As many here at Daily Kos know, truthout.org has been performing a brave public service by posting TimesSelect editorials so the rest of the world can read folks like Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman and Frank Rich. Well, the inevitable has happened. The Times is threatening legal action against truthout.org, so truthout has ceased posting the TimesSelect editorials.
I've been trying to think of a way to circumvent the Times system in a way that would
- Be very difficult for the Times to keep track of
- Open up folks to little risk of legal action
I don't think that I've come up with a foolproof plan, but I have an idea that would like to present to the community for consideration and criticism.
I (and I suspect many other members here, especially academics) have access to LexisNexis through my work. I can easily and legally circumvent TimesSelect and access the editorials via LexisNexis on the same day that they are published in the paper. It would be trivial for me to copy an editorial and send it to two people, who could in turn send it to four, four to eight, etc. With minimal effort--each person sending the editorials to just two other persons--we could easily distribute the editorials widely and reliably without any easy way to get in trouble for copyright violation.
What do folks think about this?
Is anyone willing to work with me to get this going?
If you don't like the idea, do you have refinements of my idea or an entirely different idea that would work better?
BTW, I'm not a lawyer, so if anyone would like to clarify what sort of jeopardy we'd be putting ourselves in by implementing my idea, please do.