READ THIS *** REMINDER: Dallas Morning News (DMN) has demanded we no longer allow their content on CZ ***

[Reality]

For those of you who did not visit during the off-season ..

During the summer, we received a legal Cease & Desist order from the law firm of Dallas Morning News (DMN) today requesting we no longer allow DMN content on the site.

It's unfortunate given that we were sending DMN's web site several hundred users in traffic each day, but it is their choice and their content so we have abided with their legal order.

On the bright side, there are a lot of other great Cowboys news sources available that like the traffic and exposure we provide them so that will help all of us keep up with the latest Cowboys news.


***** GENERAL NOTES *****

• Yes, we understand there are fair use laws.

• No, we are not going to fight this.

• DMN does not want its content here, we accepted that and moved on.

• The legal C&D was quite specific and said "All Content" so the only way we would consider allowing their content back on the site would be if the same law firm rescinds their threat in writing and DMN provides legal permission for us to do so also in writing.

 

[dogberry]

Are tweets fair game?

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

Are tweets fair game?

The legal C&D was quite specific and said "All Content"

 

[ElGatoGrande]

Most of their content is negative junk anyway. Bob Sturm is the only one that provides any quality articles and even that has gone downhill since he joined them,,, pressure from the editor?

 

[jwitten82]

The legal C&D was quite specific and said "All Content"

You want me to take care of that? Because ill do it

 

[GORICO]

For those of you who did not visit during the off-season ..

During the summer, we received a legal Cease & Desist order from the law firm of Dallas Morning News (DMN) today requesting we no longer allow DMN content on the site.

It's unfortunate given that we were sending DMN's web site several hundred users in traffic each day, but it is their choice and their content so we have abided with their legal order.

On the bright side, there are a lot of other great Cowboys news sources available that like the traffic and exposure we provide them so that will help all of us keep up with the latest Cowboys news.


***** GENERAL NOTES *****

• Yes, we understand there are fair use laws.

• No, we are not going to fight this.

• DMN does not want its content here, we accepted that and moved on.

• The legal C&D was quite specific and said "All Content" so the only way we would consider allowing their content back on the site would be if the same law firm rescinds their threat in writing and DMN provides legal permission for us to do so also in writing.

Reality--- May i ask why DMN did not want their content on this site?....seems counter productive?

 

[dogberry]

Interesting, Kate's and Jon's tweets as issued by them have no Dallas Mornings News or Dallas News indentification on them.

If the DMN/DN doesn't explicitly identify the content they publish as theirs, is it, the content, covered by the Cease and Desist notice.

Alas, neither REAILTY nor dogberry want to spend several hundred million dollars to get this semi-fascinating question answered.

 

[ActualCowboysFan]

Junk site anyway. Used to anticipate their articles. Now I wouldn't use it in a bird cage

 

[Jarv]

Lol...I haven't been to their site since they ordered this a while back. The only time I ever went there at all was from following links from here!

 

[PA Cowboy Fan]

There's plenty of Cowboy content on the internet. Who needs them? Haven't gone there since the early 2000's and don't miss them.

 

[Reverend Conehead]

Normally, you can quote a couple opening paragraphs and then link to an article and be fine. It's not in violation of copyright law. Are they complaining about that? If they are, they're idiots, but we could, of course, refrain from doing that if we have to.

 

[tyke1doe]

Is there any ambiguity over what "all content" means?

 

[Reverend Conehead]

I thought a workaround may be to post the title of the article only and the fact that it's DMN and then comment on it so people can google it, but then I thought, we can just ****'em. We can just find another news source covering the same topic and then use the fair use I described: quote the first couple paragraphs of the non-DMN article and then link to them. That's totally legal because you're only quoting an excerpt and commenting on it. It's actually doing the news source a favor by sending people to their article. Give the other news source the link if DMN is going to be such jerks to this site. Do the other news source a solid, not DMN.

 

[Reality]

Normally, you can quote a couple opening paragraphs and then link to an article and be fine. It's not in violation of copyright law. Are they complaining about that? If they are, they're idiots, but we could, of course, refrain from doing that if we have to.

This was covered in the original post.

 

[Reality]

Is there any ambiguity over what "all content" means?

As I said, they stated "All Content". Once their legal threat stated that, it ended all options.

 

[Reality]

Let me be clear .. this was discussed in detail during the summer.

I am WELL aware of online laws as I have done consulting in that area many times over the years. I also understand there are "fair use" laws and I also know that one employee from DMN said we could post certain parts of content from their site, however, all of that was superseded when their law firm sent a Cease & Desist order (yes, I know it's not a legally filed order *yet*) demanding we remove "ALL DMN CONTENT" from CowboysZone. A C&D is a warning to stop doing something or else the sender of the C&D plans to take legal action against you. Yes, you can fight any C&D, but it really is not worth it.

I don't care if you're an actual lawyer, an armchair lawyer or you watched a lot of Law and Order, I have stated our position as clearly as possible. Since their law firm sent the C&D, the only way we would consider allowing DMN content on this site now will be if their law firm rescinds the C&D in writing and DMN itself provides legal permission to do so in writing. I do not see either of those things happening so all of this is moot.

I appreciate the desire to help, I really do! Fortunately, we have several other great sources of Cowboys news and content and those sources will greatly appreciate the additional traffic they are receiving now as a result of this.

 

[Hardline]

What if you link to another link that has DMN articles?

 

[Reality]

What if you link to another link that has DMN articles?

If the link is to a page on a site that simply quotes a part of a DMN article in their own article, that would be fine. For example, BTB will do this from time to time. However, if the link is to a page that just shows all or part of the article or just links or redirects to DMN, that is not allowed.

 

[bigbob]

dmn messed up.

 

[DoctorChicken]

dmn messed up.

Yes they did.

I understand their reasoning. But in the end, why would you not want a website with 36,000+ members posting links to your website? That's a lot of traffic, potential subscribers and revenue.