As many folks have pointed out, a stable of New York Times columnists have been locked behind a paywall online.
I agree with everyone who thinks this is a load of crap.
Hiding content behind a cash register serves only to further remove the NYT from public discourse. But that’s a given.
Anyway, if you really want to read what Tom Friedman et al have to say, and you’re a student/staff/faculty member at a university with access to the Lexis-Nexis database, just use the Quicksearch box, throw in the headline you’re looking for, and set the date to “today” or “this week” as appropriate.
At least you can read it, even if sharing it via copy/paste violates several copyrights and EULAs. Great. Thanks NYT, thanks Lexis-Nexis, and thanks Reed Elsevier for making it difficult or illegal to refer to some of the most interesting public discourse in the nation. Good job everyone.
Without a shred of irony, I note that the story I wanted to read was a Tom Friedman column on podcasting in China.
Yeah, no irony at all.
(via Dave Winer)
[tags]open access, NYT, new york times, times select[/tags]