The FT has become hostile to bloggers

Reuters blogger Felix Salmon doesn’t like the new warning that appears when someone copies text from a Financial Times article to use on a blog or other online venue.

Salmon writes, “Hilariously, even the FT’s own journalists are falling foul of this idiocy: on Thursday, in his Markets Live conversation, Neil Hume wound up pasting text onto the FT’s website saying that he was infringing the FT’s copyright. ;Sorry,’ he then added. ‘Damn disclaimer.’

“It’s pretty clear that the FT doesn’t want people like me linking to them. Their Money Supply blog, for instance, after disappearing behind the paywall in June, linked to me this morning. But I don’t know what they said, because even when I paste the headline (‘Would €90bn be enough for Ireland?’) into Google and click on the Google link — something which works with most FT stories — I still run into that paywall.

“Meanwhile, the FT’s terms and conditions page gives me very strict instructions on exactly what I must — yes, they use the word ‘must’ — do if I want to link to their stories.”

Read more here.