AP's Attempt At DRM'ing The News Shuts Down

from the total-failure dept

Plenty of people rightly mocked the news a few years ago that the Associated Press was working on a plan to "DRM the news." The idea was to put some sort of licensing mechanism together to get news aggregators to pay to promote their news. This seemed incredibly dumb for a whole host of reasons. It added no value. Its only purpose was to limit the value for everyone in the system by putting a tollbooth where none needed to exist. When it finally launched last year to great fanfare in the newspaper world, under the name "NewsRight," we pointed out that, once again, it made no sense. Basically, the whole focus appeared to be on getting bloggers and aggregators to pay for a license they legally did not need.

Since the launch... we heard absolutely nothing about NewsRight. There was a launch, with its newspaper backers claiming it was some huge moment for newspapers, and then nothing.

Well, until now, when we find out that NewsRight quietly shut down. Apparently, among its many problems, many of the big name news organization that owned NewsRight wouldn't even include their own works as part of the "license" because they feared cannibalizing revenue from other sources. So, take legacy companies that are backwards looking, combine it with a licensing scheme based on no legal right, a lack of any actual added value and (finally) mix in players who are scared of cannibalizing some cash cow... and it adds up to an easy failure.
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Filed Under: drm, journalism, licensing, news
Companies: associated press, newsright


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  1. icon
    madasahatter (profile), 17 May 2013 @ 6:07pm

    Am I not surprised

    A model not based on news aggregators should be encouraged because page views and click throughs can only happen when some visits the site.

    The dinosaurs do not get the point of encouraging links to their content generates visits and eventually ad revenue.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    out_of_the_blue, 17 May 2013 @ 6:11pm

    Maybe it's because found other ways:

    Sponsors Now Pay for Online Articles, Not Just Ads

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/business/media/sponsors-now-pay-for-online-articles-not-just-a ds.html?ref=business&_r=0

    The strategy of advertisers sponsoring or producing content that looks much like traditional editorial content has become increasingly common as publishers try to create more sources of revenue.


    There are definitely sponsored articles here at Techdirt! Are all articles sponsored? Can we trust any information in them? Is Mike's editorial policy and all of his sponsors available for scrutiny? Or does it just not matter because, as fanboys hold, Mike is immune from all scrutiny?

    And by the way, that's behind an apparently successful paywall.

    Another point is that in clearly cheering this "failure" Mike proves himself a freetard, insisting that all content on the net be free, or set free if isn't already.

    Whether advertising can support the net -- when much of it is avoidable with a little knowledge -- is an interesting question with huge implications, but Mike devotes most of his time to tearing down copyright, or complaining about trivia.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 May 2013 @ 6:13pm

    Re: Maybe it's because found other ways:

    You have no intellectual consistency whatsoever.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    Hephaestus (profile), 17 May 2013 @ 7:02pm

    What has happened to the newspapers is the artificially high advertising rates have been removed. Not by stealing content, but by more targeted ads.

    If you had a choice to spend $1,000 targeting people who are looking for what you are selling, or $1,000 on the shotgun approach that the newspapers provide, which would you choose?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    Hephaestus (profile), 17 May 2013 @ 7:02pm

    What has happened to the newspapers is the artificially high advertising rates have been removed. Not by stealing content, but by more targeted ads.

    If you had a choice to spend $1,000 targeting people who are looking for what you are selling, or $1,000 on the shotgun approach that the newspapers provide, which would you choose?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. icon
    Hephaestus (profile), 17 May 2013 @ 7:07pm

    Re: Re: Maybe it's because found other ways:

    He reminds me of the CO2 is good for plants crowd on all the clean energy sites. Where what they are saying is a distraction, and sidesteps the larger issue.

    And you are correct, he has no intellectual consistency whatsoever.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Hostile Elite, 17 May 2013 @ 11:46pm

    Re: Am I not surprised

    Media is the prostitute of the Banking community. this is not left vs right, GOP vs Dems, Socialism vs liberty. This is war against White people.

    Why do hostile globalist elite defend Israel as a Jewish ethnostate with Jewish only immigration, but ravage White majority Europe/North America into a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Gulag with dystopian non-White colonization?

    The world is 93% non-White, only 7% White. But 3rd world colonizers are aggressively advancing their agenda to annihilate gullible Whites, just as China annihilates Tibet.

    How long will gullible Whites cuckold for murderous anti-White elite, who confiscate our guns, infiltrate/subvert our banks/FBI/CIA, indoctrinate White kids in academia/mass media, plunder White jobs/wages, & butcher White soldiers in bankrupting wars?

    "Native" Americans! invaded from East Asia. Yellow & Brown races committed 10-times more genocide, slavery, imperialism than Whites. Since Old-Testament, Whites have been victims of Jewish/Crypto-Jewish, Turkic, Muslim, N.African imperialism, slavery, genocide.

    Gullible Whites should reject subversive ideologies- libertarianism/feminism/liberalism- & reject hostile slanders of racism. Love to all humanity, but White people must organize to advance their interests, their fertility, their homelands. Spread this message. Reading list: goo.gl/iB777 , goo.gl/htyeq , amazon.com/dp/0759672229 , amazon.com/dp/1410792617

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Wolfy, 18 May 2013 @ 2:42am

    Re: Re: Re: Maybe it's because found other ways:

    You mean the so-called "clean coal" sites, don't you?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. icon
    That One Guy (profile), 18 May 2013 @ 3:42am

    Re: Re: Am I not surprised

    Sorry, but we've already got our share of paranoid nutjobs here, so go, spread your madness on some other site that is 'suffering' due to lack of sufficient crazy.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 May 2013 @ 6:03am

    Re: Repetition the key to success!

    For added emphasis, post the same stuff multiple times...
    Um...Never Mind!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    gatsby, 18 May 2013 @ 9:22am

    Re: Maybe it's because found other ways:

    dude. I see you in every techdirt post. Why are you so obsessed with techdirt?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. icon
    The Groove Tiger (profile), 18 May 2013 @ 11:53pm

    Re: Re: Maybe it's because found other ways:

    You're right, his brain melted out of his ears long ago.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 19 May 2013 @ 12:53am

    Your website is a failure. Bitch.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 19 May 2013 @ 10:49pm

    Re: Re: Maybe it's because found other ways:

    OOTB and his many personalities are paid to be. Anything to derail topics of conversation where people actually discus the good and bad points of copyright.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  15. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 19 May 2013 @ 10:50pm

    Re:

    Shotgun! Shotgun! Shotgun! Errr....

    link to this | view in thread ]

  16. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 19 May 2013 @ 11:35pm

    Re: Maybe it's because found other ways:

    Did you even read the article you linked to you MORON...
    Or was it like your ususal reading of Techdirt, where you look at the title, and then make up your own story.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  17. icon
    Ninja (profile), 20 May 2013 @ 4:24am

    Hah. People use aggregators like they breathe nowadays. If you aren't there it's not a problem, there are others that are. The real question news outfits should be asking is how to make their content be relevant to the people using those aggregators so they'll choose to give higher priority to your content.

    It's about time they move completely online (leaving some higher price printed version for those who are willing to pay for it) and monetize on eyeballs and pre/freemium content.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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