UK's Times Online Starts Blocking Aggregators Hours After Aggregators Win Copyright Tribunal Ruling Against Newspapers

from the donkeys-arguing-against-the-wheel dept

There's been something of a battle going on in the UK over news aggregators. Obviously, we've all heard about the various threats by companies like News Corp. in the US to sue Google over its Google News product, but a lot of this has already been playing out on a smaller scale in the UK. Last year we wrote about newspapers in the UK threatening aggregators like NewsNow, leading some to start blocking NewsNow crawlers. This is silly in the extreme. These aggregators offer links to the news. The "issue" with NewsNow is that it sells this as a service to companies -- and the newspapers claim they deserve a cut. Note that NewsNow provides just a link and a headline and the tiniest of blurbs. It's much less than even Google News provides. The newspapers seem to think that no one can profit from advertising their own stories unless they get a direct cut.

In fact, last year the NLA (Newspaper Licensing Association) in the UK decided to start charging all such services just for linking. This is, of course, ridiculous. One of the largest services of this type is called Meltwater News, and it decided to protest this ridiculous license on linking. It was joined in this effort by the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA), who noted that there is no copyright on headlines and links -- and the NLA's license amounted to an illegal tax. The NLA responded by saying that Meltwater and PRCA had no right to protest these licenses.

Earlier this week, however, the Copyright Tribunal in the UK ruled in favor of the PRCA and Meltwater in protesting these new licenses, and it ordered the NLA to pay the costs of both organizations. Now there will be a full trial concerning the legality of the licenses.

What's interesting, however, is that hours after this decision came out, the Times Online in the UK just so happened to update its robots.txt file to block Meltwater (along with NewsNow, who had already been blocked). Basically, it was a quiet threat: if you don't pay, we'll block you.

The newspapers are walking a very thin line here. They're trying to charge for the most basic element of the web: linking and sharing links with others. I would imagine that if they actually win this fight, they're going to end up regretting it even more -- because if they start linking to other sites themselves, how long will it take before those linked sites start demanding money back from the newspapers as well. It's an incredibly short-sited view that a newspaper takes to think that others must pay you to promote you.

Filed Under: aggregators, copyright, links, newspapers, robots.txt, uk
Companies: meltwater news, newsnow, nla, prca

Daily Mirror Blocks NewsNow; Will It Start Paying Its Own Sources?

from the hypocrites dept

We've already described how ridiculously hypocritical it is for various newspapers to block UK aggregator service NewsNow from linking to their articles in its paid subscription service, but apparently it's a difficult concept for some to grasp. The UK's Daily Mirror has now started blocking access to NewsNow's crawlers, claiming that its only problem is the fact that NewsNow makes money off subscriptions. If it wasn't making any money, the paper wouldn't have a problem.

Ok, quick question time. Does the Daily Mirror make money off of subscriptions? Oh, they do? And do they pay their sources on which they build their articles? No? Then doesn't that make the Daily Mirror a huge hypocrite? Why, yes, it does.

NewsNow makes money selling a subscription service, absolutely. But it's not doing it by misusing anyone's content. It's pointing subscribers to where they can go directly to the source. It's providing a service to give The Daily Mirror more relevant traffic. At no cost to The Daily Mirror. And they want to block that? Meanwhile, The Daily Mirror makes its money by writing about individuals and companies and the news they create. And it doesn't pay them anything either. In fact, many companies are happy to be written up (it's called PR). In the case of NewsNow, it's effectively providing PR for The Daily Mirror, and The Daily Mirror's management appears too incompetent to realize this.

Filed Under: aggregators, blocking, linking, newspapers
Companies: newsnow, the daily mirror

Will Rupert Murdoch Pay Me For Making Money Off Links To Techdirt?

from the I'm-sending-an-invoice dept

You may recall that over in the UK there has been a bit of a battle between online news aggregator NewsNow (which, again, in my experience is one of the best aggregators out there) and various newspapers who are demanding payment from the company. The issue is not NewsNow's "free" aggregator, but the fact that NewsNow makes most of its money from offering businesses custom, private aggregation of links. NewsNow isn't providing full content at all -- just links and headlines. But the complaint from newspapers is that NewsNow is selling this service to companies and making money from it -- and thus, they deserve a cut.

