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.

Filed Under: drm, journalism, licensing, news
Companies: associated press, newsright

AP Finally Launches NewsRight... And It's Righthaven Lite?

from the really? dept

A few years back, the Associated Press announced plans to try to DRM the news, with an announcement that was mostly astounding for its technical cluelessness. It took nearly three years, but the project (now officially spun off from the AP -- who is still the largest shareholder) has been announced as "NewsRight," and is being described as an attempt to get bloggers and aggregators to pay up for "profiting" off the work of the AP or the other newspaper partners of NewsRight (including the NYT, McClatchy and others). Of course, the devil is in the details, and no matter how many details I read, this whole thing still doesn't make any sense at all.

At best, it appears to be Righthaven Lite. It doesn't sound like they'll totally pull a Righthaven, where their first move is to sue, but rather (from the various vague descriptions) it sounds like NewsRight will be going around simply trying to get blogs and aggregators to buy a license. But here's the thing: on what legal basis? That's the part that's not clear. Much of what blogs and newspapers do is simply not infringing (even if the AP likes to pretend it is). There may be some extreme cases where there is infringement, but most standard cases seem like classic fair use. And that's where it gets worrisome that this turns into a legal shakedown -- whereby sites are pressured to pay up just to avoid a legal fight, no matter how strong the legal position of these sites might be.

But, much more to the point, nothing in this plan appears to be about adding value. That's the key way to determine if a business model is heading in the right direction, or if it's really just someone trying to "free ride" on the work of someone else. NewsRight appears to be the worst kind of free rider, honestly. They're not adding any value -- they're just demanding people pay up to avoid a negative cost (the legal threat). Also telling? The company admits that half the staff is... lawyers, and that appears to include the company's CEO. When your 11-person company employs multiple full-time lawyers, you're not innovating. You're abusing the law. This seems like a complete disaster in the making -- and not because "information wants to be free." But because NewsRight doesn't appear to provide anything of actual value to sites. All it does is carry a big stick around and say, "pay us if you don't want to get whacked." I'm sure some sites will pay, but it's difficult to see how this adds anything of value to the world.

Filed Under: aggregators, bloggers, journalism
Companies: associated press, newsright