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AP and 28 News Groups To Collect Fees From Aggregators
jjp9999 writes "The Associated Press is launching the NewsRight project to make aggregators pay for content. Some of the top names in the news industry are currently on board, including New York Times Co. and Washington Post Co, and they're currently negotiating with Gannett, Tribune, Cox and News Corp. The project will license original news from the media companies and collect royalties from aggregators. The use of lawsuits and threats of lawsuits are already on the agenda. NewsRight's first salesperson starts work this week."
I'm sure they will have worked out the bugs that RightHaven have, and continue down that same road..
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
This is covered under Fair Use as one of the provision is reporting the news. Most RSS only provides a small snippet, enough to cover the basics of the story and is not subject to copyright.
Newsright Salesdroid: Hello Google? I'm from Newsright, and I'm calling to set up your payment plan for aggregation of AP/Gannett news on your website..
Google: Say WHAT?? You've GOT to be kidding... We are NOT going to pay YOU!! In fact, YOU should be paying US to publicise YOU..
Newsright Salesdroid: If you don't pay, we sue..
Google: (sound of lots of laughter) Tell ya what.. Why don't we just NOT aggregate your content, that way we're happy/you're happy...
Newsright Salesdroid: Ummm... I guess that would be ok...
FAST FORWARD A MONTH..
Newsright CEO at management meeting to salesdroid on Google account: WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO??? Traffic to our clients is down 85%, and they are
PISSED... You're FIRED!!!!
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
does this include slashdot?
Although polls show that that most Americans want socialism, they just don't want it called that. "Down with socialism, save medicare" is the cry of many Americans. Don't ask me how you explain to them that medicare is socialism.
Work bio at MMWD
The problem is that it's well within the content providers ability to block legitimate sites from aggregating their content (see: robots.txt). They don't want to do that. Instead they want the benifit, _and_ want those sites to pay them.
Eh, not at all. The aggregators are using their right of fair use to aggregate news. They are not re-posting the original articles under their own name.
That is another example how cooperations are greedy and try to extend copyright at all costs. It depends on what NewsRight will actually do, because TFA doesn't know yet. But maybe then even Slashdot will be required to pay.
It's just beyond me, why the "... 28 co-investors, 30 additional companies taking part, and 800 news websites" are not coming together and start their own news aggregator web site. But than they have to produce something instead to resort to "lawsuits and threats of lawsuits".
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
I agree completely, migla. People should really spend more time digging in depth to find well thought out arguments instead of knee jerk reactions based on something as superficial as a title. Its not like a title is supposed to be some type of summary of the internal contents. They should probably just get rid of that box completely.
Don't forget this bit:
They worked with Cisco/Linksys for five years prior to the suit. Cisco had ample time and help to comply with the GPL before the FSF filed suit. They then settled when Cisco finally decided to step up and be compliant, I don't believe the FSF sought damages or financial compensation.
So again, how are these similar?
might actually have to ---summarize a topic instead of copy-pasting the first fucking paragraph---
what will become of the site?
Yes, it is, but the "traditional media" pay AP for that privilege and the argument is that so should the "new media" that publish these articles.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
It's covered by the RICO act (and other laws), and is known as extortion. It's basically summarized as, "I threaten to take legal action against you, if you don't pay me money."
They know perfectly well that Mr. Blogger, who may make hundreds a year, can't possibly defend himself against a single corporation who makes millions, or a group of corporations who make billions.
It's not even just the individual. They could take down Slashdot, as portions of the article are reused here. That *is* allowed by copyright law as fair use.
What these publishers are going to find out is, if they kill off the bloggers who are partially republishing their stories and providing links, the traffic to the original publication is going to drop. I won't say it would be huge. That all depends on the publication. How many people read the NY Times directly, and how many catch an interesting story on Slashdot and follow the link to the NY Times?
I strongly suspect that the average Mr. Blogger is not the target. They want the big fish with big money. Google News, Yahoo News, and other multi-million hit/day sites. I don't know, but I suspect, that they are already paying their tribute to the news corps for at least some of their feeds. This will severely impact mid-level news sites, who get tens of thousands of hits/day. They may make a few bucks at it from advertising, but that's a long way from being able to pay for feeds from AP, Reuters, UPI, etc. More often than not, the advertising revenue barely pays for their hosting.
As it's clear that they are litigious bastards, they will work their way down the ranks, until they're filing 100k "John Doe" lawsuits every week. It could very easily get to the point where if you posted more than a few words that could have been in another story, you owe or get shut down.
