Pérez-Peña responds

New York Times media reporter Richard Pérez-Peña has responded to my post of earlier today:

I enjoy your work, and obviously I'm biased, but I thought your critique of my piece was a little odd and beside the point. The point of citing those examples was that there was a lack of communication on even the basics. I think you agree with that.

I really don't understand why you bring up the dollar figures, since I can't quite figure out what (if anything) you're claiming is the "questionable assertion." You wrote, "there doesn't seem to be much doubt that management has, in fact, been telling Globe employees that the paper lost $50 million last year," as if I had cast doubt on that. I hadn't. As far as I know, no one disputes that this is the number the company has cited. But it wasn't cited to "Globe employees." It was to union leaders, in private meetings, and maybe to a Globe reporter (I don't know), but not to employees at large or to the public.

You note that the company publicly owned up to the $85 million figure for this year. But did you know that for three weeks, the company would not acknowledge that figure, either, even after it had been reported everywhere? An executive said it at the April 23 shareholders' meeting (a slip, apparently), which I believe triggered the required SEC filing.

The point wasn't whether these were the numbers being used; everyone knew that they were, and I never wrote anything to the contrary. The point was that the company wouldn't state them publicly.

I confess that I wasn't aware of Mathis' June 4 e-mail to the Phoenix, but it doesn't undermine the point. The e-mail does not explicitly acknowledge that the company had threatened the unions with closure of The Globe if they did not make serious concessions. As far as I know, there hasn't been such an acknowledgment. I know first-hand that when asked to confirm it, the company declined. The e-mail says "closure is a very real path for the company to take" — a hell of a statement, I admit — but without explaining how or why that path might be taken. Also, that shut-down threat was first made in early April; the e-mail came two months later.

My comment: I stand by what I wrote. But, yes, I absolutely agree with Pérez-Peña's assertion that there has been "a lack of communication on even the basics."

Globe expands Your Town

The Boston Globe has rolled out six more Your Town hyperlocal sites, the subject of so much angst (and a lawsuit) last winter. Unlike the original iteration, the sites now feature mostly Globe content, with a few links to community sites. Your Town is now in 10 communities.

My quick perusal reveals no links to GateHouse's Wicked Local sites, even though the out-of-court settlement between GateHouse and the New York Times Co. allows linking as long as the Globe doesn't resume its practice of running an automated feed of GateHouse content on Your Town.

Interesting that the Globe continues its local push even as the Times Co. threatens to close the paper.

The new sites are on the South Shore (Hingham, Norwell and Scituate) and in the urban communities of Medford, Malden and Melrose. Here's an e-mail that went out to the staff on Friday from David Dahl, the Globe's regional editor:

All,

This week we launched six more Your Town sites, bringing to 10 the number of our hyperlocal sites. The new communities are Hingham, Scituate, Norwell, Medford, Malden and Melrose. You can find the sites at boston.com/hingham, boston.com/scituate, etc.

As many of you know, in addition to posts from Globe correspondents and staffers, the sites offer a collection of links to other blogs and websites, interactive opportunities for readers to post events and to report potholes and other problems, and, coming soon, improved blogging tools to allow readers to more easily post words and photos on our sites.

The sites enable us to reach deeper — and on a daily basis — into the communities that we've covered for years in our zoned sections. And the effort represents another collaborative effort between the Globe and our colleagues at boston.com to boost our local online effort.

Thursday's Globe North offers a good example of our early successes. Steve Rosenberg wrote a story about municipal salaries for the city of Medford, the latest in a series of muni salary stories to come out of the zones this year. Eric Bauer created a searchable database of the top 100 salaries. We published the story and database at boston.com/medford and in Globe North.

The response: several thousand page views, and 50 reader comments. "Great expose of public information. Plenty more out there. Next story: follow around a few of these administrators to see what they do all day and then figure out to whom they are related," wrote one reader. (It wasn't me, I swear...).

