Double standards in news attempt to control links
According to Techdirt, The Times' online offering is now blocking news aggregators. There's also a widespread belief that The Times will soon start charging for some or all of its online news.
As an aside, I utterly fail to see how both these statements can be true. If I'm about to set up a paywall, surely I want my links splattered across the major aggregators to drive traffic once I start asking people to cough up?
But my main problem is with "the industry's" stance here. I've been told that it's not fair that a 3rd party (the aggregator) should be allowed to make money off the back of their content.
At the same time, most of the major newspapers have started prefacing 10-30 seconds of adverts in front of YouTube and other externally-sourced videos embedded in their online articles!
Is a cut of this ad revenue to be passed to the actual owner of the video content? That's not a flippant question - I'm guessing not but I don't know the answer.
Reports last summer that the Newspaper Licensing Authority (NLA) was to charge a license fee to news aggregators for redistributing hyperlinks got me riled.
It didn't make sense for a few reasons. Firstly, on what legal basis did the NLA intend to operate this charge? "Fair use" is a long-established principle that allows most publications to reference another publication. This isn't limited to academic writing or articles with public interest, although the amount of material that may be summarised under "fair use" can be affected by the nature of the publication.
If a headline and hyperlink could be controlled under license, what about the old-world equivalent: publication title, page and line number! Will novels no longer be able to reference the titles of popular films?
What about the ramifications for the internet outside of news. If a hyperlink can be controlled under license will we see websites and blogs facing a tax?
If hyperlinks can be licensed, the internet will simply un-weave itself. Bloggers will refrain from linking, leaving folks to revert to the search engines. But will search engines be able to continue to operate for free if many of the sites they index insist on a royalty fee?
And then from a business perspective: does it make sense to cut-off a source of traffic just because that source represents a revenue stream for a 3rd party? I've heard from industry insiders that at least 2 large news organisations get a very large proportion of their traffic direct from news aggregators.
Will the NLA's land-grab be international? If not, the action could unfairly affect UK-based aggregators without affecting oversees competition not falling under the NLA's licensing scheme. Either way, it will only affect UK-based newspapers. Will the online population of the UK just turn to oversees news still appearing in aggregators?
There's been some good news to date. The NLA started issuing invoices for link licenses on the 1st January 2010 but suspended the charges a week later pending a ruling from the Copyright Tribunal. This week the tribunal ruled against the NLA on this issue. The case was brought by Meltwater News and the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA). This is only an initial ruling and is set to go to full trial in 2011.