A bookmarklet like NYClean works only because the NYT has already sent the user the full text.  The bookmarklet changes the user's display so that the full text (which is already 'there') can be viewed.  Isn't this quite different than employing a script that 'reaches out' and grabs content from a content-provider's site?  And isn't it different than sharing/distributing/reproducing the content?  And aren't these differences ethically significant?

The ethics of individual use, however, may be significantly different than the ethics of what a library chooses to tell its users.  But, what if a library mentions on its website that you will not encounter the paywall if you have javascript disabled, or if you use Chrome incognito, or private browsing, or Tor?  I can't see any ethical problem with mentioning those possibilities.  So, what if the library also mentions that you will not encounter the paywall if you use the code/bookmarklet found at xxx.com?

I'm still thinking this through, but for now, I'd call it a gray zone.  Here are a few discussions (from different perspectives) on the paywall and ethics:

http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2011/03/28/the-ny-times-paywall-goes-up-when-is-it-immoral-to-go-around-it/ <http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2011/03/28/the-ny-times-paywall-goes-up-when-is-it-immoral-to-go-around-it/> 

http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/03/so-then-if-you-jump-the-new-york-times-paywall-are-you-stealing/ <http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/03/so-then-if-you-jump-the-new-york-times-paywall-are-you-stealing/> 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/magazine/mag-24Ethicist-t.html <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/magazine/mag-24Ethicist-t.html> 

Regardless of the resolution of the ethics question, many thanks to James for the code linking the Times to a subscription database.  My library has not, yet, chosen to mention the workarounds on our website, but we will definitely implement and promote the code that links to our subscription access.  In the meantime, we have had a long talk with the Times about offering institutional subscription access to nytimes.com as soon as possible, and also about providing free  access to the site for College Readership campuses (as part of that program, my college pays for 200 print copies of the Times each weekday, and then distributes those copies for free on campus).  We have also stressed that the paywall is a significant barrier to curricular use of the Times.

Paul

________________________________

From: Code for Libraries on behalf of Jonathan Rochkind
Sent: Wed 4/27/2011 9:29 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] NY Times Bookmarklet



Sure, I've experimented myself with getting around the paywall's
restrictions, it's not hard.

It's not something I would suggest my organization publically (or even
privately, really) recommend to users or instruct users in how to do,
however.

There's a role for libraries in this stuff, but I think it's probably
NOT instructing our users in how to subvert the nytimes Terms of
Service.  On the other hand, showing our users how to access the same
nytimes article through a source the library pays for on their behalf,
or from some other free source, like James' idea -- yeah, that's a great
idea.

