SI opening up the vaults

[Dodgers]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/busin ... ref=slogin

Long story short, SI is putting every word they've ever written online and searchable, for free. Along with lots of pictures and some video. Awesome.

[Orioles]

Nice to see someone in the media realizing the futility of hunting down and curbing copyright infringement in a world where just about anyone can publish copyrighted info on the web with ease. The move away from the "subscriber-only" method of controlling the dissemination of copyrighted material is something that a lot of print outlets with large readerships should have done long ago. That way they can control the presentation and accuracy of the previously published material while repackaging it to attract new readers and increase ad revenue. If people know the source is providing its material for free, it discourages both those who would seek out or publish their copyrighted material. If this becomes an industry-wide trend, depending on what kind of new revenue it creates for sites previously offering archived info to subscribers only, I wouldn't be surprised if Congress considers tweaking the rules by which copyrighted works fall into the public domain. At some point the sheer volume of protected info available on the internet, and the ease with which infringement can take place, will create such a potentially unwieldy flood of litigation that they won't have a choice but to maybe shorten the time period under which a work is protected by copyright before falling into the public domain. As a result we'd probably have a flood of new and profitable internet resources for accessing the newly available volumes of written work on any number of topics, sports included. That sounds good for everyone to me.

[Giants]

The old SI's are incredible. My first job when I was 15 was in the local library (it sucked ass, never work in a library), but the one perk I had was that on my breaks I could go back into the magazine archive and grab Sports Illustrated's from the 60's and 70's (I especially remember the one with Sonny Liston on the cover talking up how he was going to beat down that upstart Cassius Clay). This is pretty cool.