i'm playing the world's smallest violin for multi-millionaires Murdoch and Curley. I believe that News Corp helped drive people to use real time feeds such as Twitter for news.
EF
· 2 months ago
It's easy to dismiss their concerns with violin references, and rivers of crocodile tears. The truth is that 'old' media still brings information from places such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, Darfur, and on and on. Just how many 'new' media people are on the ground in those places ??? News flash: it costs real money to bring us information from such places. Time to grow-up and end the freeloading.
EntrepreNerd
· 2 months ago
Rupert Murdoch and Tom Curley are showing just how out of touch they are. I understand it takes money to produce good news. (although I see little of that these days) But when they hammer on Google for sending there news sites over 300,000,000 links a month so that they can make a stunning amount of money from ad clicks, well, all they are doing is showing there age.
It is the internet that is killing the news paper and the lack of news paper sales that is killing the industry, not Google. All Google does is show a Headline, a company name (free advertising for the MSM) and 2 (two) lines of text, and all of a sudden they are "poaching their content", Really?
They can stop Google anytime they want. The power of "User-agent: Googlebot Disallow: /" will prevent Googlebots from "Poaching" there content. I wonder why they have not used it. I can give you 300,000,000 reasons a month if you still need an explanation.
fulvius
· 1 month ago
I totally agree! Stop to spreed the news (with rss, twitter | digg button, or bot rules) and the problem is solved. I wanna see they try. =)
yp in phx
· 1 month ago
It does cost $$ to bring news from those places...but only if using paid journalists. Consider the Iran elections and the twitter news reports: http://mashable.com/2009/06/14/new-media-iran/ Was this the new york times reporting? or the man on the street?
Flash
· 1 week ago
it costs money to pay journalists for news you can spin. it could cost more to have an iraqi twitter news with their own spin, gotta pay to play.
Giancarlo Caparo
· 2 months ago
Even if they start charging for the news on the web, how do you prevent leaks? DRM the news?
keif
· 2 months ago
I don't discount their concerns, but their is a grain of truth to what they're saying (and what everyone else is saying in their one-liner replies).
We are used to getting our news for free. They have empires built on making money from "giving" us the news (or at least, their slant of the news).
I think Nguyen's reply is most apt - "Adaptation's a bitch" - but that is where they are failing. They could stand to profit from the "new media ways" but instead are fighting tooth and nail to stay in their ivory towers. Why? To stay at the top. Instead of getting dirty, realizing that the new ways won't make them rich but will keep people making money.
It's too easy for someone to read about what happened in Iran from an Iranian blogger - right NOW. Or we can hear a news anchor recall his trip, complete with sappy pop-music, political/personal spin/agenda/etc. The new news media will be dominated by the public, and the old media can either hold their hand out and help or die fighting a losing fight.
(My two bits)
Dustin
· 2 months ago
It sounds to me like these folks have forgot what Fair use is.
Roger Toennis
· 1 month ago
The problem is they need to be innovative in how they make money. Today being able to pass on news content through social media into your network (Tweet, post, email) is considered a valuable thing. If you pass good info consistently people will follow you and a "following" is the new capital of the modern web.
So, the publishers should have a tiered, paid model for information delivery where I can pay to get news delivered to me in a premium/custom fashion. One form of premium would be early access. I may pay to get editorial content from well-known writers early and also pay to be able to be among the first to then forward that content into my social network. Think of it as me paying to be an "electronic paperboy". Except this paperboy gets to filter, edit and comment on all that news and send it through the lens of my personal branding. Bloggers do this now already but in a very manual fashion. News giants like AP could make it easy for me to become a my own editor of "all the news I think is fit to print". This is hyperlocal applied to the business of editing the news stream. You then have something people are willing to pay for.
Then when people who don't subscribe click the unique URLs I provide it, gives them limited time access to the content but they can't comment or easily forward the content into thier networks. The content itself would come with formatting/cobranding that labels the page as having been recommended/spun by me. The wisdom of the crowd would then decide who does the best polish and delivery of the news and that person, and the provider of the raw news and opinion content, could all get paid.
They could also show prominently on all the pages which social media influencers (ePaper Boys/Girls) have driven the most traffic to that news story and show a profile of those influencers. This will drive clicks back to the web content of those influencers.
What this does is recruit the top social networking influencer voices to pay premium prices for premium access to the best written pieces from the media. Those influencers then become proactive and trusted promoters of the best news gathering outlets on the web. The news outlets that recruit and retain the best social media influencers will also draw the most traffic and the most ad and subscription revenue.
Soon most people will want to pay either for a subscription to become a news editor of their own "My view of the world of news" or to get full access to the most popular and respected influencers to see the news through their lens.
