Who owns the New York Times bestseller list?
Obviously, the New York Times owns the New York Times bestseller list. Right? Well, on the Internet, everything is just a little more complicated. Last month Amazon.com set out to outflank its chief rival, barnesandnoble.com, by announcing a 50 percent discount on all New York Times bestsellers. The move seemed timed to steal some of the thunder of the IPO for Barnes & Noble’s online bookstore. B&N quickly matched the Amazon discount. Then lawyers for the New York Times — which has an online bookselling partnership with B&N (as Salon.com does) — demanded that Amazon stop posting the Times’ list. Amazon countered by suing the Times in federal court. Now there is precious little the Times could — or would — do to stop your neighborhood bookstore from clipping the bestseller list from the back of the Times Book Review and posting it on the wall with a “SALE” sign over a row of discounted books. But on the Net, people go a little crazy trying to nail down their intellectual property ri
