First off: I have to beg forgiveness from you all for being so bad with posting. I’ve been busy as hell. And in fact I’ve been busy with making some moves for next year which would give me more time to blog, so please, again, I ask for your patience.
Now onto actual blogging…
So, I think everyone has heard that the Associated Press has been recently waging some kind of war against news aggregators on the Web. They are not only trying to charge them but also starting a rather outdated discussion on “content”-ownership on the Web. What is this, the Napster days?
Here’s where the fools at the AP stand (via NY Times):
“We own the content but we’ve let those who spend very little, if any, get the most advantage from it,” Dean Singleton, the chairman of The A.P. and chief executive of the MediaNews Group, told PaidContent. The news association announced a stepped-up effort to use technology to find unauthorized use of its articles and photos on the Web to put pressure on site owners to respect its copyrights.
What’s completely hilarious is that the AP does not even address the issue of fair use. Hansell of the Times rightfully notes this.
There are a lot of problems with this approach. It relies on a very narrow interpretation of how much of a copyrighted article can be used by another site under the “fair use” doctrine. That view may well hurt news gathering and writing as much as help it in the long run.
AP’s actions are a compensatory action rooted in a old-thinking and will ultimatley lead to not more revenue for the AP but in fact far less. Why? Well, the link culture of the Web has increased the profile of the AP far greater than it has hurt its revenue. By going after aggregators, AP is hurting itself more than anything.
Now, the AP’s actions must be analyzed with the backdrop of all this discourse surrounding the “end of the newspaper.” Would I be sad if the Times, for example, went out of business? A little, sure. Print is dying but it’s not the end of the world people! The Web has killed print but it has saved writing, which was on its death bed with the advent of television and short-form video. (I always think of this as parallel to the advent of Serato SCRATCH Live, which has killed vinyl but saved the turntable.) With the AP engaging in reactionary media politics and economics, it will hurt writing, which it is supposedly in the business of.
Sooner they realize that, sooner they’ll come up with a better plan. As of now, the AP is engaging in hypocrisy at best and suicide at worst.
4 responses so far ↓
Incilin // April 9, 2009 at 12:18 am |
You wouldn’t miss the Times? Ahh, this entire post is based on the Times. Its incredibly ironic how sites like Gawker and posts like this say they won’t miss the Times (Or in Gawkers case, mocks the Times) yet their content is reactions to stories written by the Times.
How exactly did the web save writing? Thanks to the web writers don’t have any jobs.
Content ownership is NOT a dated issue. It’s a BIG deal and the battle over it will continue to be fought over the next 5 to 10 years. The problem is the legislation is wayyy behind the times in terms of digital rights. Your right, AP will probably gonna lose in the short term but like I said this will take years to solve. Eventually some type of government intervention will have to occur because without it we’ll just keep walking the path we’ve been walking where there’s less and less content and more and more junk.
SH // April 9, 2009 at 8:08 am |
In my post, I did say that I would miss them a little. If indeed The Times folds, then I’ll read another paper. There are plenty of good ones in this country and across the world. Some others: LA Times, Washington Post, the Guardian, Le Monde Diplomatique, etc. Why be enslaved to the aura surrounding the Times? I think that kind of beholden attitude towards any media outlet is the potential seedbed for one-dimensional thinking (e.g., fascism).
175,000 new blogs are created daily. The Web has democratized the process of writing and, more importantly, radicalized the process of distribution to “undercut” mainstream media sources. Many a journalist have made this claim. Not just me. Who, for example? Hansell of the Bits Blogs at the Times.
Yeah I know; hence, I’m writing about it. I was calling the AP’s way of thinking about digital content dated. Because of my politics, I’m not someone who waits on the government to intervene necessarily to regulate media, especially the Web. Sure, there’s a lot of junk but that’s the beauty of it. It is still by far the most (small-d) democratic media in the landscape. I’ve far less faith than you on something like the FCC (which currently regulates other media) to do a “good job.” In fact, under Chris Powell (Colin’s son), they allowed for monopolization of news. In turn, someone like Murdoch was legally allowed to own entities across multiple media platforms. (He owns the Wall Street Journal and Fox, obviously.) In my mind, that was a mistake of all mistakes. A more contemporary debate is on Net Neutrality, which data service providers (Time Warner and Verizon, for example) are against because they want to charge websites on a differential scale! So sites like Amazon would load quicker than this blog, for example. So yes, there are many a issue regarding online content but you cannot simply lump them all together as “digital content” issues. It’s more complicated.
Thanks for the comment.
wang // April 9, 2009 at 11:42 am |
damn doles. fascism. phew!
I feel you that content abounds more than ever before, and it is really coming out in a (small-d) democratic way. but… here’s the question… (and don’t call me Mussolini):
are you making money off of this blog? The AP employs people whose job it is to write. if everyone becomes a writer (and when I say writer, I mean blogger who uses/links to pre-written content from places like AP), what’s going to happen to the profession of writing? along the same lines, what’s going to happen to the profession of news and reporting? as someone who’s essentially trying to go into the field of writing, i’m interested in what you think about this…
Similarly, as someone who works in music, I appreciate the democracy of streaming sites, and the wide availability of many many kinds of music… but does that mean that i believe that all music should be free, and that anyone should be allowed to pirate? (kind of… but not 100%)…
Now I’m not saying that the AP should be bodying cats online and trying to exert control to stop the flow of information, but how should they plan to stay in business?
holler back
SH // April 9, 2009 at 11:58 am |
@wang:
The profession of writing is different than “writing.” I think that’s also the mistake that Incillin (if I may) makes. Who has designated professional writers as “truest”? That’s nonsense.
We’ve had “linking” since the first instances of proto-academic writing by an “intellectual class” (mostly the priestly class who were theologians). Likewise, in contemporary academic writing, it’s called “quoting” and falls under fair-use. Now let’s look at what AP is doing. They are trying to cut down fair-use to solve an altogether different problem. They are upset that Google and other aggregators are not paying them for LINKING TO THEM! (AP should be thankful, in my mind. But that’s another issue.) But instead of dealing with the problem specifically, which would require thinking about the situation as such, and not simply reverting to old ideas which too easily distinguish “content” from “form.” The Web has changed all that.
Now, with regard to the making money issue. The AP will make money if it makes its own website and web-based news service. They are acting like fish out of water, attempting to survive in a mediascape that has whizzed by them, while they’ve just been doing the same thing, assuming that they’ll get over. Asleep at the wheel. That’s THEIR fault. And if you are trying to make an argument like “they are a business, let them live,” well then let’s take that spirit of capitalist competition to its ultimate end–”LET THEM SUCKAS FALL!” That’s Adam Smith doggy.
And lastly, I’m not interested in keeping AP in business. Why should I be? I’m a consumer of information and also an analyst of one. Why should I invest in a corporation from which I get no dividend? Nahmean? I’m not THAT crazy.
In sum, you ain’t a fascist but an anti-market capitalist. You’re not Mussolini but maybe Henry Ford or a Rockefeller. HAHAHHAHA. A Henry Ford that works for BabyGrande. LOL.