By allowing everyone to set up their own virtual news room the traditional news gatherers will earn both subscription and ad revenue, just like the old days, and they can share that back to those people who emerge as the most influential and most followed. This is a win/win/win for all involved. All of us want to be influential voices. this model allows me to be more efficient in becoming an influential voice on the net.
This is the kind of innovation necessary to remake how news is done and how it is monetized.
MediaCollective
· 1 month ago
Well thought out idea. Unless they adopt a forward thinking mindset and they close the door they might find themselves in a worse situation. No buzz, No community driving to their material - a warehouse with no sign basicly.
Further the idea: "if you aggregate our article than you have to grab the in post ads that come with it. " policy
Ad revenue is a big part ok huge part of their revenue model. Say from the green home article section Im a green home or eco content site owner I grab a article about solar from "news site" with their advertisers included result equals Relative placement with in niche and target demographic results for their advertising base, further reach, impressions and most likely better ROI because of social spread.
Cost to the paper/media outlet Nothing Income = adspaces that equal results will increase ad spend revenue.
Win for them, their advertisers, and the content user.
Roger Toennis
· 1 month ago
Some good points. Bottom line is news organizations have to realize they can still be in the content business but no longer can they be directly in the content distribution business. The social media ocean does that now. The key for their survival is how effectively will they "outsource" distribution of their content through proper leverage of social media.
kali
· 2 months ago
Cry me a river.
Irene glover
· 2 months ago
Boo hoo. I feel sorry for these millionaires who made their money this way.
chauda
· 2 months ago
I agree with everyone above. Adaptation is a b*tch!
MB
· 2 months ago
i am not paying for news. period.
Irene glover
· 2 months ago
Boo hoo. I feel sorry for these millionaires who made THEIR money this way. Hope they lose their millions on solicitors fees, and win nothing. Hypocrites.
Anthony Bynoe
· 2 months ago
I buy the daily newspaper more out of habit than necessity whereas I have to force myself to read them. There's nothing like spending money on traditional media to read about something you learned about from social media a good few days before. I can't wait to see how successful Newscorp and AP are implementing their scheme to charge fees for use of their content. Does this mean that AP and Newscorp will pay for headline stories that break on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube or even Mashable?
Trigeia Twins
· 2 months ago
Yes, you have a point. News is braking all across social media, who is going to claim the rights to this content.
Brandon Richard Whalen
· 2 months ago
This is the simply the free market backlashing against huge media conglomorates. I don't at all feel badly for them. Maybe this free market stuff actually does work itself out for the best.
Walter Adamson
· 2 months ago
Rupert Murdoch remains one of the world's smartest business people, so it's hard to imagine how he could have allowed his assets to be "exploited" by a bunch of people who are often said to have "no business models". Irony. Walter Adamson @g2m http://xeesm.com/walter
Gary Arndt
· 2 months ago
All they have to do is change their robots.txt file all their Google problems go away. Until they do that, this is all meaningless.
Sonya A. Willis
· 2 months ago
"Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for - the Content Kleptomaniacs!"
R
· 2 months ago
I agree with EF.
As a web designer/programmer and visual journalist, I believe in the freedom of information flow, open-source content, what have you.
But also in the same role, that's how I make the measly living that I do. I am not a multimillionaire. But when the big guys like AP and NewsCorp go down, the rest of us who work will no longer even make the low pay that we do with minimum to no benefits.
With that said, I don't do what I do for the money, for course. But I still have bills to pay.
lia84
· 2 months ago
Check out this cool photo tagging software called Fotobounce! It can help you sort your images using face recognition! It can also download & tag your photos from facebook & flickr! You can get it for free at: www.Fotohotline.com
malexandria
· 2 months ago
Unbelievable. I really do hate the Internet. People purchase content, music, and everything else when they are in the stores, but somehow once people go online you expect everything - news, movies, books, blah, blah to be FREE. Followed up with Why don't you get advertisers to pay for it - then it's if this site puts ads on my free video then I'm going someplace else. It's BS and you all are acting like children. As someone who has a content site I wholeheartedly agree with the big boys that it's time people get away from this idea that they are "entitled" to everything being "free." It costs real money to create content, run huge sites like cnn.com, mashable, etc. You can lambast the MSM all you want but every major/minor blog usually gets it's stories or commentaries from the MSM or offline Media. Whether it's Huffingtonpost, Sludge Report, Google News, Mashable, etc 65% of the stories originate from a MSM source. And everything on Google News the first few links are usually from the big boys, they'll throw us little guys a bone every now and again...
