AP and 28 News Groups To Collect Fees From Aggregators 303
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."
RightHaven (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure they will have worked out the bugs that RightHaven have, and continue down that same road..
Re:RightHaven (Score:5, Interesting)
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"Salesperson" is a nice new euphamism for "enforcer".
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"First thing I thought of, when I saw "NewsRight". That, and Einstein's definition of insanity."
Yes, my thoughts exactly. I am not at all confident that they have "worked out the bugs"; I fully expect them to step in it just as badly as Righthaven did.
Sony still hasn't learned some of its lessons. I expect more of the same from the other media groups.
Re:RightHaven (Score:5, Insightful)
Well I think its time they collect. AP, NYT and news agencies have people on the ground and they pay them to provide info. We as a free society (not the US only, all of occident), need this kind of setup to get information. Even if its slanted, at least the payment is for info itself, not for the slant.
If we leave this market untouched, then all we are going to hear about, is whatever advertisers are willing to pay for.... think about it.
Re:RightHaven (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it time they collect? I'd actually like to see some analysis that compared gained traffic from click-throughs, to lost traffic that only read the summary on the aggregator. Let the aggregators disconnect those participating news sites, and see who gets hurt more by the separation.
Re:RightHaven (Score:5, Interesting)
"If we leave this market untouched, then all we are going to hear about, is whatever advertisers are willing to pay for.... think about it."
Uh... I hate to be the one to break this to you, but that has been the way TV has always worked -- and newspapers, too, for a couple of hundred years, at least.
So you think that suddenly this is an insufficient model for making a profit? Or what?
Agregators are not doing anything wrong, if all they are doing is giving a summary, and a link to the original source. It is EXTREMELY clear that this constitutes "fair use".
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Re:RightHaven (Score:5, Insightful)
Well I think its time they collect. AP, NYT and news agencies have people on the ground and they pay them to provide info. We as a free society (not the US only, all of occident), need this kind of setup to get information. Even if its slanted, at least the payment is for info itself, not for the slant.
If you want to pay to support these guys, then get a subscription. Aggregators are just providing summaries with links back to the their websites with the full story. I really want Google to just delist all these guys from news.google.com in response. "Well, we're not going to pay you guys, but if you feel that it's unfair for us to grab this content from you, that's fine, we'll stop." Then they can immediately watch their page hits fall by 40% at least.
If anything, the news websites should pay aggregators to please include them.
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So if I hear some news, and tell a friend I just copied their creative works, and violated their IP?
If I hear about a hockey trade and tweet about it, should I be sued for possibly allowing the sharing of this information, with millions?
I don't buy it, literately.
If I copy word for word your entire article and call it my own and do not cite the source, then yes that would be a problem.
However posting a quote or making a summary is not. Besides most news aggregators link the original source anyway, which wou
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RightHaven didn't have the actual rights to the materials they sued about, and that's what took them down. In this case it are the original content produces, i.e. the actual right holders, that are trying to collect royalties.
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And, I might add: that is a problem that should be explored more fully in regard to the RIAA and MPAA.
RSS as Fair Use (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:RSS as Fair Use (Score:5, Insightful)
And in a few weeks it wont matter. All they have to do is point a finger in your general direction and you are 'disappeared'. Then you have to pay lots of money to fight your way back online.
Re:RSS as Fair Use (Score:5, Insightful)
i think the aggregators should just be fair and delist these people.. you don't want them showing your content - fine.. rather than them learning how to use robots.txt just stop crawling them completely.. i'm sure that be great for their traffic streams.
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And the sources will hurt badly.. i'm not suggesting they delist just he news feed.. i'm suggesting they delist them completely..
what they have now is a symbiotic relation ship.. what they are trying to do is leach more out - which causes it to be a poisons relationship..
Re:RSS as Fair Use (Score:5, Informative)
The way it works is (very roughly): 1) news agencies have people on the ground taking pictures and writing the facts. 2) The news agencies sell the facts to newspapers and TV. 3) The aggregators republish the news from the online versions of newspapers.
Cut out 3), and 1) + 2) is the same as it's always been, even before the internet existed. Even if you cut out 2), say if Murdoch goes belly up, then 1) can still sell the facts to 3), which is what TFA is about.
