"The Herald-Sun - Trusted & Essential"

This is one of the printed newspapers that is delivered to my home every day.

When one goes to their website, two restrictions are imposed on visitors.

If not a print subscriber, you must pay to access the archives.

It is the second restriction that I find interesting and I am not sure how I feel about it. As a subscriber, it irritates me, and I am sure non-subscribers feel the same way.

What is it?

If you try to copy all or part of any of their articles electronically, up pops a window that stops the copying -- saying "I'm sorry. The image you are trying to copy is the property of The Herald Sun."

What's confusing and interesting at the same time is that there is no similar block on the printing of anything on the website.

Is the latter something newspapers should consider? If you, the customer, want it printed, you'll have to pay for it.

Imagine that once logged in, I could get x number of articles printed every month with my subscription and would have to pay for more than that. Ditto for a non-subscriber who would have to start an account before being able to print anything.