I disagree with your contention that it is fair use to copy newspaper articles in their entirety without obtaining permission from the copyright holder.
One of the news sites that I read on a regular basis is AP's breaking news. They specifically state that they retain copyright to these articles, and provide information about how to obtain permission to reprint (for a fee).
Likewise, just about every newspaper that I know of does the same thing. If you want to copy something from the NY Times or any other newspaper, you have an obligation to obtain permission. Some will grant permission to reprint without charge, others want a fee. That's the perogative of copyright holders.
That does not prevent you from posting short excerpts of an editorial or an article in order to comment. That is fair use. However, posting an entire article that has not been placed in the public domain is not fair use.
Newspapers in this country are struggling. It's a tough business with narrow margins. Most of the better papers put their product online, even though few of them generate enough revenue from their online sites to cover the costs of placing the material online. The small fees that they charge to download articles frome their extensive archives help to cover those costs.
While it's nice to think that all information should be free, we need to remember that the gathering and publishing of that information is a costly endeavor. Advertising covers part of that cost, but for most newspapers not all of it.
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu on behalf of Richard Hake
Sent: Thu 3/9/2006 4:13 PM
To: phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
Cc: ITFORUM@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU; POD@LISTSERV.ND.EDU; STLHE-L@LISTSERV.UNB.CA; PHYSLRNR@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Symposium on Copyright at a Crossroads
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In response to my post of 8 March titled "Re: Symposium on Copyright
at a Crossroads" [Hake (2006a)], Irascible Professor Mark Shapiro
(2006) wrote:
"It has been well-established that fair use does not include
widespread distribution of verbatim copies of the entire work. "
But as indicated by Phys-L's high-energy theorist and practicing
attorney Jack Uretsky (2006):
". . . . it's more persuasive to recount the facts of a particular
case, or cases, than to use the blanket phrase (by itself) "It has
been well-established". [The former] approach recognizes the truism
that courts only resolve individual controversies, they do not -
except in a very rough and imprecise sense - set policies. "
So I think it's fair to state that what Mark regards as "well
established" is, at best, problematic.
Nevertheless, Mark goes on to make a good case for NOT copying
material at his site <http://irascibleprofessor.com/> into discussion
list archives. Mark wrote [bracketed by lines "SSSSSSSSS. . . ."]:
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
". . . several of my guest commentators are professional writers, who
earn at least part of their income from their written work. Under
their agreements with me, they retain copyright to the content of
their commentaries. I allow this specifically so that they can
attempt to publish their work elsewhere after the 10-day exclusivity
period in my contract with them expires. Many of them do just that.
Putting their works in their entirety on the Internet, which is what
happens in practice to the content of many newsgroups and forums,
destroys the market for their work.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
However, the Irascible Professor's site
<http://irascibleprofessor.com/> is extremely atypical in its dealing
with authors, and IMHO Mark's arguments are irrelevant to the usual
copying of newspaper and journal articles into discussion list
archives that's been the primary concern of this thread.
For example, in the typical cases I mentioned in my post of 8 March
"Re: Symposium on Copyright at a Crossroads" [Hake (2006a)], namely
"Big gaps appear in state, federal test scores" [Becker (2006)] and
"Proof of Learning at College" [Hake (2006c)], the authors of the
copied articles are, respectively, AP education writer Ben Feller and
an anonymous NYT editorial writer.
As far as I know neither Feller nor the NYT editorial writer: (a)
retain the copyright, (b) receive royalties for their articles, or
(c) suffer income reduction if their articles are copied into
discussion list archives. If anything, as indicated in Hake (2006b),
their incomes tend to be enhanced by the attention and prestige they
receive when their articles or editorials are more widely
disseminated to the academic and education communities.
Some responders to this thread have suggested that instead of copying
news report articles into discussion list archives it would be better
to simply give the newspapers' or journals' URL for the article, thus
avoiding all copyright problems. The difficulty is that most
newspapers give free access to their articles for only a short
period, after which one must either subscribe to the newspaper or
else pay a fee for the article.
For example, today I attempted to access the NYT editorial "Proof of
Learning in College" that appeared in the NYT of 26 February 2006,
and that I had copied into "Proof of Learning at College" [Hake
(2006c)] of 27/28 Feb. I went to the NYT website
<http://www.nytimes.com/>, clicked on "Editorials/OpEd" in the
left-hand column, and scrolled back to 26 Feb. I was not surprised to
find that in order to see the editorial I must either subscribe to
the newspaper or else pay a fee. Furthermore, even if I WERE to pay
the fee, the journalistic editorial, bereft of substantiation, would
not contain the valuable hot-linked academic references that I
supplied in the APPENDIX of my post.