“Read all about it… or we’ll sue your ass!”
IDG News Service, August 16, 2007:”
Analyst firm Knowledge Networks has agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a complaint that it distributed news articles to its employees without permission of the copyright owners, a trade group announced Thursday.
“[We] disseminated copies of relevant newspaper and magazine articles in the good faith belief that it was lawful to do so,” the company said in the statement. “We now understand that practice may violate the copyright rights of those publications. We regret that those violations may have occurred and we are pleased that this matter has now been resolved.”
Apparently an employee or former employee got a nice windfall for turning the company in:
SIIA learned about the situation through a confidential tip, the trade group said. The person who reported Knowledge Networks will receive a $6,000 reward.
Wow! I’m gonna turn in JCD for re-posting news articles in his blog. I’ll be rich, rich, rich!!!
I’m not sure about the US but in the Netherlands every business gets taxed for that already. It’s called Reprorecht (Repro right) and starts at around 20 euros a year for small businesses, and the maximum is close to 5000 euros a year. Depending on the number of employees they “assume” that you make so many copies of copyrighted articles, that justifies the tax.
This all started somewhere in 2003/2004. In my individual case I convinced them that I never make a copy, and they accepted that. Never heared of them since. Still weird…
Ah, I see the RIAA and MPAA have been teaching the newspaper industry some lessons.
I wonder if it’s illegal to pass a crumpled copy of a newspaper around the office? Or just link to whatever.
#4 To the first question the answer is yes but probably not for long.
and one day, someone will sue someone for humming a copyrighted tune in the presence of others.
pj
#2
Considering how greedy they are it will mean charging per copy.
#6
It will happen the day their lobbyists bribe enough politicians to make it a law.
So if I move and when packing I wrap some things in old newspaper to cushion them I probably better burn that so someone in another city doesn’t pull them out of the trash and read them with out paying for them.