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The thing you're missing is that traditional news sources are dying. Have you not noticed that newspapers have been going belly-up left and right over the last 10 years as people move to getting news on the internet?
If my aggregator stops showing stories from one or two sources, I'm not going to take extra time to go look at those sites directly. I'll just read the news from the other places that weren't dropped by the aggregator.
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Time for Google to have a big banner saying, "Interested in providing free news to the entire world? Give us your reports directly, as we no longer aggregate ___, ___, and ___."
Why bother? They already have G+.
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I see you believe the mediallling accounts, derived from "official sources". Remember, when Tinkerbelle waves her magic wand [bllliiiiing!] you can turn the page...
Re:RSS as Fair Use (Score:5, Insightful)
We are no longer free when the president can be judge, jury and executioner. Was al-Awlaki a bad person? Of course. Was Ted Bundy a bad person? Of course. The difference is Ted Bundy was lawfully tried (and then executed), there was no trial for al-Awlaki, instead he was assassinated without any chance for a defense and without any basic rights expected in a "free" nation.
Keep in mind that al-Awlaki wasn't killed by soldiers trying to apprehend him (as those behind the killing of Bin Laden says that the soldiers were trying to capture him alive when he attempted to shoot them) but instead was assassinated by a drone.
We now live in a world that simply by order of the president, any US citizen can be killed without trial and without evidence and without any defense. That, is a very disturbing reality.
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You know one of the reasons the rest of the world thinks you suck?
Yeah, that's it right there, only US citizens have rights in your eyes.
Re:RSS as Fair Use (Score:5, Informative)
Every leader kills citizens of different countries in war (I'm not justifying war, or the killing of anyone, but rather stating a fact), it is only dictators who kill their own citizens under the pretense of "war". And my post was drawing attention to this point, not saying that non US citizens had no rights.
Re:RSS as Fair Use (Score:5, Insightful)
> "it is only dictators who kill their own citizens under the pretense of "war""
Somehow, I don't believe that. It's obvious that he was a soldier in a war against the United States. I'd bet money that Americans were also killed by Americans in World War 2 - afterall, there were some German-Americans who went and fought on the side of the Nazis to "defend the homeland".
Re:RSS as Fair Use (Score:5, Insightful)
As a person born in America but by no means inured to its culture, I can assure you it pisses me off equally that we hold people at Guantanamo Bay with no legal recourse and no rights of habeas corpus. It especially concerns me because these actions are diametrically-opposed to the ideals upon which this republic was founded, namely to protect powerless individuals from the tyranny of the powerful by a rigorous application of due process. And whose interests are really being considered?
One interesting thing I want to point out is that al-Awlaki would not have been assassinated if he was residing here, or in France, or in Britain, or in any country where the US wouldn't be able to act with impunity. These actions are reserved for places whose lawlessness we find convenient.
Now that the genie is out of the bottle, it's going to be really hard to get it back inside.
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One interesting thing I want to point out is that al-Awlaki would not have been assassinated if he was residing here, or in France, or in Britain, or in any country where the US wouldn't be able to act with impunity. These actions are reserved for places whose lawlessness we find convenient.
Of course, if he were residing in France or Britain he would likely have been arrested, extradited to the U.S. and sent to Guantanamo Bay for eventual trial. I suspect that the lawlessness is more of an inconvenience than convenience. Though, you are correct that if he had been in country which wished to defend him (North Korea or Iran), the U.S. would likely not have acted.
Re:RSS as Fair Use (Score:5, Insightful)
You should be.
Kill an American citizen without a trial: That's terrible and we can't stop talking about it. Kill a citizen of another country: It doesn't even warrant comment or concern.
You are drawing your own, unwarranted conclusions. Those of us that disagree are equally concerned about both events. The only difference is that they represent a disturbing progression. First, US drones targeted non-citizen (accused) "terrorists" and even used that as some sort of justifications (these are evil terrorists from another country!). Now, US drones can and do target citizen (accused) "terrorists". I can only assume that the rate of assassinations will increase, gradually moving on to people whom even you might be concerned about.
It's obvious that he was a soldier in a war against the United States.
