Up until the controversy broke, this was the warning posted on the website/blog:
A subscription is required at North Country Gazette. We allow only one free read per visitor. We are currently gathering IPs and computer info on persistent intruders who refuse to buy subscription and are engaging in a theft of services. We have engaged an attorney who will be doing a bulk subpoena demand on each ISP involved, particularly Verizon Droids, Frontier and Road Runner, and will then pursue individual legal actions.
Oh noes! The interwebs po po!
By reading this comment you agree to pay me the sum of $1 Million USD (U.S. Dollars).
Who are these idiots? Its up to them to restrict their content to subscribers only. If they want a website you can only access once, then stop serving HTTP requests to that IP address.
Some f-cking lawyer must have dreamed this up.
Why would anyone want to read more than one article from the North Country Gazette?
It’s because they don’t have accounts. They have only a passowrd and no username. The really bad security has been breached.
It looks like they found a way to put up a pay wall without suing people. As some of the articles are now password protected. This isn’t the first time the newspaper has caused controversy. A few years back the owner of the paper June Maxam caused a controversy regarding fair use.
She also has a Encyclopedia Dramatica article dedicated to her. I’d have to agree with the Encyclopedia Dramatica article, she’s just a old troll who lives under a bridge.
I am tempted to write a bot that would go through multiple FOREIGN anonymous proxies and download their entire web site … over and over and over. Try and sue a bot bitches. What a bunch of morans.
Even if it was free, it’s not worth the electrons
to read it…
June Maxam, the owner of the NC Gazette, has an interesting ED page
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/June_Maxam
Google reader is a bot.
Ha, ha, ha. I read a North Country Gazette article, left the site for awhile and went back to take another look. I got a 403 Forbidden
You don’t have permission to access / on this server.
That will drum-up business.
Oh man, are they in for it when 4chan hears about this.
I suspect that some of the more rambunctious sorts will educate them to the virtues of being tactful.
As for as I’m concerned they can take down their web site.
simply avoid
internet has everything you need
I’ve never been there and i got the 403 error, i should sue for not getting my one time free access
False Advertising!
They’re just doing it for the lulz.
Good luck with that. I wonder how they treat their subscribers to the newspaper?
What have they got against Droids?
Is Maxam an iPhone fanatic?
According to the link from #8, this is one lone bitter woman who believes she can reprocess news articles from other sources and is above the law. And she will sue anyone else at the drop of a hat, to the point that the local court has her down as a “frequent filer”. Even the local police wish she would just go away.
Hi! We’re your local newspaper and we’re dumb as f@ck!!! Wanna read more of our articles??
These guys sound as smart as the fictional Piranha Brothers, from a Monty Python sketch.
Soon they will have their other, other -operation.
# 20 ReadyKilowatt said, on October 29th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Rupert Murdoch is kicking himself for not thinking of this first.
Look for a merger with News Corp next week.
When I first read this article, I thought that this has to a Murdoch publication.
Is this a tale of things to come or just some stupid little paper ?
Sure newspapers have an issue – they have to be on the internet – yet how do you make money on it ?
Yet wake up boys , times have changed , you are no longer flyers with newswire articles with which to make scads of money on selling ads – that were of little effective use what so ever
Its now the day of narrowcasting not broadcasting
Wake up your hands are tied with costs of buildings , unions and gasp high priced execs who dream up such stupidity’
Have you never heard of changing ip and clearing cookies. You can bet that since you have a local paper that there are only a few isps, with few ranges of ips
It is not like someone in China has any use for your rag
Its a brave new world out there, wake up
Little things for little minds
Dead print media’
The main good use for trees now is now to burn in your furnace this winter
Dead tree Media
This brings up an issue I have wondered about for years.
Can a website ban the police/FBI/CIA from reading it?
It seems like the same laws which make hacking illegal, could also make government snooping without a warrant illegal.
Just put in the TOS that government employees are forbidden to enter your web site without approval. Then, if you catch them snooping, go after them the same way software and music companies go after people.
This one is such a nobrainer. Just don’t go to the website. I usually avoid websites with lot’s of popups and adverts too. It’s as easy as moving your right finger down a fraction of an inch on a thing they call a mouse.
Seems to me the issue is one of common sense: should you be able to go out on a street corner and yell as loud as possible and then command people to pay you for what they hear, or to not listen?
Analogy is not precise as always but close enough to the degree that starting a non password protected website is yelling to the public. I would dismiss all filed lawsuits with costs to the defendants. Cops are allowed to listen as well when in the public.
“There should be a law” setting up the rules of the internet. Almost doesn’t even matter what the rule is, as long as it is easy to understand and follow. Simple.
Well, I’m concerned they can take down their web site.
Cursor_
The Google reader thing really worked. I thought it was funny and I was surprised that it worked.
I did not read anything, I just wanted to … them.
The police say there is no reasonable expectation of privacy when you walk down my public street and somebody sees your fat ass also walking down the public street.
By the same token, no company has any reasonable expectation of privacy when they put up their fat-ass website on the public internet.
When I click the link in the article to visit the web site
http://northcountrygazette.org/
then I get a 403 Forbidden error. I am using Chrome browser.
But when I paste it into a new IE instance, I don’t get the forbidden message.
What’s up with that??
I think the guys at 4chan blew them away.