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That Link You Just Posted Could Cost You 300 Euros

Posted by Soulskill on from the good-luck-with-that dept.

Nate the greatest writes "Do you like to tweet or share links to interesting news articles? According to a coalition of Irish newspapers, that makes you a pirate. The National Newspapers of Ireland has adopted a new policy. Any website which links to one of the 15 NNI member newspapers will have to pay a minimum of 300 Euros, with the license fee going up if you post more links. Note that this is not a fee to post an excerpt or some punitive measure for the copying of an entire article. No, the NNI wants to charge for links alone. It's almost as if this organization has no idea how the web works. Or maybe they have found an elaborate way to commit suicide."

4 of 227 comments (clear)

  1. Well that's easy by Lorens · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Google won't want to pay, so Google won't post a link to their sites. Ever. Anywhere.

  2. Re:Here's a link for all of them by mark-t · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The notion is that the owner of the website would have to pay for such links... It would be up to the website to extract payment from its users... Which, in the case if one that permits anonymous comments, is not possible, and the website would assume liability.

    it's absurd, and can't be enforced outside of their own jurisdiction.

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
  3. Re:Here's a link for all of them by pclminion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why are you posting links to these jackasses? If they want to vanish into obscurity because nobody is permitted to link to (a.k.a. mention) them, why not let them die?

  4. NNI should be the liable party by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If they don't want people linking to them, the should set up an Apache Redirect Rule for all Get Requests that have a Foreign site as the Referrer.

    Silencing free speech and expression with lawsuits when you can easily curtail that behavior on your own should be seen as unconscionable and any such lawsuit dismissed, with any fees associated in the defense against those claims rewarded to the defendant.