Uhm... What war? Do you mean the "war on terror"? The one that hasn't really been declared, doesn't have any clear sides or battlefields? I have an idea -- why don't we start killing all those soldiers in the (drug) war against the United States. I mean, by your logic, all those drug users are "soldiers in the war against the United States". Some of the drug dealers even kill US citizens (I am pretty sure a lot more people die shot by drug dealers than from terrorists attacks). Also, maybe we want to start taking on all those soldiers in the "war on poverty".
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You are not more right or less wrong because many people in power act with you.
Re:RSS as Fair Use (Score:5, Interesting)
You know one of the reasons the rest of the world thinks you suck?
Yeah, that's it right there, only US citizens have rights in your eyes.
How you derived that nonsense from what the GP said is beyond me. Besides, we're in the process of criticizing ourselves in this thread and we don't need irrational comments from the foreign peanut gallery.
Re:RSS as Fair Use (Score:4, Interesting)
The Federal government does lots of good things:
1) FDA: keeps our food relatively safe. Go read "The Jungle" to see what it was like before the FDA.
2) FAA: keeps our aviation safe by regulating air travel, licensing pilots, setting standards, etc.
3) National Parks: we have some of the best parks in the world. Grand Canyon is an amazing place, and thanks to the Federal government it isn't filled with a bunch of shitty hotels, McDonald's, development, and mining.
4) Interstate Highway System: you want to go back to the days when roads were windy and you had to stop in every podunk town when you wanted to drive someplace several states away? Do you have any idea what the IHS has done for transportation and trade within the US?
5) NASA. Not only has this yielded immense scientific knowledge for mankind, but sources I've read said that for every dollar invested in the Apollo program, the US economy benefited by $42, because of spin-off technologies.
I've probably missed a few other good examples, but this should give you an idea. The bad thing is that all of the above (plus any other similar programs/agencies I've missed) add up to a tiny fraction of what today's Federal government spends, between no-strings bailouts for mismanaged banks, needless wars on the other side of the planet, military bases in 100+ countries worldwide, and on and on. However, even if we finally did get a Pres and Congress in there that cut all that crap out (but leaving my list above alone), we'd still need to keep tax revenue up to pay down the debt and get the country financially solvent again. This is when taxes should be hiked on the 1%, since they're mostly to blame in getting us into this mess to begin with, with all their financial shenanigans, bags of money to politicians, SOPA, etc.
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RSS is covered by the ToS of a website, and that usually says that the content is for personal use only, like the RSS Ticker plugin for Mozilla... if you try to run a website based on it you'll need to pay for the rights or they'll cut you off or worse yet feed you fictional news. NewsRight is a new service for grouping those rights and having one payment for many sites worth of cont4ent
SOPA (Score:3, Interesting)
I bet this ties in to SOPA ..
Let them keep their content, and their ad revenue. Screw them.
Re:SOPA (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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if by "house" you mean to include "link to" or "facilitate access to".
First post (Score:2, Insightful)
NewsRight will target companies that “make heavy (and commercial) use of content originated elsewhere. They are being asked to become payers rather than free riders,” states Poynter.
What's wrong with this model? Its similar to how the FSF sues large commercial GPL violators [wikipedia.org] because they breached copyright the FSF owned.
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Heheh, thanks... Yes, I was going to post something foolish (e.g. "lolz ... heres my insight... now pay me license fees"), before wisdom go ahold of me. :D
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"But that "First Post" shit causes me to instantly devalue your input before even reading it. You're only hurting yourself."
Appearance should not matter. Stuff should be judged by its merits, not its title.
That's what I'd like to think the people namig their graphics program GIMP instead of, say, "Pixpulate Ultimate Pro Aluminum" or "Imagejob GT Klondyke Slim" had in mind.
Bullshit is bullshit.
FUCK YOUR MOM, FUCK HER HARD (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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...distill the jizz of their post into the title...
I'm not sure how many images went flying through my mind with that malaprop, or even what those images were, but I get the gist of your comment, I think.
Sticky situation, nonetheless.
Re:First post (Score:5, Interesting)
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".
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Re:First post (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Re:First post (Score:5, Informative)
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LMFTFY (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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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 faci
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They don't.
If you look at the actual lawsuits, it's the studios that own the copyrights that sue.
It's never MPAA vs John Doe
It's always Universal Pictures vs. whoever or Interscope Records vs. whoever. These are members of the RIAA and MPAA, but the MPAA and RIAA, as themselves, do not sue on behalf of the studios. They can't. They don't own the copyrights.