EntrepreNerd
· 2 months ago
You should be thrilled with this then. There is no way Google pays these guys to send them 300,000,000 links a month, which is all Google is doing. What does this mean for you, and the other "little guys" you ask? Well, those 300 million clicks have to go some place if not to the big boys, and that is what cracks me up about all this.
These dinosaurs do not have a patent on the news. It will get reported and traffic will be pushed to some other news site if not to the MSM. We the people do not care where it comes from as long as it is free and does not require a subscription.
I hope the MSM blocks Googlebot and Google stops indexing them. I would love to see all that ad revenue go to small, independent, non-corrupt news groups, instead of the normal pack of slanted scumbags that make up the major 4.
malexandria
· 1 month ago
But here's the problem, a large percentage of people will only view headlines and summaries. The rare instances where our news showed up in the top 5 or 10 on Google News it didn't account for much of a traffic boost. You'd think it would, but it really doesn't. If people can get the "gist" of a story by reading a couple of headlines and the first paragraph.
Trigeia Twins
· 2 months ago
Of Course Rupert Murdoch and Tom Curley are not ignorant to the problem. Lets get real, We do like our content and we like it for free. The old ways of distributing news and content is out and the new way of the web is in. THINGS DO CHANGE! and when they do you must adapt. Murdoch Has Lost Faith In Free http://www.trigeia.com/article.php?id=79502
MichaelADeBose
· 2 months ago
The old media consumption models are in the late stages of 'full arrest' and will not be revived. "A la Carte" is the new consumption model 'supreme'. The old caricature of people getting up and reading an entire newspaper with coffee is gone. The internet allows us to read a multitude of sources, favorite creators and nothing that does not interest us. This model is far more efficient both in time and expense.
All things considered the old model was wasteful in that your choice was buy the whole thing just to get what you wanted. In music, the breaking point for me was in the transition to cds, which while cheaper to produce than cassettes ended up costing twice as much for an album. When you only care for maybe 4 songs out of 12, $18 was just outright unacceptable. Even the local news banner story only to show it to you last, or spending 1.5 minutes or so to preface the weather half way through only to let you know the weather is coming later borders on comical. Is none of the content compelling enough to be above this gimmickry. The answer to local reporting is Livestream/BlogTV. They like the old guard are nothing more than delivery/syndication systems. Besides, YouTube competes with Directv and national for my viewing hours.
Very seldom is any content creator good at everything. Financials other than in all of 2007/2008 perhaps excel at Financial reporting but might need to leave politics alone. Some are great at world reporting but not so much, anything else. Content creators are really being called upon to identify what they excel at and leave the rest alone, because no one is willing to pay you for that. These guys are simply lamenting the death of their profit models. The new model is micropayment and the sooner bloggers and real reporters figure this out they will be the better for it. Yesterday, you needed a proper newspaper to distribute/syndicate the news. Today, not really. Once there is an "iTunes/Live Nation" for news, commentary and other reporting, that allows you to select from a menu of written content types with specific combinations and price points, we'll be able to go ahead and have a proper burial for * Times. After all, I wouldn't mind supporting my favorite bloggers/reporters. I routinely click ads on their sites just to make sure they're compensated.
kathypurcell
· 2 months ago
I have been trying to get on my account on facebook. I forgot my password and they won't let me set another one. They keep wantin me to sign in and give me another Wall I don't want it. I want where my friends and family are at.
Dennis Jernberg
· 2 months ago
Rupert Murdoch and the AP cartel are simply shooting themselves in the collective foot. All their news will soon be on the other side of a paywall, locking out the majority of people on the Internet who get their news for free. A prediction: once the paywall goes up, they're going to have to start really selling their news if they want to actually make big bucks online. That means this segment of the MSM will have to push the MSM's notorious tendency toward sensationalism to the limit. Murdoch already has a head start on that in the form of Fox News and the New York Post. Hey, they gotta make a profit...
intoxination
· 2 months ago
Perhaps Facebook, Google, Youtube should all just block linking to AP or News Corp stuff. Do it for a day or two and let's see how quickly their page views drop.
IndySkye
· 2 months ago
In commenting about whether providers should or should not charge charge for their content, and whether or not people would pay the price, the commenters are avoiding first defining when the MSM's content actually is. The copyright on an AP story applies to the particular way that they have strung sets of words together to form their news story. It's fine that no one should be able to copy those words and reuse them as is. However, it needs to be understood that the gathering and organization of facts cannot be copyrighted under the law. Period, end of story. The first person who reported that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize cannot claim exclusive ownership of that news bit. There are a few people proposing the notion that copyright law should be changed to allow for exclusive use of facts, but that is really fringe thinking.
