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Topic: Of Interest to all here.. or should be | Topic page views:
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KnewEyes
watcher
under those cloud-like things
665 posts, Apr 2001
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posted 02-04-2002 09:37 PM
  
the bell tolls for freerepublic.com
by Todd Brendan Fahey (toddbrendanfahey@yahoo.com) - February 03, 2002
On Monday, 11 February 2002, the Ninth District Circuit Court of Appeals, Washington DC, will convene to hear oral arguments for Washington Post and Los Angeles Times v. FreeRepublic.com LLC (a limited liability corporation), in what is perhaps the most important First Amendment case of the new millennium. At issue is the propensity of FreeRepublic.com and its owner, Jim Robinson, to allow the posting of whole-length articles from news organizations nationwide--a policy the Post and Times, respectively, assert infringe upon the intellectual property rights of both the news corporations and of individual writers. At stake is a tort complaint of $1,000,000 lodged against Mr. Robinson, and the very future of FreeRepublic.com. The Supreme Court recently refused FreeRepublic.com's writ of certiorari, effectively denying any hope that the nation's highest court will hear the case, following a judgment for the plaintiff by the Ninth District Court; FreeRepublic.com's claim was also denied a mediation hearing.In simple terms, a judgement against FreeRepublic.com in the coming months will spell an Error 404 message for a Web site that is credited by many news organizations as ushering in President George W. Bush over Al Gore. more... http://www.disinfo.com/pages/article/id2015/pg1/ (Meaning,,, if FreeRepublic loses this case,, that could mean the end of Chemtrail central, and Thermit could lose a million dollars if you post whole entire articles, not excerpts.)
[Edited 1 times, lastly by KnewEyes on 02-04-2002] 
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Duncan Kunz
Senior Member
582 posts, Oct 2000
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posted 02-04-2002 11:28 PM
KnewEyes, I don't understand your point. When you take something that someone has come up with and use it without his or her permission, that is theft.Now I don't know all the details of the case. But if NewRepublic.com copied entire articles without the owners' permission, and ignored requests to stop doing so (which is what I assume to be the case), it's just like making an illegal copy of a program, or selling a song that some other person has come up with. It is theft. The newspapers pay their employees money to research and report news stories. Those stories are the company's stock in trade; their inventory -- just like Excel(c) or Word(c) is the stock-in-trade of Microsoft Corporation. This is not a First Amendment issue, anymore than my breaking into your house is a First Amendment "right". If FreeRepublic is doing what they have been charged with, they need to stop. If they don't stop (and I assumed they were warned to stop), then they should be stopped. You said, "...if FreeRepublic loses this case, that could mean the end of Chemtrail central and Thermit could lose a million dollars if you post whole entire articles, not excerpts." I doubt it. Chemtrail Centrail is not dependent on people ripping off entire articles and posting them here. But it does mean that people who do such things have -- hopefully -- got a wake-up call. You can't steal other peoples' property -- actual or intellectual -- and get away with it. ------------------
Duncan Kunz / duncankunz@home.com
Mesa AZ / 480-891-2525
[Edited 2 times, lastly by Duncan Kunz on 02-04-2002]
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KnewEyes
watcher
under those cloud-like things
665 posts, Apr 2001
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posted 02-05-2002 08:45 AM
My point is... that if this Freerepublic.com whom is notorious for ripping off articles..loses this lawsuit, then the precedence is set.
If afterwards, anyone here, cuts and pastes a full article to this forum, Thermit could be held accountable, and CTC could be shut down.
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Duncan Kunz
Senior Member
582 posts, Oct 2000
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posted 02-05-2002 08:41 PM
KnewEyes, you have a point there. However, inasmuch as Thermit's not trying to make a buck from other peoples' work, and -- in a public forum -- he can't stop overly-zealous cut-'n'-pasters, I doubt that any news organization would get on him.But they could, so I think it's up to everyone who sees the value of Thermit's work as well as the good times here not to screw things up. A citation of the source, a couple of verbatim introductory paragraphs, a link to the rest of the story, and everyone comes out ahead. Duncan
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