ZGram - 7/6/2002 - "Censorship stalking the Net - Again!"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

July 6, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

Once more the powers that be are trying to censor the net.  This 
time, as before, it is linking.  If linking to outside sources is 
going to be against the law, it will effectively cripple the Net. 
Let's see if our enemies can do it!  We have fought them before - and 
we won!

Here is the precedent:

[START]

Jul 5, 2002

Web Site Barred From Linking to Danish Newspaper Web Sites

By Jan M. Olsen

Associated Press Writer

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - Challenging the World Wide Web's 
fundamental premise of linking, a Danish court ordered an Internet 
news service to stop linking to Web sites of Danish newspapers.

Copenhagen's lower bailiff's court ruled Friday that Newsbooster.com 
was in direct competition with the newspapers and that the links it 
provided to specific news articles damaged the value of the 
newspapers' advertisements.

The case was among the latest to challenge the Web's basic premise of 
encouraging the free flow of information through linking.

Requiring permission before linking could jeopardize online journals, 
search engines and other sites that link - which is to say, just 
about every site on the Internet.

Newsbooster.com immediately removed its links to 20 Danish newspapers 
that belong to the Danish Newspaper Publishers Association, which 
filed the complaint and welcomed the ruling.

"It would have been difficult for newspapers to do business if the 
bailiff's court had reached the opposite result," spokesman Ebbe Dal 
said.

Anders Lautrup, the manager of Copenhagen-based Newsbooster.com, 
said, "We're deeply shocked. I trust this will have consequences for 
search engines worldwide."

Newsbooster.com connects users to specific pages on the Internet 
rather than to a site's home page. It's much like a search engine - 
subscribers choose keywords and other criteria, and the service 
returns a set of news articles that match the descriptions.

Unlike most search engines, though, Newsbooster charges a 
subscription fee and lets users choose to automatically receive links 
by e-mail.

The publishers association, whose members market their own Web sites, 
demanded that the group negotiate payments with them, or remove links 
to its sites.

Newsbooster.com retains links to about 4,480 newspapers worldwide. 
"We have not heard one word from these foreign newspapers," Lautrup 
said.

He said Newsbooster.com would appeal the ruling.

Newsbooster.com argued it didn't steal information, but simply made 
it easier to find.

AP-ES-07-05-02 1120EDT

(Source:  http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAFUHX7A3D.html )

[END]

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