There are many people who worked to assemble these new sites, among them: Teresa Hanafin, Angela Nelson, Glenn Yoder, Marcia Dick, Dean Inouye, the zones copy desk and the staff on Bob Kempf's product team. In addition to staffers whose work will appear on the sites, we are using free lance "Town Correspondents" to post blog items and conduct outreach in the communities. They are Kathryn Eident, Ben Terris, Lisa Crowley and Travis Andersen.

Several of you have asked about page views and about advertising support. We're closing in on a half million page views this month from the Your Town sites. Ad sales are going reasonably well at this early date, and I'm assured that our sales people are looking for more.

David Dahl
Boston Globe Regional Editor
Boston.com/yourtown

GateHouse zings the Globe

The online-content war between the Boston Globe and GateHouse Media may have been settled out of court last winter, but resentments apparently linger. The Globe's Boston.com site has a local-search function that lets you find content from other sites. Check out the description in this Patriot Ledger video at Boston.com.

Zombie site lifts headlines, ledes

PolitickerMA.com may be gone, but a bunch of new posts popped up today in Google Reader. I went to the site, and I came across a long list of headlines and ledes lifted from Boston-area media, mostly the Boston Globe.

Hmmm ... is someone at GateHouse having a little fun?

GateHouse memo to employees

Media Nation has obtained a memo sent to the troops by GateHouse Media New England president Rick Daniels. I present it here in full; emphases are Daniels'. If there's anyone at the Boston Globe and/or the New York Times Co. who's got a memo you'd like to share on this matter, my e-mail address is in the right-hand rail.

GATEHOUSE MEDIA NEW ENGLAND - MEMORANDUM

To: GateHouse Media New England Colleagues

From: Rick Daniels, president / CEO GHMNE (and the GHMNE Senior Team)

Date: Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

We just wanted to inform you that we have settled the lawsuit that was to have begun Monday morning in Federal Court. A lot has begun to be written about the case, and more will be, but we wanted to take this opportunity to address you, our colleagues, to whom this great outcome belongs.

The outcome of this case addressed each and every substantive point of why there ever was a lawsuit in the first place. Despite the "chaff" that has been thrown up, this case is not, and never was about, "linking"; it's about the ability of GateHouse to protect our valuable content from inclusion in websites, or anywhere else where it doesn't belong – and being used by competitors who have no permission to use our content. We could not be happier with the outcome, and it will be clear to anyone who has followed this case and the extensive trail of public documents that have been generated, why. You will hear or read a lot of opinions from those who have no idea what they are talking about. For instance: "GateHouse should have tried to settle this quietly and without going to court". We did. Please ask us about ANY question or concern you have.

You, our professionals, have built an extensive array of local websites that are the "real McCoys" because hundreds and hundreds of LOCAL journalists and advertising professionals nourish them with content and revenue. Our journalists have been reporting LOCAL news and events in our newspapers or websites that have become part of the very fabric of over 150 greater Boston towns. Similarly, when local, and now so many regional and national advertisers look at their best market coverage options, they turn to OUR newspapers and websites due to the over 1.7 million readers we have each week, and about the same number of unique web visits. As we all know, success breeds imitation – always has, always will - but it SHOULDN'T breed violations of our legal rights to protect the content and journalism we generate.

We embrace – absolutely – the most core principles of the Internet and Web – linking and content sharing that supplements our own content and exposes this content to a wider audience. We also have enlisted a virtually countless number of local contributors, bloggers and webmasters with whom we have shared - and will most certainly continue to share content – vigorously and actively. We only expect those with whom we share content to comply with all applicable licenses and copyrights, as we do ourselves. Respect for these rights actually leads to the creation of MORE content, as the content creators have the potential to earn an economic reward for their efforts. For anyone who thinks or says that GateHouse is against the well-embraced Internet practice of content sharing and linking, and that we don't understand the great value of these practices, they are dead wrong. If, by defending our legitimate copyrights and our ability to control where our content appears, we are thought to be "old school" – guilty as charged!