On 4/27/2011 12:01 PM, Andreas Orphanides wrote:
>
> This is a kind of naive approach, and my lack of actually thinking through the matter is entirely a result of not having had to deal with it, but:
>
> As I understand it, the NYT paywall doesn't count referrals from blog posts, FriendFace, the Twitchers and the like. I'm not sure how it figures this out (referrer possibly? but see sub). I do know that frequently I'll see a variety of different query parameters at the end of a nytimes.com URL when I get to one of their pages from another source.
>
> Now, I've heard [1] that the NYT paywall isn't particularly sophisticated -- e.g., it doesn't work if Javascript is off. Also, bearing in mind that NO ONE would EVER make a practice of such a nefarious activity as trying to avoid a paywall through trickery, has anyone experimented with the effect of query parameters on said paywall?
>
> -Dre.
>
> [1] Rumors, rumors, rumors.... Maybe somewhere on daring fireball?
>
>
>>>> Erin R White/FS/VCU<[log in to unmask]>  4/27/2011 11:45 AM>>>
> James, AWESOME idea. I'm excited to share with my library.
>
> For those of you who are getting NYT through LexisNexis I've modified the
> code below - just throw in your proxy URL and library name.
>
> I also fixed the first regex to work with non-article items as well
> (op-eds, etc).
>
> javascript:
> (
> function()
>      { var source = document.documentElement.innerHTML;
>        var regex1 = /appeared in print on
> ((January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December)
> ([1-2][0-9]|3[0-1]|0?[1-9]), ((19|20)[0-9][0-9])), on page (\w+) of the
> New York edition with the headline:(.*)</g;
>        var match = regex1.exec(source);
>           if (match)
>           {
>                var articleDate = new Date(match[2] + ' ' + match[3] + ', '
> + match[4]);
>                var articleYear = articleDate.getFullYear();
>                var articleMonth = articleDate.getMonth()+1;
>                var articleDay = articleDate.getDate();
>                var regex2 = /([A-Z]+)(\d+)/g;
>                var pageMatch = regex2.exec(match[6]);
>                var articleURL =
> 'http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/api/version1/sr?shr=t&csi=6742&sr=HLEAD%28'
> + match[7] + '%29+AND+DATE+IS+' + articleMonth + '%2F' + articleDay +
> '%2F' + articleYear;
>                window.open('http://proxy.library.vcu.edu/login?url=' +
> articleURL);
>           }
>           else
>           {
>                alert("This article hasn't been published in the print
> version of the NY Times and isn't accessible through VCU Libraries.");
>           }
>      }
>
> )
> ();
>
> --
> Erin White
> Web Applications Developer, VCU Libraries
> 804-827-3552 | [log in to unmask] | http://library.vcu.edu/
>
>
>
>
> From:
> Jonathan Rochkind<[log in to unmask]>
> To:
> [log in to unmask]
> Date:
> 04/27/2011 10:13 AM
> Subject:
> Re: [CODE4LIB] NY Times Bookmarklet
> Sent by:
> Code for Libraries<[log in to unmask]>
>
>
>
> This is a great idea, thanks for sharing.
>
> On 4/27/2011 9:10 AM, Van Mil, James (vanmiljf) wrote:
>> Hi everyone! (first post!)
>>
>> We've been getting lots of feedback at my library about the problem with
> the NY Times paywall and the lack of institutional access to their
> website, but we do have a subscription to a Proquest database which
> includes all current content that is included in the print addition.
>> However, every article at the web version of the NY Times that was also
> published in the print version includes a reference to the article from
> the print edition, including date, page number, and print version title
> (information which is all still accessible in the page source when the
> paywall blocks access). Additionally, the Proquest database has very clear
> search syntax.
>> So, I wrote a bookmarklet to check whether the article was published in
> print and to open a new browser window to search for the article at
> Proquest. (I know that there are other work-arounds to the paywall, but
> I'm interested in one that our library could ethically promote.)
>> The code for the bookmarklet is short, so I've included it below. I'd
> like to add the option to search the headline in Google News for any
> articles that aren't available in the print version, and I need to write
> some title-string sanitization to deal with some funky punctuation in the
> occasional headline. If anyone has any other feedback, I'd love to hear
> it. (And I apologize both for the lack of commenting (bookmarklets don't
> seem to have room for this) and for the lack of style (I started learned
> Javascript yesterday).)
>> Thanks!
>> James
>>
>> James Van Mil
>> Collections&   Electronic Resources Librarian
>> Electronic Resources Department
>> University of Cincinnati Libraries
>> PO Box 210033
>> Cincinnati OH 45221-0033
>> Telephone: (513) 556-1410
>> [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>>
>>
>>
>> javascript:
>> (
>> function()
>>       { var source = document.documentElement.innerHTML;
>>         var regex1 = /A version of this article appeared in print on
> ((January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December)
> ([1-2][0-9]|3[0-1]|0?[1-9]), ((19|20)[0-9][0-9])), on page (\w+) of the
> New York edition with the headline:(.*)</g;
>>         var match = regex1.exec(source);
>>            if (match)
>>            {
>>                 var articleDate = new Date(match[2] + ' ' + match[3] + ',
> ' + match[4]);
>>                 var articleYear = articleDate.getFullYear();
>>                 var articleMonth = articleDate.getMonth()+1;
>>                 var articleDay = articleDate.getDate();
>>                 var regex2 = /([A-Z]+)(\d+)/g;
>>                 var pageMatch = regex2.exec(match[6]);
>>
> window.open('https://proxy.libraries.uc.edu/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=305&SQ=issn%2803624331%29%20and%20ti%28'
> + match[7] + '%29%20and%20pdn%28' + articleMonth + '%2F' + articleDay +
> '%2F' + articleYear + '%29%20and%20startpage%28' + pageMatch[1] + '.' +
> pageMatch[2] + '%29');
>>            }
>>            else
>>            {
>>                 alert("This article hasn't been published in the print
> version of the NY Times and isn't accessible through the UC Libraries.");
>>            }
>>       }
>>
>> )
>> ();
>>