Most ridiculous idea to save newspapers

Richard Posner is an idiot. At least that's the impression I get from this part of his blog post on how to save newspapers:

Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers from so impairing the incentive to create costly news-gathering operations that news services like Reuters and the Associated Press would become the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion.

In other words, Posner wants people to have to pay to talk about their news stories.

I agree that people who steal wholesale any news story or blog post should face the consequences. But completely dismantling fair use provisions to save newspapers not only wouldn't work (it's ludicrous to think that people linking to news stories is causing any sort of financial hardship for newspapers) -- it's just a dumb idea.

Via Jay Rosen on Twitter.