ChrisNewell wrote:

"And now, along comes someone with a business model that allows
consumers to save money, and to short-cut the Realtor who doesn't want to
offer the same savings to consumers...:"

For the sake of clarity, let's try a little exercise. In your words above, substitute "Kiplinger News" for " the Realtor". Now it reads:

"And now, along comes someone with a business model that allows
consumers to save money, and to short-cut Kiplinger News who doesn't want to
offer the same savings to consumers...:"

Now if I understand you correctly, you would have no problem with "someone" paying to subscribe to Kiplinger News, and then redistributing the content to anyone with web access. Do you really believe that would be ok? If Kiplinger tried to put a stop to it, would you accuse them (as you did the Boards of Realtors ) of "bad-ol' self-serving protectionism?"

Are you saying that when a group goes to the trouble of putting data together, it's unreasonable for them to have a say in how that data gets distributed?

Let's look closer to home.

"4. This material is not in the public domain. Neither this material, nor any
part of this material, may be reproduced, sold, re-sold, posted, traded,
incorporated within other material, or given away without the express written
permission of Realty Times. Links to the Realty Times home page or any
other page on the Realty Times site, with or without frames, are welcome. "

The above paragraph is a quote from The Realty Times Terms and Conditions.

Now let's conjecture that you publish ChrisNewell's email newsletter and you want to include some of Realty Times' content. Rather than linking, as Realty Times permits, you copy and paste instead. Your email newsletter gets replicated and reproduced ad infinitum. Are you doing right by Realty Times? Do you believe their policy prohibiting reproduction unfair?

Quoting you, with only the names changed:

"Surely the whole issue must rest on whether the services offered by [ChrisNewell's email newsletter] are good for the consumer? So, let the[Realty Times] prove that ChrisNewell's newsletter] harms consumers."

In this scenario, you would be the one not in compliance with the Terms and Conditions that you agreed to. Honestly now,do you really believe it should be Realty Times' burden of proof?