You Thought Copyright Law Couldn't Get Worse...
We have seen copyright law go out of control in recent years, partly in a response to the intense lobbying of the music industry, but with the at least tacit approval of the paper publishing industry. The newspaper business, plagued by falling revenue and desperate to find a way to stem the hemorrhaging of readers to web-based media has decided to strike back by threatening one of the biggest fish in the pond.
Apparently, a group of newspaper, book and magazine publishers have decided to demand compensation for the culling of parts of their product by Google and other news-clipping services. Their argument centers around a potential copyright infringement by the copying of a paragraph or two by the clippers to post on those sites. The presence of such clips, it is argued, causes reduced eyeballs reaching the news makers’ own sites and thus decreases their ad revenue.
While it could be argued equally as strong, if not more so, that the content of most book, magazine, and newspapers has failed to win the interest, and therefore the dollars of the majority of readers, this tactic of attacking your biggest competitor with potential legal action is big business at its worst. The very thing Leftists should rail against, government collusion to smash a competitor, is what is used time and again in such cases. Again, the hypocrisy of it knows no bounds.
As with music, I’m finding it hard to side with the big corps on this one. If proper attribution is given to the story’s origin and it is not plagiarized, then what is the harm in printing a part of it? You are, in effect, advertising for that site by showing some of its content, which might send them eyeballs they wouldn’t have normally received. The argument is just as subjective and without measure as the news maker’s argument. Besides, papers quote each other incessantly, as do books and magazines. This procedure has occurred since the start of the printed word. Are we to now believe that online media is somehow different because it’s not printed on wood pulp?
The more important issue in our case, and one raised around the blogosphere, is will this cause things like blogs to cease to be the relevant force they are? If they cannot quote, they cannot editorialize, examine or dissect. And if a claim is made to the effect of an error in a news story and the paper changes that error without acknowledging it or removes some offensive or incriminating photo or statement altogether, can they then sue those who expose them for the liars they are? Don’t think of this as a hypothetical. It’s already happened several times. In fact, blogs have developed a level of fame by doing this very thing.
By keeping the “objective” media accountable for their dripping, seeping bias that pervades most of the traditional media outlets, a certain honesty is injected that hasn’t been present in the news in longer than any of us have been alive. Assigning a certain “divinity” to newspapers, books, and magazines as inviolate words that could only be viewed or challenged if you paid for the privilege and then perhaps even only at the owner’s leave, would change the dialogue that has developed as a result of the “new media” and most certainly diminish it. While this would be a welcome side effect to the Guilds of News, it wouldn’t do much good for the rest of us. Keep an eye on this fight as it develops. Its outcome may well have implications at which we can only guess.
We have seen copyright law go out of control in recent years, partly in a response to the intense lobbying of the music industry, but with the at least tacit approval of the paper publishing industry. The newspaper business, plagued by falling revenue and desperate to find a way to stem the hemorrhaging of readers to web-based media has decided to strike back by threatening one of the biggest fish in the pond.
Apparently, a group of newspaper, book and magazine publishers have decided to demand compensation for the culling of parts of their product by Google and other news-clipping services. Their argument centers around a potential copyright infringement by the copying of a paragraph or two by the clippers to post on those sites. The presence of such clips, it is argued, causes reduced eyeballs reaching the news makers’ own sites and thus decreases their ad revenue.
While it could be argued equally as strong, if not more so, that the content of most book, magazine, and newspapers has failed to win the interest, and therefore the dollars of the majority of readers, this tactic of attacking your biggest competitor with potential legal action is big business at its worst. The very thing Leftists should rail against, government collusion to smash a competitor, is what is used time and again in such cases. Again, the hypocrisy of it knows no bounds.
As with music, I’m finding it hard to side with the big corps on this one. If proper attribution is given to the story’s origin and it is not plagiarized, then what is the harm in printing a part of it? You are, in effect, advertising for that site by showing some of its content, which might send them eyeballs they wouldn’t have normally received. The argument is just as subjective and without measure as the news maker’s argument. Besides, papers quote each other incessantly, as do books and magazines. This procedure has occurred since the start of the printed word. Are we to now believe that online media is somehow different because it’s not printed on wood pulp?
The more important issue in our case, and one raised around the blogosphere, is will this cause things like blogs to cease to be the relevant force they are? If they cannot quote, they cannot editorialize, examine or dissect. And if a claim is made to the effect of an error in a news story and the paper changes that error without acknowledging it or removes some offensive or incriminating photo or statement altogether, can they then sue those who expose them for the liars they are? Don’t think of this as a hypothetical. It’s already happened several times. In fact, blogs have developed a level of fame by doing this very thing.
By keeping the “objective” media accountable for their dripping, seeping bias that pervades most of the traditional media outlets, a certain honesty is injected that hasn’t been present in the news in longer than any of us have been alive. Assigning a certain “divinity” to newspapers, books, and magazines as inviolate words that could only be viewed or challenged if you paid for the privilege and then perhaps even only at the owner’s leave, would change the dialogue that has developed as a result of the “new media” and most certainly diminish it. While this would be a welcome side effect to the Guilds of News, it wouldn’t do much good for the rest of us. Keep an eye on this fight as it develops. Its outcome may well have implications at which we can only guess.
posted by Rob Beck | 6:34 AM
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