But, the litigious bastards will always win. Why? Because they have the money. They already own a decent portion of our political system, they can and will have laws changed in their favor. This has been proven time and time again. At very least, the litigious bastards can afford to keep it in court longer than you can.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I don't contribute to the NPR. Mainly because it's not my NPR.
I did use to get bills for SVT when I had a TV, though, and the public service broadcasters SVT (here in Sweden) or YLE (in finland), like the BBC (I'd imagine) are in a whole other dimension of journalism compaired to any of the commercial offerings, being politically and commercially independent.
I'm not saying your points of 1 or 2 are wrong, but that the solution to a copyright economy which is/{should be} dying is for people with the means to pay for it, as in from each according to their abilities etc., because we all want information and an informed public and not to be playing silly ownership games with bits, don't we?
"Nationalise" or more appropriately "globalise" the AP.
We (as in people in general) should pay a fraction of a cent or whatever for the AP journalists to keep doing their job, IMO.
I'm not going to try to force it, but I just think it would be a sensible thing to do. We all benefit from the AP and the likes, don't we?
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Reporters: pay a license to NewsRight or don't write silly programs to auto review our content.
Doctors: go through AMA accredited medical school and certification or forget about giving flu shots.
Lawyers go through private (!!!) Bar association with its arbitrary rules to get into the profession or forget about practicing law
Actors: no more than 2 SAG appearances without joining the SAG or you are in violation of the law.
Programmers: all software should be free. Everyone should give away the secret sauce which makes their software run or they are acting immorally. For some added injury, let's invite hundreds of thousands indentured workers on H1 visas, to compete with professional programmers on wages and work conditions. Let's not call them immigrants (with all the rights of green card holders). Let's make them depend on their employer for 5-10 years to get a green card.
Yes, there are top programmers who make what a doctor makes. But top doctors, lawyers and actors make 100 fold. I wonder why that is. I wonder what lawyers would cost if most lawyers thought that legal services were a right that must be given away as much as possible. You might think that I am trolling, but the pattern is unmistakable. Professions which do not give up control over results of their labor have higher wages.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
That would be barratry, not barristry.
Barratry is the practice of filing frivolous and baseless lawsuits in an attempt to harass and extort.
Barristry is something quite different.
It sounds like this is an attempt to create the MPAA of news. On one hand, I feel like this won't really affect the casual reader since most folks get their news through a source that would not have problems with this (e.g. local channels, newspapers, Google News,e tc.) On the other hand, I feel like it's an immoral attempt to control the flow of information.
It seems that Google saw this coming, as there have been several stories in the last couple months about the fact that quotations, or wholesale reprints of articles posted by users on Google+ are being rated higher by the Google algorithm than the original articles. If this is actually true, and not just tinfoil hattery, then users may just become the routing mechanism for news while the official aggregator becomes a bit more barren. A similar mechanic may also work with sites like Twitter or Reddit if they are able to argue that they're not aggregating the news, and their users are just posting links to articles.
SOPA is about the takedown of servers that house illegal content.. and the overreach is that they'll take out a whole service to punish for one piece of offending content. This is about the AP stepping up and selling a bundle of content suppliers for one price, essentially making a legal store so there's a right way to do it.
NewsRight demands fees. Microsoft pays and pretends they're taking the moral high ground, in a complicated fashion that actually kicks the money back to them somehow. Other big aggregators tell them they'd rather just not include the content, and blacklist the NewsRight providers. Newsright finds some small 1-person website run by a disabled female veteran putting out news for the blind in a screen-reader friendly format, and sues her for One Millon Dollars. Streisand ensues, and Newsright crawls away with its tail between its legs. Meanwhile the members of Newsright cut side deals with the big aggregators and/or withdraw from the organization.
I'd like that with a side of golden goose, please.
I read the news. A lot. The current system is broken. Look at sites like my.yahoo.com, which used to aggregate credible sources and provide links. I could choose a Reuters group, a Sports Illustrated group, Asia News, whatever. Clicking on a link would take me to a Reuters, eg, page. Now all the news links go to news.yahoo.com and give shit like this: http://news.yahoo.com/single-tuna-fetches-record-736k-japan-auction-040041043.html That's a yahoo.com page, with Yahoo links and ads all over it, with a small logo suggesting that the article came from AFP. Yahoo is eating AFP's lunch (and all the other people who do the work getting the news and writing it up). Parasitic is the best way to describe this. If this new venture can get good sources of news rewarded by collecting from aggregators then how does it make things worse? I'm completely in agreement with fair use; this ain't it.
