Recode is owned by Vox but while fur has been flying on this Gawker-Thiel deal I did some google searching and found a list of websites with names like nydlnew

Recode is owned by Vox but while fur has been flying on this Gawker-Thiel deal I did some google searching and found a list of websites with names like nydlnews worldwidenewsbulletin journalismworldnews 24mainstreet redhoticenews Those I just made up but they were all of a kind: vaguely resembling the names of existing newspapers online or seemingly news/journalist related because buzzwords. Doubtless some of them are quite real but ... I found all these websites had the same basic story on the Thiel-Champerty concept with a reference called 'Tip of the Iceberg' in each one (originally this was the latimes). I suspect that this is a form of astroturfing and that all these websites are owned by the same entity. If you do a search for this string: "thiel champerty tip of the iceberg" you'll see exactly what I mean. Even if this isn't intentional astroturfing, it means this motley collection of websites are stealing from the original latimes story that used that phrase. I don't think this is just syndication that newspapers do with each other. I think as you said with Recode they're just taking everything outright.