NY Times Asks Twitter To Take Down Paywall-Subverting Account

As The New York Times puts the finishing touches on a metered paywall system that goes up March 28, cheapskate devotees of the news source are finding workarounds that will allow them to continue to read the paper for free, even after they’ve surpassed their allotted 20 stories per month.

Forbes reports the Times is attempting to stamp out the subversion attempts as they find them. One notable hole in the paywall is freeNYTimes, a Twitter account that’s meant to link to every NYT story that posts. The account, which uses the NYT’s own application programming interface to automate the process, lets readers vault over the paywall because the newspaper’s system allows incoming links from social networking sites.

A Times spokesperson says the paper has asked Twitter to disable the account because it violates its trademark.

NY Times Asks Twitter to Shut Down Paywall Dodgers [Forbes via The Awl]

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