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Blogspace vs. NPR

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the stupid-web-tricks dept.

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.

5 of 489 comments (clear)

  1. Why oh why? by jhaberman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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...
  2. Links on NPR by Target+Drone · · Score: 5, Insightful
    From the NPR linking policy: It is important to note that npr.org contains links to other sites

    What do you wanna bet that NPR doesn't bother checking another sites linking policy before they link to it.

  3. Kinda Odd by godoto · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With all that legal linking nonsense, it's funny that they don't even have a robots.txt file on their site.

  4. Wondering why NPR might do this? by aengblom · · Score: 5, Insightful

    STOP! THINK! Why would NPR do this?

    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 .ra files than NPR's got a problem. I can make money off of NPR's work and cost them a fortune.

    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
    1. Re:Wondering why NPR might do this? by thing12 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Yes - exactly. If anyone actually took the time to look at the Link Permission Request page they might see that what they are really referring to when they say links is links to the audio content. They're example text: (e.g., "Listen to NPR's David Kestenbaum's report on the Space Shuttle, originally broadcast on NPR's All Things Considered® April 4, 2002").

      They did go about this all wrong by using very broad wording. I can't imagine that they don't want people linking to their html pages freely (e.g. http://news.npr.org/). It seems like everybody here is flying off the handle over what really is nothing. The linking policy has an intent, and I'm certain that the wording of it will be changed - within a week at most - to match that intent.