It is remarkable that some people still don't understand how the Internet
works. Just the other day, executives at CMP, a print publisher, decided to
block links from one of our Web sites LinuxToday.

CMP wasn't happy because LinuxToday published an excerpt from an article at CMP's Information Week.

Apparently, this block was the print publisher's way of punishing us for
what they felt was an unfair use of their content. Of course, they did far
more harm to their own business. LinuxToday's use of the first few sentences
of an article is a popular form of Web publishing that is protected by fair use rules.

Many of CMP's own employees understand this and they frequently ask our LinuxToday staff to include CMP's articles. The value it gives to CMP is not just the flow of new readers but the value of search engine cross-linking. I guess things have not changed too much at CMP; this is the same management that paid Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff close to $10 million for the name "net guide."