Raw, but c*nsored blabbing and blogging of a young journalista
and local news producer in Southern New England.
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Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Bloggers angry that they actually have to retype something

I may work for a CBS station. But a part of me thinks this is just people being whiny.

NYT reports that bloggers are p.o.'ed at CBS: "With the help of Seth Finkelstein, a programmer and fellow blogger (sethf.com/infothought/blog/), Mr. Miller [Ernest Miller, fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, who blogs Internet law] found that the document's encryption settings had been changed and, as a result, the text could not be copied. Anyone who downloaded the panel's report from either the CBS News servers or those of the law firm would have to retype any passages they wished to include in, say, an e-mail message or a blog post."

I'm sorry, but I type enough -- and I would bet that bloggers type more than enough -- that I have no fershlugginer bloody problem with a) keeping the web site of CBS's report open in one window and typing into another window, or b) PRINTING OUT CBS's report and retyping from that. (No mention was made of preventing the document from being printed out.)

"What happened to the transparency?" says Mr. Miller to NYT's Tom Zeller.

However, CBS's answer was just as lame.

Exec Linda Mason told NYT the "digital restrictions" were made -- apparently more than just preventing copying and pasting -- because it was feared "an enterprising ne'er-do-well could copy the text into a new document and begin circulating a faked version of the report."

Those lawyers have more imagination than most Hollywood writers and producers... and executives.

You can also read the earlier "unrestricted" version of the report at rathergate.com.

Now a dig at NYT proper. Most of the links appearing above came from the NYT's online article. But did the New York Times link to the CBS report itself? Or the CBS website at all? NOOOOOOOOOOOO! That was a bad decision, Tom Zeller, or whoever encoded the article for the Internet. Grrrrrrrr!

Meander:
Since I'm out sick (agony will be blogged in a minute) I actually get to watch Letterman. Second guest Chris "Mad Dog" Russo of WFAN radio in New York has been doing his show for 15 years... and apparently shouting longer than that.

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 1/19/2005 12:23:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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