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.

Comments

Maybe we should lobby the search engines

[namespan]

Actually, maybe we could convince some of the search engines -- Google would be especially nice -- to simply de-list anyone with such terms, along with a friendly notice about why.

I think it'd put a stop to things like this rather quickly.

Diverse? REALLY???

[OmniGeek]

Disclaimer: I DON'T have cable, so I cannot comment thereon. The commercial broadcast (and sadly, most of the print) media I see and hear outside public radio and TV are ANYTHING but diverse, friends. With media outlets being sucked into fewer and fewer hands, and news departments becoming seen as profit centers and advertising venues rather than independent journalistic operations, diversity of news is vanishing. This phenomenon is real and well-documented. If anything, we need public broadcasting MORE rather than LESS as time goes on. Mind you, NPR ain't perfect either, but it DOES fill a gap...

Even better: ASK them for permission.

[Russ Nelson]

Even better: ASK them for permission. If everybody links to their site and asks them for permission to do so, they're going to get REAL tired of it real fast. Just like Jesus, when he suggested that the Palestinians carry their master's packs for two leagues instead of just one. Imagine the poor Roman soldier, begging the Palestinian to give him back his pack: "No, no, it's alright, I'm not tired--here, I'll just carry it a few more steps. Nevermind that I'm a tired old woman, older than your mother, God bless her soul. I'll be fine, you just rest in the shade."
-russ