From: Dan Gillmor <dgillmor at sjmercury.com> <http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/columnists/3200101.htm>
Dear Reader:
If you are reading this column in the newspaper, but did not read every article and look at every advertisement in previous sections, stop now. You must go back and look at all of that material before continuing with this column.
If you are reading this column on the Web and did not go to the newspaper's home page first, stop now. Go to the home page and navigate through whatever sequence of links our page designers have created to reach this page, and don't you dare fail to look at the ads.
Ridiculous? Of course.
Tell that to the dinosaurs at some major media and entertainment companies. They insist they have the right to tell you precisely how you may use their products.
and....
Greetings. Of possible interest to the readership, the latest Fact Squad Radio short audio segment concerns the escalating battle between the entertainment industry and consumers, and is entitled:
"Don't Touch That Dial--Or You're Under Arrest!"
It's playable via:
http://www.factsquad.org/radio
Thanks very much.
--Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein lauren at pfir.org or lauren at vortex.com or lauren at privacyforum.org
and....
To be published Friday at http://www.a-clue.com/archive/02/cl020513.htm
Newspapers vs. The Web
The Web has accelerated the cancer (lack of profit) afflicting American newspapers. It is killing their classifieds' business one niche at a time (help wanted, cars for sale, etc.) and that represents a huge chunk of their cash flow. Without this revenue, most newspapers would cost subscribers $1/issue or more, dropping circulation through the floor. Newspapers don't make a profit from their Web operations, either. Yet they're expected to post their stories on this medium-with-no-return until, when exactly? It's the search engines that are making the big money, after all - whether they're true engines or just collections of links - those are the news front pages for most Netizens.
The last bastion of a newspaper's strength is its authority as a "thought leader" for the community. The people it picks for its editorial board, the columnists it chooses to publish - they're all vetted through a careful, decades-long process for writing ability, reporting ability, and (most of all) fealty to the paper's hierarchies and financial interest. Yet any idiot (and some cities (http://www.barkingdogs.org) have lots of them (http://www.wetellall.com)) can seize this authority for themselves, just by posting a few Web pages and commenting (with links to) the newspaper's stories.
This is why the newspaper industry has launched a campaign to cut the Web down. It's one part technology, one part business, and one part law. Many already force all users to register, put old stories behind firewalls and charge for access to them. Now their lawyers are actively working to eliminate all incoming links.
The Dallas Morning News (http://www.dallasnews.com) is one public example of this. It is claiming the right to enjoin all incoming links (http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51887,00.html) despite a complete lack of legal basis (http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,35306,00.html), with "spokesmen" pointing to hidden "terms of service" to demand that all links go only to a home page.
Some non-English speaking countries are taking this kind of nonsense seriously (http://www.newsbooster.com/?pg=press2&lan=eng). Danish newspapers are in court to keep services there from pointing people anywhere but to the home pages of local newspapers. The aim is to halt the "aggregation" of news that is its chief benefit to Web readers. Aggregation has become a valid business (http://www.newsbooster.com/) (just not for newspaper groups like the AP (http://wire.ap.org/public_pages/WirePortal.pcgi/us_portal.html) or its local equivalents). Instead of competing for this business, they want to cut out competitors. (If this reminds you of the RIAA, it should.) A "Morning News" spokesman, by the way, cited the Danish case in denying incoming links to his paper. While there has been no decision he claimed the law is "evolving."
However, know this. The fact that local newspapers are arrogant, stupid, Clueless, or trying to kill this medium is beside the point. The fact is that no one - not me, not you, and not the newspaper industry - can survive long here without a valid business model. The newspapers have several choices:
* They can put all their content behind firewalls and charge all users (including charges for e-mail), thereby legally frustrating incoming links. * They can compete. For instance they can offer aggregations based on daily keyword searches of the AP wire, with e-mails linked to stories appearing on local newspapers where they first broke. * They can take me up on my previous suggestions and build directories -of people, but mostly of businesses - that might provide databases they can sell, and innovative online content they can advertise against. (Having a review alongside the location of the restaurant, or links to stories about a law firm next to its listing. There are thousands of ways where newspaper content can enhance a directory listing.) * They can go out of business, slowly, painfully, melting like the wicked witch in "The Wizard of Oz."
The guess is some will try the first, but most will choose the last. Take a Clue and use it? No way, man. Blankenhorn doesn't work for us, thus he's not loyal, thus he's suspect, thus we won't listen. Buggy-whip thinking is alive and well in the 21st century and it's living in newspaper news rooms.
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