Thanks to Dan Kennedy for supplying information, links, and documents relating to a very interesting, and very worrisome, lawsuit that GateHouse media (which controls the TAB newspapers and the “Wicked Local” websites, among other things) has filed against the New York Times Co., “doing business as Boston.com.” (I’m actually not sure that the NYT Co. owns Boston.com, which as I understand it is a distinct legal entity from the Globe, but that will no doubt get sorted out soon enough.)
The gist of the lawsuit is that Boston.com has set up some “Your Town” pages, the idea of which is to supply “hyper-local” content for specific communities. Each “your town” page consists of a bunch of headlines and one-sentence summaries culled from a bunch of different sources; each headline is a link to the original story. So, for example, here’s a typical set of entries on the Newton page:
Seideman to decide soon on mayoral run
Newton for Fiscal Responsibility cochairman Jeff Seideman says he will decide before the end of January if he will run for mayorl. (Newton Tab Blog, 12/23/08)Constitution and Consensus
The Boston Review is running an essay by William Hogeland on the challenges (or lack thereof) of public history. (Boston 1775 Blog, 12/23/08)Critter in the house
‘Twas three days before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring . . . except for a crafty mouse. (Elicia Buzz Blog, 12/22/08)
This should look familiar to anyone familiar with the internet, and in particular with gathering news from different sources thereon. What Boston.com appears to be doing is taking a feed from a variety of websites (perhaps via the RSS feed offered by the Newton Wicked Local site and others), and simply reproducing the headline and introductory sentence, along with a link. Standard fare — we do something similar all the time. Our Google Reader (the BMG Mass o’ Politics feed), for example, collects headlines from several websites, and simply reprints the headline along with a link. Furthermore, many blog posts on this and similar sites begin with a headline and/or a few lines from a news story that was published elsewhere.
GateHouse Media has sued Boston.com over this practice. They claim that by taking the headline and the first sentence, they’re
