> I walk into the shop, I see some newspapers with headlines on them, I decide to buy the paper, or I don't.
If I don't I'm not 'stealing' anything.
Are you doing this on an industrial scale and building a large ad-supported business from it. More importantly, are you standing outside the shop saying 'don;t go in there, old chum - I can tell you what's going on'.
Either a simple robots.txt (a sign telling school kids they aren't allowed), or a username/password (members only), or even close the shop completely.
The newspapers have headlines and the start of stories on display in shops, trying to attract passers by to their wears. You can even read the first few sentences of the cabinet meltdown in the telegraph, far more than you can on google, all without paying the newspaper owner, or indeed the shopkeeper, a penny.
The headlines are put out there for everyone to see to entice people to come in and spend money. If the shop or newspaper proprietor doesn't want people reading the headlines without buying, they can not put them on display (robots.txt), or cover them up, like on these (ex) publications
And that's fine. I think it is perfectly reasonable to have good display a headline and first sentence snippet. What isn't reasonsble is if Google were to mine the story for info and display the whole lot on their site, rather than on the newspaper's site.
Are you doing this on an industrial scale and building a large ad-supported business from it. More importantly, are you standing outside the shop saying 'don;t go in there, old chum - I can tell you what's going on'.