Stolen Potato Chips and Other Claremont Crimes

By Kelsey Brown | May 6, 2010 at 8:00 am | Life, News | 16 comments | |

 

What happens beyond the land of TNC, Fountain Parties, and Snack? If you pick up the Claremont Courier, our town’s local paper, you would think there is quite a bit happening. You really never know what you are going to find when you open our local newspaper. I do enjoy knowing what is going on in the area surrounding our campus, and what I have found is that CMC is a bubble within a bubble. The happenings in the community surrounding our campus’ borders are not a common topic of conversation among students, but anyone who has ever had dinner with me knows that I love to talk about what I read in the Courier. Although the matters may seem trivial compared to the affairs of Wall Street and Capitol Hill, they are not quite what one would expect.

A new issue of the Courier comes out every Wednesday and Saturday. Each issue is regularly filled with photo contributions from readers, updates about local school board meetings and protests of matters such as the possible addition of a 7-Eleven to Claremont. The Courier is everything one would expect from a small-town paper. The paper is excellent but one column stands out above the others: ”Police Blotter“ reports on crime in the area, revealing that some unexpected things are going down in the areas surrounding our campus. While many of the police reports are serious matters, over the course of the year I have found some to be very entertaining. I would like to share some of the gems with all of you. It’s a big bad world out there, so watch out.

I saved the best for last because this one really takes the cake:

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Kelsey Brown

Kelsey is a Literature major from America’s Cheese State (via East Coast boarding school). As an Editor for the Life section, Kelsey naturally loves lists. Some things that make it to the top of her "Favorites" list are: her two labradoodles, Criminal Minds, the sport of ice hockey, snail mail, photography, Google Reader, pesto, Moleskine journals, and her big brother, Cooper.

 
 
 
 
  • Uhhh….

    You should get permission from the Claremont Courier before posting all of those things, without permission.

    • Are you sure?

      If she is not attempting to pass off the articles as her own work, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter. It’s basically the same as a blog linking a user to another article, but this time the article is on the same page. This information is also technically available to anyone who wants to read the paper themselves, and there’s no law about providing your own commentary on something.

    • Kelsey Brown

      There is something called the “Fair Use” Doctrine.

      “Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.”

      • Uhhh….

        Actually, the Claremont Courier is a subscription based newspaper. It doesn’t put its articles online. Fair use is limited to only certain sections of the article.

        You can’t simply copy a whole bunch of articles and call it fair use (unfortunately).

        • http://cmcforum.com Lawyer

          You don’t know what you’re talking about.

          It really has nothing to do with whether or not the Courier is a subscription based newspaper. Fair use applies the same to free copyrighted material as it does to subscription based copyrighted material.

          Also, there is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that constitute (or doesn’t constitute) fair use.

  • Caroline Nyce

    “Three adolescents were arrested after failing to pay their cab fare.”

    You know your town is small when the last person to get arrested was twelve…

    Nice work, DTKB.

  • Uhhh….

    You should get permission from the Claremont Courier before posting all of those things, without permission.

    • Are you sure?

      If she is not attempting to pass off the articles as her own work, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter. It’s basically the same as a blog linking a user to another article, but this time the article is on the same page. This information is also technically available to anyone who wants to read the paper themselves, and there’s no law about providing your own commentary on something.

    • Kelsey Brown

      There is something called the “Fair Use” Doctrine.

      “Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.”

      • Uhhh….

        Actually, the Claremont Courier is a subscription based newspaper. It doesn’t put its articles online. Fair use is limited to only certain sections of the article.

        You can’t simply copy a whole bunch of articles and call it fair use (unfortunately).

        • http://cmcforum.com Lawyer

          You don’t know what you’re talking about.

          It really has nothing to do with whether or not the Courier is a subscription based newspaper. Fair use applies the same to free copyrighted material as it does to subscription based copyrighted material.

          Also, there is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that constitute (or doesn’t constitute) fair use.

  • Caroline Nyce

    “Three adolescents were arrested after failing to pay their cab fare.”

    You know your town is small when the last person to get arrested was twelve…

    Nice work, DTKB.

  • Circles Guy

    @ Uhh: You can reproduce text as long as you give attribution to the author, source, and date. Kelsey, of the CMC Forum, said on May 6,

    ” new issue of the Courier comes out every Wednesday and Saturday…”

    Kelsey gave names and dates, she just needs to say who the authors are. However, the act is not punishable in criminal court, but only in civil court, so that Courier would have to press charges. I doubt they would considering this is good press for them (Kelsey says, “The paper is excellent.”

    Oh yeah, and this blotter is better than my town’s. It’s always just kids arrested for drinking. However, Kelsey only showed us 5 blots for a whole year, so it would take a LOT of reading to find the good ones. Thanks for doing the digging for us!

  • Circles Guy

    @ Uhh: You can reproduce text as long as you give attribution to the author, source, and date. Kelsey, of the CMC Forum, said on May 6,

    ” new issue of the Courier comes out every Wednesday and Saturday…”

    Kelsey gave names and dates, she just needs to say who the authors are. However, the act is not punishable in criminal court, but only in civil court, so that Courier would have to press charges. I doubt they would considering this is good press for them (Kelsey says, “The paper is excellent.”

    Oh yeah, and this blotter is better than my town’s. It’s always just kids arrested for drinking. However, Kelsey only showed us 5 blots for a whole year, so it would take a LOT of reading to find the good ones. Thanks for doing the digging for us!

  • http://fsd baslfa

    Only the potato chips, guy who was trying to teach people a lesson, and the cab are funny stories. I think it’s offensive to mock these people who were tricked and robbed of thousands of dollars.

  • http://fsd thug life

    armed robbery is always hilarious