Both the press release and the letter agreement between GateHouse and the New York Times Company can be found at the GateHouse investor's website: http://investors.gatehousemedia.com/. A word of caution: Settling a lawsuit requires certain each party to honor certain agreements, our Chief Counsel, Polly Sack has asked that the attached directive go out to all GateHouse employees. [Note: Media Nation does not have the attachment.] Please read it and comply with it – fully. She and we want to ensure we comply with both the letter and spirit of the agreement. It's how we do business. If there are ANY questions on the requirements of this agreement, please contact Polly Sack [contact information omitted].

There are so many people and organizations to thank for the case we put forward, it wouldn't be fair to try to list them all, but credit has to be given to our Corporate GateHouse colleagues, and especially Mike Reed, for their willingness to undertake this complex action based on their judgment of the merits of the case. Polly Sack, our GateHouse corporate counsel was, from start to finish, immense in her wisdom and expertise. The litigators from the firm of Hiscock and Barclay were extraordinary in their professional skill and stamina. Speaking of stamina, those who produced most of the discovery documents, prepared for depositions, and endured the grueling ordeal of depositions have to be credited. Much of this work was done on a "nights, weekends and holidays" basis. Recipients of the "Cool Under Fire" awards have to go to Kirk [Davis], Greg Reibman, Anne Eisenmenger, Chris Eck, Bill Blevins and Howard Owens, among others. MANY others not only contributed thoughts and helped the case in various ways, but also held down the fort as so many of us were otherwise occupied by doing in one month what our attorneys said would typically take 12-18 months!

Having this behind us is great, but it's the road ahead where the battle for the hearts, minds, dollars and eyeballs of local readers and advertisers will be won or lost, and make NO mistake, we will win, but we will face formidable competition at every juncture, which is something that we're not afraid of – whether it be print, digital or any other form of the media. This agreement just ensures that critical aspects of the competition will be within appropriate legal boundaries.

We also, thanks to the great majority of our reporters, editors, photographers and others who "get it", will continue to make our websites, and certainly our newspapers continue to be the beneficiaries of content partners who both USE our content in appropriate and legal ways, and provide content to our sites that enriches them. We urge you to re-double your efforts to partner with any and all content partners who can make our offerings more compelling, or expose our content more widely.

Thanks again for not only your great support during this difficult, yet so very successful case.

Rick

On the road

My piece for the Guardian on the GateHouse Media-New York Times Co. settlement should pop up here later today. I'll be on the road all day, so will not be able to update. Play nice!

Settlement details are now online

I'm getting ready for class, and so will not be able to comment in any detail on the settlement terms reached between GateHouse Media and the New York Times Co. And it's hard to know what the agreement (PDF) is going to look like in practice.

But my gut tells me that, by agreeing not to aggregate GateHouse content automatically for its Boston.com Your Town sites, the Times Co. will shift more to a blogging model, compiled by actual human beings, rather than robotically posting headlines and ledes from GateHouse's Wicked Local sites.

"To put it in the language of online-journalism theory, they have to shift a bit from raw aggregation to something closer to curation," writes Josh Benton of the Nieman Journalism Lab. I agree — I think that's exactly what we're going to see.

One interesting aspect of the agreement is that the Times Co. says it will not interfere with any technological fix GateHouse attempts to implement in order to stop it from "scraping" its content.

"Gatehouse had not previously established a barrier to prevent such scraping of its stories," writes Robert Weisman of the Boston Globe.

But in GateHouse's legal complaint, the company charges that it "implemented certain electronic security measures" last November, which were quickly defeated by Boston.com.

More to come, I'm sure.

GateHouse and New York Times Co. settle (II)

Since it appears that GateHouse Media and the New York Times Co. are still working out the details of their proposed settlement, I'm thinking we're not going to hear anything for a bit. Perhaps the two sides will put out a joint statement, but I've seen nothing yet.

The Boston Globe has a brief story here, and GateHouse, with an assist from the Associated Press, runs an account here.

GateHouse and New York Times Co. settle

As I had been hoping, GateHouse Media and the New York Times Co. have settled a lawsuit GateHouse brought over Boston.com's Your Town sites, which, GateHouse alleged, violate its copyright by lifting headlines and ledes en masse from its Wicked Local sites.

No details yet.