R
· 1 month ago
but they also provide a service of original reporting and research, at least the good reporters do, a la investigative reports.
malexandria
· 1 month ago
They aren't trying to claim an "exclusive" copyright of that work, but they do want to get paid for that Obama story and not have everyone and their mother just blatantly still it, repurpose and make money themselves off it without providing some sort of compensation.
IndySkye
· 1 month ago
Copyright would be the only basis for attaining compensation, and that is in fact the legal claim that they are making. Under U.S. law facts cannot be copyrighted, only the particular telling of them can be. AP's assertion has been that people and web sites are copying their copy, word for word, which is illegal. However, repeating the facts of a story in your own words is not. Anything beyond that is just philosophical about fairness, but not based in law. For anyone to assert that the news belongs to them alone that Obama won the Nobel Prize is nonsensical.
James NomadRip
· 2 months ago
If only I had as many people looking at my sites, I would be able to sell millions in ad revenue for all those people being sent there every day by all those kleptosites and not be bitching about how the world is changing.
malexandria
· 1 month ago
For the last time Ad Revenue isn't some magical cure all. Fact is 90 percent of all All ad revenue goes to the top 5 or 10 sites on the web with the rest going to the top 5 or 10 sites in any given niche. Everyone else gets peanuts. Not to mention when you run ads then readers start pissing and moaning about having "ads" on their favorite websites.
Dan Petty
· 1 month ago
Realize, too, that for many newspapers, money made from PRINT advertising -- not online -- is pulling a large majority of a newspaper's revenue. More than 90 percent of the newspaper industry’s revenue still derives from the print product. A single newspaper ad might cost many thousands of dollars while an online ad might only bring in $20 for each 1,000 customers who see it." (from Oct. 28, 2008, David Carr column, from the New York Times: http://bit.ly/wIODb)
That's a crisis in the advertising industry that few people seem to be talking about in this debate. TThe people buying tradition ads _ the local pizza shop, for instance _ just don't value online as much as they do print.
Wopular
· 1 month ago
$20 per 1000 views is on the high end. I doubt even the New York Times is able to average that for all of their inventory. The probably get that amount on average for inventory they could sell. But if you blend in all of the unsold inventory with junk ads, they'll probably average around $5 per 1000 views. When I was working at IGN, that's the average.
That's for the big guys with their own sales team. If you're joblo running adsense, then it's gonna be a lot lower, probably in the $1-2 dollar range.
Jason Rukus
· 2 months ago
Who aggregates FOX news for anything other than mockery? Rupert Murdoch is about to learn how little his news is worth once this paid deal goes through.
When I criticize media (and I often do) I point out what I believe the future of it will be, sites like Mashable and TechCrunch. If the AP and FOX were wise they would divide up these giant news organizations into smaller ones devoted to niches and loose all the dead weight they carry. Then they could monetize each division separately and with less overhead meaning they remain profitable and in business.
It's either that or die out because this is not a battle either of them is going to win with the current strategy.
The other Huffington Post
· 2 months ago
Good article
arnoldpollak
· 1 month ago
While I agree that free content will probablly not contiinue indefinately into the future, and these is a definate shift in power of the traditional press. I believe the fundamental way peopel operate has not changed over milinia - we want to know about things that are happening around us - and the web allows this FASTER, and possibly more accurately. Possibly as if I get a news feed from someone, it is more likely to be accurate than as observed by a third party. That said, I do believe we still need to be cognative of the reality that open source can be exploited. See Fred or Dead: YouTube Star Lucas Cruikshank Is Latest Web Rumor Victim.
Webcastr
· 1 month ago
Doesn't this argument sound strangely familiar? It sounds like a carbon copy of where the record companies were at five years ago. The problem is more about disaggregation. People wanted singles instead of albums - now they want articles instead of the broadsheets.
The second problem is the one oft referred to as trading print/TV dollars for internet pennies. When you have spent your whole career getting the dollars, it's hard to get used to the pennies. The only way out is to get as many pennies as you can, because the days of the dollar and digital media are clearly in the rearview mirror.
Finally, like the music discussion boards even to this day - a lot of armchair quarterbacks know not of what they speak. Theories, venting and forecasts need to be based in reason - on both sides - to achieve a productive result. Both MSM and New Media need to co-exist and there is more to be gained from open discussions and synergy than combat for both sides.
