Leftist publication The New York Times has trampled all over fair use, en route to charging authors Daniel C. Hallin and Charles L. Briggs $1,884 for quoting the publication in their book. Titled Making Health Public: How News Coverage Is Remaking Media, Medicine, and Contemporary Life, the book contains less than 300 words of quotation from The New York Times, and yet the NY-based publication wants nearly $2000 in restitution.

As journalists themselves, who frequently quote others, the staff there should be ashamed.

Hallin and Briggs claim that the quotations fall under fair use, and have taken to Kickstarter to raise the money needed to pay the fee. Their book is filled with quotes from other sources, but The New York Times stands alone as the only publication to demand money from the writers. It's disgusting; a multi-billion-dollar company trying to suck the life out of two authors for including three short quotes in their book.

In a statement regarding the ordeal, the Times claims that the company supports fair use, but that their "journalism costs money to produce and we share royalties with the reporters, photographers and others who helped create it." The ultra-liberal newspaper seems unforgivably money-hungry in their fascist attempt to squeeze dollars out of two men who are just trying to make it as authors in an extremely competitive field.

The New York Times is in the wrong here. Anyway you look at it, their decision to demand money from two small-time authors for quoting their publication is absolutely ridiculous. Even though there are loopholes in the fair use agreement, what The New York Times is doing is wrong.

Sources:

Tech Dirt

Kickstarter

Evil.news