Instant update: It might be more accurate to say that the two sides are moving toward a settlement. The case has been dismissed, and thus the trial, scheduled to begin today in U.S. District Court, has been canceled.

But here's what Judge William Young has to say in his written order: "IT IS ORDERED that this action is hereby dismissed without cost and without prejudice to the right of any party, upon good cause shown, to reopen the action within thirty (30) days if settlement is not consummated."

So it's possible that this isn't over yet.

More on the Times Co.'s answer to GateHouse

Blogging at the Nieman Journalism Lab, Zachary Seward takes a deeper look at what I wrote about earlier this week — that the New York Times Co., in its answer to GateHouse Media's copyright-infringement suit, is alleging similar linking practices by GateHouse, served up with large dollops of hypocrisy and track-covering on GateHouse's part. (If you've just arrived, here's my best attempt at summarizing the case.)

Seward quotes from an internal e-mail by Howard Owens, GateHouse's director of digital publishing, in which Owens seems to condone the very linking practices over which GateHouse is now suing the Times Co.

Does this help bolster the Times Co.'s case? Perhaps. What's missing, though, is any sense of context. What the Times Co. is trying to do with its Boston.com Your Town sites is, as far as I know, unprecedented in the way that those sites scoop up every GateHouse Wicked Local link of value on a community-by-community basis.

As I've tried to make clear from the beginning, I'm not taking sides. I'm just trying to show why this isn't just a typical case of one news site linking to another.

Also worth checking out is this interview with David Ardia, head of the Citizen Media Law Project, which has compiled a useful dossier on the case.

The Times Co. answers GateHouse

Having just skimmed through the New York Times Co.'s 100-page response (PDF) to GateHouse Media's lawsuit over the Times Co.'s linking practices, I'm more convinced than ever that this case could harm Internet journalism if it goes to trial.

Because the case has First Amendment implications, it's on the fast track — a trial could begin in U.S. District Court in Boston as early as next Monday.

As a brief reminder, GateHouse is suing for copyright infringement and related allegations because Boston.com's Your Town sites — currently in Newton, Needham and Waltham, but scheduled to be rolled out in as many as 120 communities — link to GateHouse's Wicked Local sites without permission.

The Times Co. claims, correctly, that linking is the lifeblood of the Web, and that GateHouse papers link to outside content as well, including stories in the New York Times and the Boston Globe. GateHouse claims, also correctly, that Your Town goes beyond normal linking practices by grabbing headlines and ledes from numerous GateHouse stories in a given community.

The Times Co.'s answer, by lawyers R. David Hosp and Mark S. Puzella of the Boston firm Goodwin Procter, argues that there's nothing unusual about the Your Town linking practices; that GateHouse does it, too; and that GateHouse deliberately toned down its own linking practices in anticipation of its lawsuit. The lawyers write:

[G]iven that GateHouse engages in the same and substantially similar conduct that it claims is unlawful and entitles it to monetary damages, to the extent GateHouse prevails, it should be liable for identical claims based on its own past and present third-party news aggregation and verbatim headline and lede linking practices.

The brief is bolstered by printouts of GateHouse sites that aggregate news from other sources and by numerous internal e-mails. In one, written just before Your Town's debut in Newton, Greg Reibman, editor-in-chief of GateHouse's Metro Boston unit, wrote: "My suggestion would be for us to do all we can to make sure the Globe fails here before they roll this out to other communities."

In a press release, GateHouse Media's president and chief operating officer, Kirk Davis, disparages the Times Co.'s attempt to compare the two companies' linking practices:

By trying to equate its conduct with legitimate and widespread linking practices which permeate the Internet, it is The New York Times' counterclaims that threaten those established practices as well as fair competition in online journalism. The simple reality is that The New York Times chose to disregard these principles with its serial copying and display of GateHouse's original content on the boston.com 'YourTown' websites, which it has turned around and offered to readers in the same towns served by GateHouse's WickedLocal websites. We will defend these meritless counterclaims vigorously and consistent with controlling legal principles of fair use.

