Court Sorta Kinda Allows Marginally More Media Cross Ownership

from the yawn dept

For decades, the US has had certain "media cross-ownership" limits to prevent, for example, a single company from owning both a local broadcast network and a newspaper. These rules came about back when those two were basically the only source one could go to for local news. But, of course, that's not true any more (at all). Instead, you've got local media that is struggling, and perhaps it does make sense for them to not be forced into only playing in a single medium. So, for years the FCC has tried to loosen media ownership rules, leading to complaints from people who still don't seem to recognize that the internet is a pretty big competitor these days with the old media companies. In 2007, the FCC came up with a compromise that very marginally loosened media ownership rules: basically, in just the top 20 media markets, a newspaper could merge with a single radio or TV station but not if that TV station was one of the top 4 in the market. In other words, there was no way this minor loosening of the rules was going to lead to some feared situation of one company dominating the media landscape.

But, still, lots of people protested that suddenly all our news was going to come from Rupert Murdoch, and politicians looked to invalidate the rule while lawsuits were filed. A judge eventually banned putting the rules into effect, but an appeals court has now temporarily lifted the ban. While some are still complaining about this, the impact is likely to be negligible at best. As Editor & Publisher explains:

It's safe to say that Tuesday's Third Circuit action -- which could prove only a temporary lifting of the ban -- won't set off any buying binge among newspapers.

For one thing, nobody is going to lend newspapers money to buy media these days. That lesson's been learned until the next bubble comes around. And even if a newspaper had the jack to swing a deal, there's little point in spending it on the fourth-place -- or worse -- broadcast outlet in town.

Filed Under: broadcasters, cross ownership, fcc, limits, media ownership, newspapers

Amazon Backs Down On Demanding Publisher Use Only Its Own Print-On-Demand Solution

from the stand-up-for-yourself dept

Back in 2008, we wrote about Amazon's questionable demand to book publishers that if they wanted to offer print-on-demand books, they had to use Amazon's own POD solution. A few months later, a class action lawsuit was filed, and after a judge refused to throw out the case, it looks like Amazon quickly agreed to settle (thanks Achura). Unfortunately, from the wording of the agreement, even though this was filed as a class action, it's not clear if it only applies to this one publisher or others as well. It is worth noting that Amazon is allowing the publisher to keep using alternative solutions and also agreed to pay the legal fees of the publisher. Amusingly, a monetary reward was on the table, and the publisher turned it down -- and wanted it written into the settlement that it refused to take money -- but Amazon didn't want that mentioned in the official settlement. Still, it seems unfortunate that at least one publisher had to go through all this trouble just to use the print-on-demand offering of its own choosing. And, while it's great for this one publisher, it leaves out the fact that many others caved in and agreed to deals that required them to only use Amazon's solution.

Filed Under: limits, print on demand, publishing on demand
Companies: amazon, booklocker

AP Continues To Misunderstand: You Don't Succeed By Limiting The Spread Of Content

from the backwards-again dept

Watching the Associated Press implode in public is, frankly, a bit disappointing. Here's an organization that has tremendous assets that could be put to amazing use in the creation and dissemination of online news... and it's basically doing everything backwards. Zachary Seward is posting some of the details of the AP's plans, as outlined in a memo sent to AP members, starting with its plan to hold back some of its content from the wire service. To be honest, without seeing the details, my first thought was that this could make a bit of sense. After all, the whole concept of a "wire service" online doesn't make much sense. It was designed to get news out to a number of different sources to make sure that all newspapers could cover some key stories. But when anyone can access any news online, redistributing the identical story to a bunch of different websites really seems rather pointless.

So I had hoped this was a recognition of the fact that this aspect of the AP's business didn't make much sense any more, and maybe (just maybe!) the AP was finally getting down to the business of learning how to use the web for what it's good at, rather than pretending it still needs to do what is no longer needed.

No such luck, unfortunately.

You see, the AP's plan is all about locking up content. The reason some content won't go out on the wire is because the AP (incorrectly) believes that it can hoard the content and get all the traffic, and thus it will screw over its members by not giving them the content. If I were a member paper, this would be the point at which I quit the AP. The AP is effectively saying "you'll get the content that doesn't matter, and which everyone has, and we'll keep the good stuff."

And, it gets even sillier, as the AP admits that it expects all its member papers to link back to this content that the AP will seek to control at the expense of its members, in order to generate Google juice to the AP's site, off the backs of its member papers. I can't see how this will help members at all, though it's likely to piss them off.

Perhaps that's a good thing, though the execution is bizarre. The AP's members may be a part of the problem, but trying to convince them that the AP hoarding content is better for them, and expecting them to buy it, seems like a long shot.

Filed Under: content, journalism, limits
Companies: associated press