The MPAA and RIAA, however, submit briefs as amicus and supply witnesses for expert testimony.
--
BMO
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Those are news stories. That's what they are.
Again, look at the actual titles of the lawsuits.
People say "RIAA" or "MPAA" because the studios are members of these organizations and it's just easier especially when there are multiple studios as the plaintiffs, which happens pretty often. However, it is not RIAA vs. Lindor, it's UMG vs. Lindor as the actual lawsuit. Every single media lawsuit is this way, because the RIAA and MPAA are trade associations that do not own the actual copyrights. The suits /mu
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cooperations are greedy
Lol
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They are certainly acting within their rights, but I do wish that they would see news aggregators as a business opportunity. That article title and choice sentence or two represent prime advertising that pulls people into their advertising laden sites.
Of course, they probably don't see it that way. They probably see their story summaries posted right next to the story summaries of their competitors and really can't have that. After all, it means their content and the quality of their work may be judged b
Re:First post (Score:5, Informative)
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?
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What's wrong with this model?
What's wrong with this model is that cartels mostly exist to fix prices higher than they should be and as a result, reduce competition.
And they're probably going to crap all over fair use, whether they intend to or not.
Its similar to how the FSF sues large commercial GPL violators because they breached copyright the FSF owned.
If you can't see the difference between that and the Free Software Foundation, you might want to think about it a little harder.
I think this is absolutely necessary (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I think this is absolutely necessary (Score:4, Interesting)
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And how do you know they don't have a license to put that up???
To be honest I don't. I would be surprised, though, if the various news agencies they use all gave yahoo carte blanche to display their work in such an outlandish way. I also haven't seen yahoo claim anywhere that they already pay news agencies for their work. So, I can't prove that they do or don't, but it doesn't seem likely that yahoo are compensating sources.
Oh come on, don't be surprised, it took 2 minutes of googling.
Yahoo Renews Deal to Use A.P. Material [nytimes.com]
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The FSF has absolutely no problem with you taking GPLed software "originated elsewhere" and reselling it commercially. All you have to do is provide the source code, too, and you're compliant with the GPL.
So how do these two things compare again?
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It sure is.
The question is what you, a joe blow without an army of lawyers, plan to do about it.
How a bout we try a little tenderness? (Score:2)
Or socialism?
What if we'd just pool together alot of money to employ loads of journalists to do quality journalism, kind of like the how the BBC and other public service broadcasters work?
It seems to me they (like BBC, SVT, YLE, NRK, which are the ones I've watched/listened to) do actual real journalism instead of commercial bullshit.
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Who is this "we"? Are you offering to fund journalists? How much do you send to NPR every year?
What's wrong with the idea that NYT, etc. pays journalists and then should get money from the people that read their stuff? They only have two choices:
1) Provide it free and sell advertising on the page
2) Make their website subscription only
The problem they have with 1) is other sites ripping off the content and selling ad space on their "aggregate" website which usually copies a lot more than an excerpt. Freq
Re:How a bout we try a little tenderness? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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This, in spades. They have the means to stop the crawling. if someone is ignoring that, deep-linking or passing-off other's work, then deal with that on a case-by-case basis (just like everywhere else in the world).
Just because people know that all the major press entities are now corporate* owned, biased, not trust-worthy and now are being ignored - is no reason to go around and attempt legalised extortion.
*By "corporate", I mean owned by faceless trusts held overseas, oligarchs or others rich enough to
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I don't think the OP is suggesting there is anything "wrong" with it as an idea.
However I do think it's worth noting that it in practice it's a model that has become more difficult as distribution has become easier. The capability to print and distribute paper, access to airwaves or cable went a long way to supporting that model.
As distribution continues to become increasingly eas
Re:How a bout we try a little tenderness? (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
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If I had any mod points left, I'd mod you insightful.
While I truly feel for these news organizations that are bleeding profit left and right. It is their inability to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and they struggle on, grasping for branches in outcroppings as they fall down the copyright cliff. Copyright is dieing, but no one want to admit it. Which of course doesn't bode well for me either as a software business owner. But, i don't make my money from the general public.
These companies all deserve
Re:How a bout we try a little tenderness? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Maybe we could call it "Southern hospitalism" in the south and ... "Familyism" or "Jesusism" in some parts and "Common sensism" for some and "Patriotism" for some?