As I've argued before, I think Boston.com's practice of linking to virtually every GateHouse story on its Your Town pages is overly aggressive. Even though Your Town may drive traffic to individual GateHouse stories, it seems pretty clear that the project could starve the Wicked Local home pages of the oxygen they need to survive. (By way of comparison, take a look at Your Town Newton and Wicked Local Newton.)

On the other hand, as I've also argued before, GateHouse overreacted by literally making a federal case out of this. Those of us who are immersed in Web journalism, especially blogging, have a sense of what's acceptable in terms of linking practices and what isn't. Do we really want a judge or a jury setting out in writing that — for instance — you may be breaking the law if more than 31.5 percent of the links on your site go to a single source?

It would be in everyone's best interest, especially the Internet community's, if this case is settled before it goes to trial.

Media Nation on the air

I just recorded an interview with Hamilton Kahn of WOMR Radio (92.1 FM) in Provincetown. We talked mainly about GateHouse Media's lawsuit against the New York Times Co.

If you're interested, you should be able to listen to it here on Friday at 12:30 p.m., though I get an error message when I try to click on the live stream. Maybe you'll have better luck than I.

Why GateHouse should settle its suit

In my latest for the Guardian, I attempt to break down the issues in the case of GateHouse Media v. New York Times Co. to their essentials — and urge that the two sides settle their differences lest the future of online journalism be harmed.

Monday morning odds and ends

I don't plan to do much blogging this week, but I do want to call your attention to a few items:

• Chuck Tanowitz and Adam Reilly have both written sharp analyses of GateHouse Media's lawsuit against the New York Times Co. I think Reilly is on the mark with his observation that the Globe, through its Boston.com Your Town sites, is going beyond mere linking and is trying to establish itself as a substitute for GateHouse's Wicked Local sites, while using GateHouse's content.
  
• Joe Dwinell of the Boston Herald has also weighed in with a good item [link now fixed] on the suit. I do disagree with his characterization of this as "David vs. Goliath." Both GateHouse and the Times Co. are large, publicly traded media companies that are fighting for their financial lives. Call this Wounded Goliath I vs. Wounded Goliath II.
• Sean Polay, a top Internet guy for Rupert Murdoch's Ottaway Newspapers (including the Cape Cod Times and the Standard-Times of New Bedford), says he wouldn't mind at all if Boston.com linked to Ottaway content. Interesting, given that Herald publisher Pat Purcell recently accepted Murdoch's offer to run the Ottaway papers.
  

Finally, a source has provided me with a copy of Barclays' most recent report on the New York Times Co., the one that placed the value of the Globe at a mind-bogglingly low $20 million. I have posted it (PDF), so you can have a look for yourself. Perhaps a few gimlet-eyed Media Nation readers can find some gold.

I'm dubious. As you will see, Barclays values the Globe at somewhere between $12 million and $20 million — lower than the value of the "Worchester Papers," which it places at somewhere between $15 million and $25 million. That can't be right.

And, come on — the "Worchester Papers"? Does someone at Barclays think the Worcester Telegram & Gazette are two different papers?

More resources on the GateHouse case

Soon it will be Christmas Eve in Media Nation, so I don't want to get too bogged down with blogging today. But I do want to call your attention to the excellent work the Citizen Media Center is doing on the matter of GateHouse Media's lawsuit against the New York Times Co.

First, there is Citizen Media founder Dan Gillmor's nuanced take. (Is Jeff Jarvis going to call his ally Gillmor "clueless"? It's time for Mr. Buzz Machine to settle down with a nice cup of decaf and take another look at this.) Next, the Citizen Media Law Project offers an analysis of GateHouse's legal claims. The center is also aggregating information about the case as it unfolds. Indispensible stuff.

Yesterday U.S. District Court Judge William Young rejected GateHouse's request for a temporary restraining order, which would have prevented the Times Co.'s Boston.com from linking to GateHouse content immediately. (GateHouse story here; Boston Globe story here.)

A trial date has been set for Jan. 5, which seems pretty aggressive, given that Media Nation hears the Times Co. has been given a deadline of Jan. 6 to respond to GateHouse's complaint. In all likelihood, the Jan. 5 session will just be a chance for everyone to exchange business cards and New Year's greetings before getting down to work.

