Laws can't force people to read or pay for the news

A Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist says we need better copyright laws to save newspapers. That reminded me about the lawyer who blogs we should ban linking to save the mass medium.

(Over the weekend, I loved this exchange:

1. 
   jayrosen_nyu Judge Richard Posner--a blogger!--thinks a way out of the newspaper crisis is to make linking illegal http://tr.im/q132 28 Jun 2009 from web
2. 
   erickschonfeld @jayrosen_nyu And that will save the newspaper industry how? By making it harder for people to find their stories? 28 Jun 2009 from TweetDeck in reply to jayrosen_nyu
3. 
   jayrosen_nyu Beats me, @erickschonfeld Or we could ask Judge Posner how does he think people found his blog and he found his readership? Through links. 28 Jun 2009 from web

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I will note thatPosner rarely links in his posts.

Jeff Jarvis comes back with Newspapers vs Aggregators: Understanding the Economics of the Internet. taking a look at both posts. (On his buzzmachine, the headline is "First, kill the lawyers - before they kill the news." that's where you'll also find the Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Connie Schultz responding to Jarvis, especially for his attack on her husband. (The columnist is married to a senator.)

And now Twitter is swamped with Tweets on linking.

I stick by my opinion - you can't legislate successful business, much less force anyone to read a newspaper.