Give them what they want. Remove every trace of referral to them from the total hosting. Make certain that those items aren’t hosted and no reference to their location, including offices by the Copiepresse themselves are shown on the net. Grant them the obscurity they wish and never ever refer to them again as even existing.

Once they figure out that a good part of their income came from internet readers they may figure out it wasn’t such a good idea. The way these sorts of tactics are eliminated is to hit them in their back pocket. I certainly won’t be showing up at their site following some link.

Surveys in the past have in indicated that traditional media is losing both its readership and subscription base across the board as folks are going to the net for more unbiased, less commercial, and better news. Ad agencies are following right along where the numbers go to get their ads seen. That means less and less advertising money is coming into traditional media while more is going towards the internet. Copiepresse is trying to stake out their territory on the hopes that if it can’t be gotten elsewhere, that the curious and faithful will buy what can be had anywhere else for free.

Since this is about choice, my choice is not to pay them, not to visit them, not to need their services. I think this will be the majority of internet users choice also, leaving behind the Copiepresse in a vacuum created by those not wanting to see their stuff. I don’t know if it has occurred to others but it is very common that I disable pictures to news articles to begin with. I don’t like the spying that goes on with the linking of the pictures. As such, their grounds for complaint will have very little affect if I could find any at all.

Just tried to search Google News for a story from AFP, found the stories with the same title from other sources.