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Blogspace vs. NPR
jonkl writes "National Public Radio's linking policy at npr.org has caused a fuss within the blog community that's hot and getting hotter. The policy's simply stated in two sentences: 'Linking to or framing of any material on this site without the prior written consent of NPR is prohibited. If you would like to link to NPR from your Web site, please fill out the link permission request form.' This is buried, of course, in a page linked to the site's footer, but somebody noticed and mentioned it to Howard Rheingold, who passed it on to Cory Doctorow of boingboing.net. Cory wrote scathing commentary, calling the policy 'brutally stupid,' even 'fatally stupid.' The outrage is spreading; this has to be a rough day for the NPR ombudsman who's deluged with email by now... ~24 hours after Cory's report." Reminds of the KPMG policy.
So, when does NPR start suing Google, Alltheweb, and others for indexing, and even worse, CACHE-ING their site.
Damn Pirates!
I just can't wrap my brain around something like this. What is the point of being on the web if you don't want people to visit your site? Provided, you actually want people to visit your site, don't you want to get your information out to as many as possible? (bandwidth issues not withstanding) Ergo, wouldn't you want every possible site that might be interested to link to your content?
Tough to think there is something you could refer to as "old fashioned" in regards to the web, but I can't find another way to describe it...
Jason
He's totally creeping out the Great One, eh...
i thought the spirit of NPR was freedom of communication? or was i misled?
What do you wanna bet that NPR doesn't bother checking another sites linking policy before they link to it.
How many times does this need to come up before there is a conclusive precendent set? It seems there needs to be a nice hard fast ruling on deep links.
Google on linking:
Searched the web for linking suit settle.
Results 1 - 10 of about 12,500. Search took 0.15 seconds
It seems to me companies keep settling just to prevent the law from ever being decided on by a judge. Deep linking should not be a website's ATM.
Never confuse volume with power.
It's trivial to block linking by looking at the referrer field and only allowing access if it's empty or from npr.org.
Why would NPR rather sue people than just prevent it at the source?
But I really don't get this whole "blog" thing. When did it become so popular, and why? Yeah yeah, there's the whole "freedom" and "empowerment" lines, but I still don't get the attraction of putting what seems to me to be a diary online for the world to see. Can anyone else provide me with a clue about this phenomenon?
I guess the web pages I put up when my wife was pregnant with our first child was a sort of blog - I should get around to re-posting that somwehere, actually... but as a geek with a wife, two kids, and a mortgage, I don't seem to have the lifestyle that would make good blog material anymore.
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Let "them" know you're not a terrorist
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
With all that legal linking nonsense, it's funny that they don't even have a robots.txt file on their site.
Like that time they lobbied to prevent microtransmitters?
OK, they don't want me to link them. So istead I will set up a dynamic mirror on my server and link to that.
I'm not sure which is worse, a goofy policy like that, or that 'I' pay for NPR as a Tax-Paying citizen of the U, S, of A and am not free to utilize the information that 'I' paid for in way 'I' want to.
Looks like that's been their policy for at least 6 months. I sorta understand the part about frames, but, leaving the stupidity of the linking policy aside, look at the # of fields in the form--why would they want to be saddled with reading, evaluating and storing all that information?
If I hear an interesting piece on an NPR radio station, do I have to get their permission before I call a friend and tell him to turn on his radio?
NPR's done dumb things before, such as when they fought against low-power FM.
I believe my taxes as well as yours and their constant begging for money indicates that we are all at liberty to do with NPR as we please.
STOP! THINK! Why would NPR do this?
.ra files than NPR's got a problem. I can make money off of NPR's work and cost them a fortune.
The reason is that NPR hosts high-bandwidth audio material and the website archives many of the shows. NPR doesn't care if you link to a text article, but if I create
www.bestofnpr.com
and then offer DIRECT links to the
You may agree or disagree with the policy, but at least understand that NPR has some pretty legetimate fears. Personally, though, I don't see this as a legitamate solution, but it's understandable.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
Why is censorship becoming the answer more and more rather than creativity? If they're worried about people bypassing adds and the like by direct linking to their media files, why not build ads into those files or just mention in those files that the content you are receiving is from a listner supported organization that needs your help if (and only if) you
- appreciate
the services they provide.Spitefull fooey
ôó
Assuming you are a tax paying citizen, you should be informed that even if you pay $1000 (including withheld on the W2), less than half of a penny goes into supporting both public radio and television, and even including state taxes, you still haven't paid a full cent. The funneling of tax goes to stations in need of self-support on a case by case basis, everything else, from your favourite programmes to your favourite hosts are funded by people that pledge a donation during drives. You're probably not even paying enough for the cost of electricity to parse through the database and send a copy of the article to you.
