Slashdot Mirror
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!
Did we (slashdot) ask permission to link
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." -- Plato (427?-347? BC)
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?
So we'll /. NPR and thus demonstrate to them that linking really *is* harmless, right?
What do you wanna bet that NPR doesn't bother checking another sites linking policy before they link to it.
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?
Wait... I just deep linked to a link prohibiting deep links! Ack! My brain!
With all that legal linking nonsense, it's funny that they don't even have a robots.txt file on their site.
This is clearly a case of freedom of speech. Let's see NPR try to bring charges against someone for linking to their site. It'll be laughed out of court. It's a basic right for someone to be able to publish publically available information, such as a universal resource locator.
Just ask 2600.
whoops
"And like that
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.
The perfect revenge is to put up a website explaining your policies about requiring permission to sending you cookies to your browser.
Secondly, send a cease-and-decist letter to npr.org to stop setting cookies while you browse their site.
Maybe then they'll learn, that if you put information free to the public, without authentication, what the hell are they to expect?
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
I used to work for a regional public radio network's web shop, and we had some contact with NPR. They are a fairly slow-moving, bureaucratic organization -- partly because they are controversial and always under attack, and partly because their board of directors is made up of their several hundred member stations. For both these reasons, they tend to be a bit overprotective.
However, they're not completely backwards or out of touch with the web -- not by a long shot. They were online before most companies realized it was important, and were one of the first major media outlets to start giving all their content away -- free! -- online.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the stupid policy in question was penned by some lawyer in the early days of the web, when the answers to these questions were a lot less clear.
Hopefully this exposure will wake them up, and get their policy re-grounded in reality.
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
For no good reason I viewed the source of the permission form. Ironically, the form's action tag is: http://iris.npr.org/cgi-bin/watchingyou.pl
Not only that, but the high-tech folks at NPR use this form to generate an email. The recipients are listed in a hidden field on the form. So if you want to give the ombudsman a break, you can send your thoughts directly to the people who evaluate the link requests: jrichards@npr.org, bmelzer@npr.org, nprhelp@npr.org, tholzman@npr.org.
I have no problems with linking to my site from anywhere, but when other sites frame my site and try to present my information as their own, I don't particularly enjoy that. Here's how you can prevent "framing":
<script language="JavaScript">
<!--
if (self.location.href != top.location.href) {
top.location.href = self.location.href;
}
// -->
</script>
--It's Pimptastic!--
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
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 12:26:45 -0700
To: ombudsman@npr.org
Subject: Link Permission Request
Hello,
It is trivial to tell your webserver to check the referring page of a
visitor. If the visitor is referred to npr.org from an address that is
*not* npr.org, you can deny them access, or redirect them to a page
explaining why npr.org does not allow hyperlinks.
While this is really lame, it would address your bandwidth cost concerns
without resorting to such ineffectual assertions that linking is
"prohibited". That's wishful thinking.
Love,
Jason
"It's a basic right for someone to be able to publish publically available information, such as a universal resource locator."
That's not entirely true. There have actually been court cases where they have ruled that linking to a URL can be infringing. Some of these include Starbucks, Religious Technology Center v. Netcom On-Line Communication Services, and US Intellectual Reserve Inc vs. Utah Lighthouse Ministry Inc. Here's a good article about the topic.
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
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.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
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...
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
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
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
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.
This part is interesting:
"Fowl"? What does Calumet City have against content about birds?
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 haven't listened to it much, then.
During the debate about campaign finance reform, I heard two Republican senators do opinion pieces where they gave their reasons for opposing the legislation. (I was [innapproriately, yes] screaming "Godwin's Law!" at the radio, because one of them equated CFR with Nazism.) I have never heard a Democratic senator give an opinion piece on NPR.
In your opinion, is unbiased approximately equal to liberal? I keep seeing this term ("liberal") being used, and it seems to be applied to organizations that I consider relatively unbiased. If they are not unbiased, can you list a media organization that deals with current events who you think is?