Now, as the battle has escalated, it appears that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has taken the next step and blocked links coming from NewsNow. It's not clear what happens to NewsNow users who click on News Corp. stories, but apparently they don't get the story. The link above goes through all of the many, many reasons that it is absolutely a bad idea, and extremely "anti-internet" to block links from anywhere, but this whole thing got me thinking.

Based on Murdoch and News Corp's reasoning here, I believe Murdoch owes me money.

After all, News Corp. is most certainly a commercial enterprise. And, as we all know, the Wall Street Journal charges many people money in the form of subscription fees (just like NewsNow does) for access to the information it provides. Now, over the past couple of years, the Wall Street Journal online has linked to Techdirt more than a couple of times. A quick search of their archives shows at least nine stories over the past two years. So, if Murdoch is saying that NewsNow can't charge a subscription and link to him, why is it okay for him to charge a subscription and link to me?

Clearly, the answer is that Rupert Murdoch owes me money. Consider my invoice on the way... Of course, the alternative answer is that Murdoch doesn't owe me a dime... and NewsNow doesn't owe Murdoch either. But how can that be? It isn't like we've seen Rupert Murdoch suggest that rules that apply to others don't apply to him. Oh wait....

Filed Under: linking, payment
Companies: news corp., newsnow

UK Aggregator NewsNow Dumps Newspapers After They Demand Payment To Link To Stories

from the which-is-more-valuable? dept

Back in October, we wrote about how various newspapers, under the auspices of the "Newspaper Licensing Agency" were threatning NewsNow, a UK news aggregator that is (in my experience) one of the more comprehensive aggregators out there, but which only shows headlines and links to full stories. It's difficult to see how that would be a copyright violation in anyone's definition of the term or why that should require any kind of license. The NLA gave NewsNow until last week to "comply" and according to the folks over at the Nieman Lab, NewsNow has decided to bid adieu to those sources rather than pay up:

"Unfortunately, we have not been able to reach an agreement with the NLA. In spite of the NLA's claims to the contrary, we continue to maintain that what they are demanding of ourselves and our customers is unacceptable and of questionable legitimacy. Irrespective of the lack of a legal basis, the NLA's licence is not fit for purpose. This is not just about the charges they intend to impose on us, but the charges they would also impose on our customers for receiving and circulating links within their own organisations. In addition, it is a perhaps an under-reported fact that the terms dictated by the NLA scheme would oblige us to hand over customer details to the NLA, which seems to be developing a potential rival service itself. It is hard to imagine that this kind of behaviour would be tolerated in any other sector. The NLA has also offered no reasonable guarantees of limitations on the increase of costs over time. We strongly feel that to accept the NLA's terms would set a dangerous precedent restricting our customers' ability to conduct their business freely. We see this as a 'slippery slope' towards any free-to-access website demanding licence fees from any organisation for circulating or clicking on links."

It is interesting that part of the license would have required handing over customer info, and good of NewsNow to resist this. The aggregator says that it will still provide links to those sources in its free (extremely feature limited) online offerings, but will remove them from its subscription offerings. It's difficult to see how this benefits anyone. It makes life worse for newspapers, NewsNow itself and NewsNow customers.

Filed Under: aggregators, copyright, links, newspapers
Companies: newsnow

UK Newspapers Threatening Aggregator: Like Donkeys Suing The Inventor Of The Wheel

from the how-nice-of-them dept

Mathew Ingram points us to the news that some UK newspapers are apparently threatening UK-based news aggregator NewsNow. I've used NewsNow in the past, and I can't see what the complaint is -- at all. NewsNow provides headlines and links. That's it. At least when I was using it, it didn't even provide summary text. I actually discovered a lot of useful new sources when I used it, and that's because NewsNow always struck me as one of the best aggregators out there. It found a lot more than most of the others. To be honest, my big complaint with NewsNow is that they limit their free feeds significantly -- and there's no RSS or anything. After a while, I just gave up on using it, because without RSS, it just didn't fit into my daily method of following the news, no matter how useful the site is. However, it's really difficult to see what sort of complaint any newspaper could have with such a service whose sole purpose is to drive more traffic. It is, as the link above so colorfully describes:

the equivalent of a herd of donkeys filing a class action suit against the inventor of the wheel....

Unless there's something more to these legal threats -- and, admittedly, only one side is weighing in on what happened here, the whole thing just seems like a stretch by at least some UK newspapers to try to intimidate online sites into paying them.

Filed Under: aggregators, headlines, links
Companies: newsnow