Legal, Ethical?

[Mark Greenberg]

A few times on the list people have mentioned or posted a stack that 
reads part of a web site's HTML, formats it, and displays it for the 
stack's user without opening the default browser (e.g., a stock quote 
or pictures from Google).

As an educator, I saw potential there.  I experimented with pulling 
current news stories from the Internet, formatting them for language or 
social studies assignments, and having the students work on those 
lessons -- all without opening a browser.  Though I haven't fleshed it 
out yet, my experiments show that it is possible to do.

I would like your opinions on whether it is legal and ethical to do 
this.  It seems to me that, on the one hand, the stories are offered 
openly on the web and that what I'd be doing isn't much different than 
what a browser does; on the other hand, the journalists and 
photographers did not give permission for this type of use.  What do 
you all think?

By the way, I am in the US, so the Fair Use clause of the intellectual 
properties laws might apply in a school setting.

		TIA,
			Mark Greenberg