Talk:L.A. Times v. Free Republic

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Contents 1 how much to quote 2 This will become a very long article 3 text from FR article 4 Proposed merge

[edit] how much to quote

I suggest that too much is being quoted from ancilliary material. To illustrate, I post here what I would keep of the complaint, rather than edit the original.

[edit]1 The original complaint

Complaint for Copyright Infringement. Case: Los Angeles Times v. Free Republic. Court: U.S. District Court, C.D.Cal., Case No. 98-7840 MMM(AJWx). Date filed: September 28, 1998. The original complaint alleged (among other arguments) that[2] : 15. The Infringing Website [Free Republic] consists of hundreds if not thousands of copyrighted articles from competing "name-brand" news sources, including, among others, the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post. Articles from Plaintiffs' websites and other would-be competitors' websites are literally copied onto and posted on Defendants' website -- 17. For their own profit and advantage, Defendants [Free Republic] are misappropriating the non-transformed, copyrighted material in which each Plaintiff [Los Angeles Times, Washington Post et al] has invested heavily. Defendants' website relies on the copyrighted content of Plaintiffs' newspapers and websites to attract readers, and to subject those readers to Defendants' and others' advertising and promotional material. ... The petition for relief asked that the court: A. Declare that Defendants' unauthorized conduct violates Plaintiffs' rights under common law and the Federal Copyright Act; B. [and] enjoining Defendants... from copying and republishing any of Plaintiffs' copyrighted articles ... C. Ordering Defendants to account to Plaintiffs for all gains, ,,,, and since Defendants intentionally infringed plaintiffs' copyrights, for the maximum allowable statutory damages for each violation; ...

I might add "22. Plaintiffs have no objection to Defendants discussing the content and ideas expressed in Plaintiffs' articles [or]... use of plain hypertext links to Plaintiffs' websites such that Defendants' users would have easy access to Plaintiffs' copyrighted articles. ...

Robinson characterized the ensuing court battle as: a life and death struggle with elements of the socialist propaganda machine, namely, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.

best reason to abridge -- there will be a lot more coming. I would be tempted to skip to the judgment. DGG 01:37, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This will become a very long article

... if you choose to quote 317 words from every piece of paper filed by the Plaintiffs. Summarize, summarize, summarize. -- BryanFromPalatine 19:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] text from FR article

Because it has been a practice of Free Republic to allow and even encourage its users to copy and paste copyrighted news stories in their entirety to its discussion boards, Free Republic was sued by The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times for federal copyright infringement. [1]. The case often cited in Cyberlaw is referred to as L.A. Times v. Free Republic. Many members viewed the lawsuit as a conspiracy by the "liberal media" to stifle the organization; founder Robinson referred to the suit as "a life and death struggle with elements of the socialist propaganda machine."[2] Free Republic's defense claimed that the site was non-profit, argued Fair Use, First Amendment, and that its use was 'transformative'. All these arguments were overuled and/or disallowed. The federal trial court judge ruled against Free Republic and awarded a summary judgment for $1,000,000 in damages to the two newspapers, plus attorney's fees. Free Republic announced their intent to appeal this decision to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and filed a brief, but chose another avenue. [3] In a negotiated settlement, The Los Angeles Times and Washington Post were granted a permanent injunction against Free Republic enjoing them from further copyright infringement. Free Republic removed all the full text articles and agreed to post a notice on their website describing the stipulations of the final judgement, and directed its members to cease posting copyrighted full text articles. Each paper was awarded a sum of $5,000, a significant reduction from the original award. Users now post excerpts from copyrighted articles (as allowed by fair use), and the site filters submissions against a watchlist of "banned" sources. [4] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fairness And Accuracy For All (talk • contribs) 07:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Proposed merge

I'm proposing that this be merged with the Free Republic article. I see no real need for it to be a separate article unto itself. Jinxmchue 16:31, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I support merger. This issue is not really notable by itself, but certainly is noteable within the history of Free Republic.Dman727 07:17, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Not notable? On the contrary, it is a leading case in Fair Use and cyber-piracy. IF the Free Republic article is deleted, as has been proposed, would your opinion change? Eschoir 03:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

No, not really. Well actually that would strengthen my opinion. If Free Republic isnt notable enough for an article, than any cases it is involved in would be even less so. In any event Im not aware of anyone really trying to delete either article, but I do think that one article is sufficient to cover the material from both so a merger makes sense. Dman727 21:44, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Walker Thomas Furniture is not worth an article, but Williams v. Walker-Thomas is a case that established that contracts otherwise valid may be uninforceable through unconscienability. Its a seminal case and deserves an article if it hasn't got one. Eschoir 01:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I still don't see this case as notable and i have no opinion on the furniture case. I support merging it with the Free Republic article. I wouldnt put either article for deletion mind you, just agreeing that one article makes more sense than two.Dman727 03:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Williams_v._Walker-Thomas_Furniture_Co.&action=edit Eschoir 01:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Free Republic is far more notable than the case. It makes more sense to merge the two than have separate articles. Incidentally, who the heck are you? Jinxmchue 06:15, 3 April 2007 (UTC)