Additionally, there is a permit you may request for mirroring under most circumstance if you ever actually intend to go through with it (more so for those that actually would like to mirror, as I doubt you could).
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
It makes sense for an organization to dislike deep linking because
A. It can make their content appear to be someone else's and
B. They have no control over broken links when they change their content and this makes their site look broken and stupid.
C. Framing someone else's site is bullshit, and people who don't like it can do what it takes to stop it.
However, is it really all that hard to redirect foreign deep links to the main page? Is it? Or to send the not founds there so they don't just send most people to microsoft? Come on kids, read your docs! Learn your trade!
If you still want the search engines to deep link, it's a little more work, but it can't possibly be more of a hassel than a lawsuit you probably won't win.
As for the main page, I think it's as simple as asking for 'the right not to be refered to', which it's been shown repeatedly that you just don't have.
If only people would quit wasting time and just move on to something beneficial, like harnessing the power of stupidity, the earth would be a better place.
=mortimer
I work for a small local government doing web developement. From accross the state we get together once a quarter to share ideas. One time we had a bunch of lawyers come and give a presentation. I got alot of information out of it and we actually discussed this topic. The lawyers say that linking is a problem and point to some of the existing deep linking precedints (M$ vs TicketMa$ter). They recomended putting such a policy on our websites. We argued that this is against the concept of the web but they argued back (don't remember all of the argument).
I believe that if you look at a lot of sites, especially large comercial sites they will include this policy.
Wouldn't it make more sense for NPR to write a policy that OK's all links but allows them to reserve the right to block links from specific referrers?
This gives them control, allows sites to get the links you know NPR is approving, and only requires technical response to deal with abusers.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Seems NPR has hit quite a nerve.
/. and requires a reg. Free as it is, what purpose does it serve? To see who is reading what? Or to stop people from linking directly to their stories?
/. poll, how many of those complaining pledge to NPR?
/. has ads.
What about The New York Times site? (free reg req'd, blah, blah) Their site is often linked to from
Next
Ever listen to NPR? Hear any ads? See any on their website? Even our precious
Isn't it all public domain anyway? I paid for it, I damn well better be able to use it. Millitary supplies aside, if I paid for it, it's mine.
I mean, sheesh, it's not like it's THAT hard to check the referrer in certain areas of the site (perhaps everything except index.html) and give the users a "We don't allow linking to this site" or better yet just redirect 'em to the front door when coming from an outside machine. Since NPR hasn't (apparently) done this it hasn't done due diligence and thus should have no legal grounds here. If they *REALLY* don't want linking then stop it technologically and just deal with the complaints therein. ... just my .02 ...
Crappy books can be just as much of a mind numbing time killer as crappy TV can. There is a lot of junk on TV, but there are a number of quality shows as well. Judge the shows by quality, don't merely dismiss them because you're elitist and it's just TV.
I'd say you give the game away when you pick Noam Chomsky, who is at the rabid fringe of the left as your example of a mainstream liberal. Certainly, most actual liberals would contest any characterization of Mr. Chomsky's inanities as `mainstream'.
As for bias in the media, I would like to point out that on a normal evening on Fox I can see representatives from a wide range of left and right groups debating the issues, while CNN (and much more so ABC, CBS, and NBC) do not seek to provide such balance. Indeed,if you tried to describe the broadcast networks as `center' or `mainstream' to most Americans, they would laugh at you -- there's a reason Bernard Goldberg's book Bias is a nationwide best-seller while the broadcast networks are losing viewers hand-over-fist to Fox.
When you consider that they receive as much as 1/3rd of their funding from DIRECT taxpayer subsidy, and even more than that from inderect subsidy (the increased taxes all others bear because of their tax exempt status), to say that I don't have any right to link to any damn part of their website I want to is ludicrous.
Get out of my back pocket, NPR, and REALLY become a private company, with private property, and get back to me.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
You paid for a rather small portion of it: most NPR funding is no longer from tax dollars. Whether that small portion gives you complete control over all their content is highly debateable. But the fact is, under this policy: their content IS still fully accessible, just not in the direct way that you happen to preffer.