The U.S. newspaper industry is cutting itself off from the Net, putting registration in front of users before letting them read stories.

They're doing this because they can't make money from advertisers until they can convince advertisers who they are reaching. That's what they say, anyway.

Me, I find there are very, very few stories written in any U.S. newspaper that I can't find somewhere. Most papers get by on a mix of AP and syndicated copy, with a few kids rewriting press releases or listening to police radios for flavor, and a crank in the back writing political screeds.

But there are exceptions. If you don't like forced registration, but you want to get into these sites, here's how.

It's a system called BugMeNot. Bugmenot creates and shared log-ins for popular papers, then gives you a little applet you can use to sign-in with them.

I haven't yet used Bugmenot. Forced registration doesn't bug me. But if it does bug you, and your ethical sense doesn't tingle at the thought of bypassing registration, let me know how this works for you.