How to get around the paywall at national newspapers

[mahatmakanejeeves]

37. You seem not to understand the concept of taxes.

GarySeven wrote:

You know what's great about America?

It's the fact that you can go into any store and just take what you want and never have to pay for anything. It doesn't matter how much time a person puts into making that thing, or how many people depend on their livelihood on the making of that thing, or the cost of producing it -- if you want it, just take it!

Did you know that all that news content costs money, time, and effort to produce? Don't give me the conservative MAGA reflexive response that news reporters are enemies and deserve being ripped off. I am assuming you think the content of the pubs you cite is valuable, or you wouldn't want it. Even if you want to make the argument that New York Times and Washington Post reporters work for wealthy corporations with an agenda, there are still working people who run the press, deliver the papers, as well as advertisers who invest their time and effort in making the thing YOU WANT TO STEAL.

I bet you have, or had, a newspaper in your hometown. Maybe they had to put up a paywall to counter the meaningless drivel that news reporting is a public commodity, so no one needs to respect the effort it takes to produce it. Well, because of skeevy little thieves like you, there are fewer people to work at the paper and even fewer papers that even exist. And while it may make your heart glad that people who gave their whole lives to a craft are now starving, and their children have no health insurance, that also means that you don't know what your local government is doing with the taxes they extract from your paycheck, and there's no one to account for the hundreds of misdeeds, small and large, that they are getting away with in city hall, the county commission, the state government and the Congress of the United States.

On the other hand, it is kind of poetic that your small act of theft means that you yourself are being robbed of knowledge, of taxes, and even of your own right to govern yourself.

Go fuck yourself you piece of shit.

Thank you for your "insight," in a manner of speaking, GarySeven.

You seem not to understand how taxes work. Let me explain.

I pay for the library with my taxes. The library takes my taxes, bundles them up with everyone else's taxes, and then uses the money to buy books, computers, DVDs, pay the light bill, and so forth. They also use the money to pay for access to online databases.

The online databases, such as Gale, pay the major national newspapers a royalty fee to have the newspapers' content show up in those databases. For newspapers, this is a source of revenue, just as book publishers and authors receive payment for the books that are on the shelves of libraries. The newspapers have been letting their content appear in databases, so I suspect that are at least complacent with the practice.

You might argue that people who don't pay taxes are getting a free ride, but I don't mind picking up the tab so that school kids can read books or that the unemployed can do job searches online. It's a civic duty.

At no point is anyone committing theft.

I'm pretty sure you are the one who fails to comprehend the process.

Thanks for writing.