The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures (Junius)
It is.
And it's why Righthaven is bankrupt now.
1. In order to sue, you must have standing. Righthaven did not have this, because in the US, at least, you /must/ own the copyrights in order to sue. Unless the AP and others are going to sign all their content over to this new organization, I doubt they will have standing because it is unlikely that the AP and others will willy-nilly sign over copyright on a bet.
2. In order to not be tossed out of court on your ear for barratry, your case must be prima facie valid. Righthaven did not even have this because of fair use. This new company is going to run afoul of the same fair use problems.
Unless copyright law is changed to allow third parties to sue, like in Germany, this is unlikely to change.
--
BMO
Step back from the question of copyright in the Internet age, fair use, quantity displayed, etc. Think about the meta-concepts, and it just doesn't feel right.
Here's how the free market that is all sunshine and puppies is supposed to work: Joe makes something that he thinks people will enjoy. He puts it out on the market, and asks for some price. Bill walks by and decides he'd like to have that thing. So he looks at the price, compares it to his perceived value, maybe makes a counter offer, eventually he gives Joe more than it cost Joe to make it, and gets a product that is worth more to Bill than it cost. They both win, and they both decide to do it of their own free will. They're both so pleased with the transaction that they start thinking of ways to make it happen again. Bill goes and collects more dollars (by starting his own thing-making operation). Joe uses that money to make more stuff (by going out and giving his dollars to other people who sell materials). It's this crazy self-catalyzing engine of productivity.
Now we have content. Bill decides not to pay the creator, but to profit from the content. It may be legal, but he's making a profit without paying the person who put the stuff together in the first place. Meanwhile, Joe doesn't start where he should, either. Instead of thinking, "Gee, there's a whole new way to distribute news. Maybe I could find a new way to package and sell this stuff. Maybe make it easier for new guys who are going to compete with Bill. Might even be a disruptive competitor will come along, pay me for access through this new system, and put Bill out of business. I should put out a press release saying that I'm looking to develop new kinds of relationships with entrepreneurs who are willing to pay for privileged access." No, instead of trying to innovate and compete Bill into irrelevance, he sues. I figure this largely boils down to Joe not wanting to develop a new product or new customers, he wants to take money from the companies that already have a lot of it because it is easier.
I can't see either side as being the noble bastion of what is in the best interests of advancing the progress of science and the useful arts. Seems like both sides are total ponces who should be tossed under the bus at earliest convenience. Bill not paying, and Joe not innovating -- they're both consigning themselves to certain death. If Bill were paying, Joe wouldn't be pissed off and looking for ways to sue. If Joe were coming up with ways to package and sell his media to partner distributors that was a value-add compared to scraping (and I can sit here and come up with half a dozen ways off the top of my head), he wouldn't be getting his lunch eaten by a total elimination of the operational principle that made copyright work (copying used to have a non-zero cost).
Right? Wrong? They're both idiots, and neither side has come up with a remotely acceptable answer to this new reality. The sooner we can get over our addiction to what worked 20 years ago and come up with some new answers for funding the creators of content, the better. Until then, this whole mess is fundamentally broken and I would rather see both sides crash and burn, see what comes from the ashes, than continue the charade that something good can come of this.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Don't ask me how you explain to them that medicare is socialism.
Sorry, but this is just a Fox News lie. Every capitalist society in the world, including all of Europe and Asia has some form of medicare program. A medical insurance program provided by the government but provisioned by private medical providers otherwise known as medicare has nothing in common with:
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production.
He's talking about when the person that is threatened with a lawsuit was never doing anything illegal in the first place, but rather is just being pushed around by a company because they don't have the resources to go to court. If they did have the resources, they would be found innocent.
There likely is an ulterior motive in this: Some of the media sources (uh...is Murdoch still on AP's board of directors?) and politicians (uh...all of 'em?) don't like the fact that it is so easy to prove that they're either lying now or lied at some point in the past. I.e., they'd like to eliminate your ability to pull both versions of "the truth" up and show them to the deluded.
You think the Wayback Machine will get an exemption?
I don't...guess if I'm right, that will tell you something.
There is another angle that involves creeping capitalism, the ability to hire unlimited numbers of lawyers, and the outright ownership of the highest court in the land: Once this precedent is set, how long before Google et al have to pay a fee to show previews and even links to content?
And finally...me, I'm not thrilled about a central clearinghouse for news distribution; the possibilities for censorship are absolutely disgusting.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"