Reporter defends officials

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by Mark Padgett

Camron - please explain how pasting an article that is posted on a newspaper's website for free "takes from the author's chance to earn payment for his work". The article is out there for anyone to read. It is not at all the same as "someone showing up on your jobsite and taking some of the materials". It would be that only if the article was stolen and distributed prior to publication. But distributing something that is free and accessible to anyone is quite different from what you described, I think. It's not like this website (or me) is selling it and making a profit from it. I don't see how it's any different than posting a link, as long as you give proper credit (which I always do).

Actually, the newspaper's website IS selling it and making a profit from it. It is just that the people paying for it on your behalf are the advertisers.

Publishers track the number of times people click on the headlines/summaries to read articles. The publishers use those stats to price their advertising space. Perhaps they also use it to see who's articles are the most read and, by that measure, the most valuable...perhaps being used to decide who to keep and who to let go. When anyone takes such an article from such a site and posts it elsewhere, they author doesn't get "credit" for the number of people who've read it....and who've seen the adverts that paid for it. If content gets copied to other sites too much, the original source makes no money from their advertisers and goes under and those that simply copied it are still around and copy from somewhere else.

On the other hand, a short summary and a link is the perfect solution. It let's people know what the story is and those that are interested can click through to the original site. Still free, and the author gets appropriate credit.