Whoops! I think I accidentally went into marketing and advertising. As per the gospel of Bill Hicks I must now kill myself. Any of you yanks got a gun i could borrow?
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Most Americans want their Social Security and Unemployment benefits, and cheap sugar and other cheap foods which are subsidized by the Fed. We've got lots of socialism in America. It's just well camouflaged. Or not so well, if you actually are one of those Americans that uses your brain for something other than texting while driving. Let's not forget Americans love to have those nasty Labor Unions too.
Who ever said Humans were logical? - James Tiberius Kirk.
Re:How a bout we try a little tenderness? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Here's how the first call will go down.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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!!!!
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I know the relationship has gone a little cold, but Microsoft makes a few phone calls to NBC and they have all the news content Bing needs.
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MSNBC has always been a split venture between Microsoft's MSN and NBC News. At first they went in 50/50 with both sides of the business, but they eventually swapped some shares giving MSN control of the web site, and NBC control of the TV channel. Since that split, MSNBC TV has gone to a liberal politics channel, and MSNBC.com has focused on hard news.
They once had a day where they tried to see what would happen if they did split up for good, and MSN News quickly opened and MSN News writers booked appearanc
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Actually, Bing gets is news from the MSN half of MSNBC... MSNBC TV doesn't offer much beyond a liberal answer to FNC's political talk.
Re:Here's how the first call will go down.... (Score:5, Informative)
a few months later: Belgian Newspapers 'Give Permission' To Google To Return Them To Search Results [techdirt.com]
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Thanks for that link. I remember the first one, and predicted the second, but I never followed up on it.
I wonder whoever answered the phone at Google said "Yeah, we'll list you, maybe next month or maybe next year. We'll list earlier if you promise not to pull this shit again."
--
BMO
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Google is the prototype aggragator. I saw a post that said aggragators display more than a fair use snippet and use that to get ad revenue. If someone is doing that news organizations (or whoever's content is being aggragated inappropriately) can contact and advise to get their content out of the web site and some of have been doing that. It's successful stopping the copying of articles by various interest sites.
Now as to actual aggragators such as Google and others, they direct traffic to the content site.
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Google has enough change in their pockets to build their own news gathering organization.
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
Re:Here's how the first call will go down.... (Score:4, Interesting)
There are more news sources besides the members of AP, but there aren't any real competitors to Google Search.
slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
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I suppose it depends on how many people are happy with the subject and summary, and skip TFA.
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Slashdot is more of a duplicator than an aggregator.
Isn't sharing the news the whole point of the AP? (Score:2)
I thought the whole point of distributing news articles through the Associated Press was to share them so ANYONE in the media, including so-called "New Media", could publish them.
Re:Isn't sharing the news the whole point of the A (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
I can't find any reason to argue with that. If the AP is funded by membership fees of some kind, so should anyone else using it as a source.
my god, slashdot writers (Score:4, Funny)
might actually have to ---summarize a topic instead of copy-pasting the first fucking paragraph---
what will become of the site?
clam up or stand up? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
This sounds right (Score:2)
Ah well. I give a little more slack to the newspapers since they're one of the few
Needs more clarification (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Google+ Appears to Mitigate This (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, it seems they have figured it out... (Score:3)
By working as a group, they gain enough leverage to get what they want. If any of the individual companies pulled out of these news aggregators, the agreggators would be no worse for wear and the news company would suffer the lack of traffic. So, they band together to extract their protection money. Smart... probably illegal, but maybe not. After all the RIAA and the MPAA seem to operate as illegal trusts with impunity.
Here's how it really goes down (Score:4, Insightful)
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 hear the RightHaven name is available for cheap (Score:3)
They might as well go with an already established brand.
The hand that feeds me looks delicious! (Score:5, Funny)
Fundamentally Broken (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Shoot...I betcha is another motive... (Score:5, Insightful)
You think the Wayback Machine [archive.org] 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.
Re: (Score:3)
There is another angle that involves creeping capitalism,...
What is "creeping capitalism"? It sounds from the rest of the sentence like you are talking about the natural tendency of the powerful (in this case large corporations) to take over all of the levers of power in any centrally planned economy (fascism, socialism, communism, "crony capitialism").
Re: (Score:2)