How the GateHouse suit looks from both sides

I don't want to prejudge the lawsuit GateHouse Media filed against the New York Times Co., which owns the Boston Globe and Boston.com, except to say it's a fascinating case that will be watched closely by everyone in the news business.

There's a lot that cuts both ways. Here's how I think it looks from the Times Co.'s point of view.

By putting together a series of Boston.com Your Town sites that link to content in the Boston Globe, independent blogs and other newspapers, including GateHouse papers, the Times Co. is doing exactly what new-media experts are advocating. Currently there are three, in Newton, Needham and Waltham. But Boston.com's Bob Kempf has said the goal is to roll out 120 Your Town sites throughout Eastern Massachusetts.

Rather than treating your news site like a walled community, the idea is to offer intelligent aggregation, linking not just to your own content but to that of other news organizations as well. An example of a mainstream news organization doing this is the Washington Post with its Political Browser, which offers a roundup of what its editors believe is the best political coverage online, regardless of whether it resides on the Post's servers.

Act as a trusted guide, so this thinking goes, and readers will reward you by coming back, even though you keep sending them to other sites. And as for the news organizations to which you're linking, it's a win-win for them, since they're receiving more traffic than they otherwise would.

Then there's how this looks if you're, say, Kirk Davis, the president of GateHouse Media New England.

From Davis' point of view, what Your Town is doing is not offering intelligent aggregation; it's simply scraping headlines and ledes off GateHouse's Wicked Local sites and presenting them as Boston.com's own news.

Even if Your Town drives traffic to individual GateHouse stories, it is destroying the value of the Wicked Local home pages — including those in Newton, Needham and Waltham. There are GateHouse papers in some 125 communities in Eastern Massachusetts, and the prospect is that Your Town and Wicked Local will be going head to head in each one.

Yes, Boston.com gives credit to the GateHouse papers, and yes, you have to click through to read the stories. But in many cases you don't have to read the stories to get the gist of it. This is not a novel proposition — earlier this year, the Associated Press went after bloggers for reproducing its headlines and ledes, arguing that represented most of the value of its news stories.

By offering what copyright lawyers refer to as the "substantiality" — that is, the best and most marketable part — of GateHouse's stories, Boston.com, GateHouse charges, is not complying with the notion of "fair use," which defines the circumstances under which a copyright-holder's work can be re-used without permission.

And, of course, both the Times Co. and GateHouse are trying to sell advertising. I've seen several observers attempt to draw parallels to Google News. But you will not find any ads on Google News. That doesn't necessarily solve the fair-use problem; to oversimplify, the test is whether the copyright-holder is being hurt, not whether those re-using the content are making money. But it does make a difference. (And it definitely makes a difference with GateHouse, since it publishes its content under a non-commercial Creative Commons license.)

In this case, both the Your Town and Wicked Local sites feature local advertising, which, ultimately, is what this dispute is all about.

Here's a round-up of some of the latest developments.

• The Recovering Journalist, Mark Potts, has no sympathy for GateHouse's position, and speculates that "a dinosaur or two in GateHouse management" are behind the lawsuit. Potts is entitled to his opinion, but his speculation is wrong — it's not the dinosaurs. Or at least it's not just the dinosaurs.
  
• I'm quoted in accounts this morning by Russell Contreras of the Associated Press (formerly of the Globe) and Christine McConville of the Boston Herald.
• More coverage by GateHouse News Service reporter Neal Simpson and by David Kaplan of PaidContent.org.
• Jeff Jarvis jerks his knee in such a predictable manner that he risks dislocation.
• At Boston Daily, Paul Flannery offers some smart thoughts.
  
• Yesterday I posted GateHouse's complaint (PDF). This morning I've added an affidavit (PDF) filed by Greg Reibman, editor-in-chief of GateHouse's papers in Greater Boston. I look forward to posting the Times Co.'s response as well.
  

