as moronic in 1997. But apparently ignorance is alive and well in Tulsa's old media.
Since the Instapundit has linked to the Batesline post, this ought to get wide play. But every link helps. Oh, and hit his tipjar. It would be nice if he'd get enough support to visit his own lawyer upon these idiots.
UPDATE: The story is
making waves in the MSM -- CNN and Howard Kurtz have picked it up.
UPDATE 2: That other Kevin at
Wizbang states the Blogosphere case clearly. I'd dearly love to see one of these cases go to court. Watching some newspaper staff lawyer face off against any of a dozen well-known lawbloggers would be delightful. But I expect that the Tulsa paper will back down. The ridicule they are experiencing today can't be pleasant.
Posted by Kevin Murphy at February 15, 2005 03:49 PM
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