The facts clearly cannot be copyrighted. What can be copyrighted (or at least leveraged for monetization) is editorial voice, brand recognition, and timeliness.

The facts clearly cannot be copyrighted. What can be copyrighted (or at least leveraged for monetization) is editorial voice, brand recognition, and timeliness. TMZ broke the Michael Jackson story, and their reward for being first was huge levels of traffic and citations. If anything, this was INCREASED by citations around the web. The "copyrights" the newspaper industry is trying to claim are more an irrational death rattle than any sort of sensical business plan. The newspaper giants are done for and everyone knows it. Even if they could get these laws passed and enforced, would anybody pay to link to or cite a news source? Of course not. You would either cite a source that waives these ridiculous fees or start calling up sources yourself. Mark ignored these claims because they will never amount to anything.