Times Co. responds to GateHouse lawsuit

The New York Times Co. has responded to the GateHouse lawsuit. Boston Globe reporter Todd Wallack quotes Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis:

Far from being illegal or improper, this practice of linking to sites is common and is familiar to anyone who has searched the Web. It is fair and benefits both Web users and the originating site.

This is going to be fascinating to watch.

GateHouse complaint now available

Here is the complaint (PDF) that GateHouse Media has filed against the New York Times Co. in U.S. District Court. Nothing startling; more of a fleshing-out of what we already know.

One thing I find interesting is that GateHouse accuses the Times Co. of trademark infringement. The argument is that readers of Boston.com's "Your Town" pages might not realize that links to GateHouse papers such as the Newton Tab and the Needham Times actually have nothing to do with Boston.com.

The lawsuit, filed on GateHouse's behalf by the Boston firm of Hiscock & Barclay, charges the Times Co. with copyright infringment; unfair competition and "false designation of origin"; false advertising (allegedly by touting "Your Town" as comprising original content); trademark dilution; trademark infringement; unfair business practices; and breach of contract, pertaining to the Creative Commons license under which GateHouse makes its content available to noncommercial Web sites.

Universal Hub won't link to GateHouse

Adam Gaffin, co-founder and editor of the indispensable Universal Hub, writes:

I make money from ads on pages with links to GateHouse articles, so effective immediately, I won't be linking to any more articles on GateHouse sites. It's a shame, GateHouse papers do some good work and they seemed to understand how the Web is built, but the last thing I need is to defend myself from a lawsuit over hyperlinks.

The lawsuit is barely a few hours old, and already there's collateral damage.

GateHouse sues over "Your Town" sites

GateHouse Media will file a lawsuit against the New York Times Co. in U.S. District Court, claiming that links to GateHouse content on Boston.com's "Your Town" sites constitute copyright infringement, according to an e-mail sent out internally by Kirk Davis, president of GateHouse Media New England.

The case could settle some legal questions about how much one news organization can use of another news org's content. The Boston.com sites — currently in Newton, Needham and Waltham — take just a line or a brief summary from GateHouse papers such as the Newton Tab, the Needham Times and the Daily News Tribune of Waltham. ("Your Town" also links to local blogs and other news sites.) Boston.com's Bob Kempf, himself a former GateHouse official, has said the goal is to roll out "Your Town" in 120 cities and towns.

Since Boston.com is selling advertising on its "Your Town" pages, the argument is that the New York Times Co., which owns Boston.com, is profiting from GateHouse's journalism. And even if Boston.com is driving traffic to individual GateHouse stories, there's an argument to be made that "Your Town" is diminishing the value of GateHouse's "Wicked Local" home pages in those communities.

The full text of Davis' e-mail is as follows:

To Staff:

As many of you know, there has been considerable discussion within our organization about developments surrounding our local web sites, particularly Newton, as we have followed The Boston Globe's announced plans for community web sites and how they have executed their strategy.

After being unable to resolve the matter informally, GateHouse has commenced legal action in federal district court in Boston today against the New York Times Company in order to prevent the continuing infringement by Boston.com of GateHouse's valuable intellectual property, created through the effort, experience and expertise of GateHouse personnel. GateHouse has taken this step to enforce its rights under the law and protect the integrity of its trademarks and original news content, in furtherance of its ability to provide hyperlocal news coverage to its newspaper readers and website viewers in the communities throughout the greater Boston region which it has served over many years.

As a matter of policy, I won't be commenting further on this matter. Instead, it is appropriate that we let this matter take its natural legal course. Simply put, I hope you derive from this development that we value greatly your efforts, commitment and talent.

When appropriate I will update you further on this matter.

I sincerely hope you enjoy the holidays. It's unfortunate that the economic backdrop is so unsettling, but we'll work through it. As I have shared with you many times, we occupy an important niche in the media mix. Local news and relationships are our strength and we will safeguard both.

On behalf of the senior management team, we deeply appreciate your commitment!

Sincerely,

Kirk Davis
President
GateHouse Media New England

This is one of the most important stories in the newspaper business right now. It will be fascinating to see how it plays out.