These are the exact same issues that froze the labels for five years and it's both obvious and understandable as to what has these guys stuck now. Anyone who needs help figuring it out, is welcome to call me. I have lots of experience with both sides of both fields.
garrett
· 1 month ago
Strictly speaking, the news is what is happening right now that people need or want to know about. It is not "created" it is reported (I hope, unless: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALe...). Uh oh, I just copy and pasted a link to an AP article. Better shut this klepto down!...I get what they're saying, but yeah, time to adapt fellas.
tallulam
· 1 month ago
Maybe if Murdochs' tabloids in the UK (the Sun) gave us honest indepth reporting instead of twisting and exagerrating with false moral indignation every bit of news and celeb trash, we might pay for them. I haven't bought that paper in years because of its trashy reporting. I prefer to get news with a grain of truth from those experiancing it as it happens. Give me honest indepth,important news with good followup and I'll be happy to pay for it.!!
Fulvius
· 1 month ago
Face the facts: The Times They Are A-Changin'. Poor Rupert, cry or evolve.
Matt
· 1 month ago
Don't, in most cases, the "third party" websites they talk about, just redirect traffic to their stories? Google News just brings everything together, and when you click on a link, you go to that news organizations website. I dont understand why thats a problem.
Dan Petty
· 1 month ago
I agree that these "men on the street" provide a unique, unfiltered perspective that enriches reporting (which, during the Iran elections, mainstream media -- including The New York Times -- was using in its content). But these men on the street don't have the kind of access to high-level diplomats and other sources that take years of cultivating by reporters. I'm sorry, but very few bloggers get granted that kind of access. And Twitter, for all of its breaking news value, cannot put these events in a clear context or perspective. Twitter generates lots of noise, meaning you still need someone who has reported on, say, Iran for years to organize the information and put it in an easily digestible format.
Michelle Potter
· 1 month ago
This is my take. No one has a right to get the news for free -- no one can expect someone else to go out, on his own dime (or employer's dime), investigate, interview, collect the news, then come back and report it all to us with no compensation. People simply do not have a right to other people's time and resources.
Additionally, no one has a right to steal someone else's work. No one has a right to just copy a news article wholesale and pass it around, even if he includes a link. Copyright laws are intended to give the original author a chance to make a profit from his own work.
However, once a person has read or heard the news (whether he paid or not), or once a person has seen or experienced something newsworthy himself, he has EVERY RIGHT to pass that information along to others, assuming that any direct quotes are within the limits of Fair Use. What is the difference between telling everyone at a party about an article I read in Time Magazine, and blogging about it? A wider audience? Are free speech rights limited by audience size?
Make no mistake, free speech is the real right in question here. As long as internet users have free speech, they have the right to spread the news, and there is nothing the MSM can do about it. Even if all MSM news was completely locked down, or even completely removed from the internet, I could still buy and read a newspaper, sit at my computer desk, and tell the whole world about Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize -- without plagiarizing the paper or committing any crime or misdeed whatsoever. And if my words are interesting enough and relevant enough, people will read them. Until the MSM accepts that fact and adapts their business model accordingly, they will suffer.
Bob
· 1 month ago
Michelle, if the second model you describe creates an environment where the first model (ROI) can not survive, what will be the outcome?
If model 2 impacts the primary production of content (the goose who lays the golden eggs), this model needs to be strongly considered as a threat. Gravity exists. As a society we can not just shrug and say 'whatever...'
What happens when writers, artists, journalists can no longer produce a living from the products they produce? How does this serve a civilized society? The big businesses will just move on to some other industry. When we have less qualified news outlets providing news, and investigating (this area of news is already in decline), how will this affect our ability to stay informed? Heresay, rumours? Same goes for any other creative field.
The loss of these products and services, just add to the race to the bottom in the marketplace. Less people working, more offshoring, less diversity... a vicious cycle.
A recent roommate of mine (Wharton grad) and her Gfs laughed at me because I actually pay for movies and music instead of downloading for free. She earns 6 figures a year and not only finds nothing wrong with stealing content, she feels entitled.
Michelle Potter
· 1 month ago
"Michelle, if the second model you describe creates an environment where the first model (ROI) can not survive, what will be the outcome?"
I think it's obvious that this is not only going to happen, it is already happening. So we have some choices here. One is that everyone on the internet can agree to give up what we Americans have Constitutionally guaranteed in the 1st amendment. Everyone can just decide that even though we have a legal right to tell other people about the news, we shouldn't, in order to protect the MSM. Frankly, that seems extremely unlikely.
The second choice would be the complete elimination of Fair Use. The "threats" that the AP and Murdoch want to eliminate include Facebook (which, when you post a link only pulls a headline and a couple of sentences) and their perennial foe, Drudge (which only quotes headlines -- mere sentence fragments). This would have far-reaching effects, including a need to except the "official" news media to allow them to quote political speeches and the like. Other questions would be raised, such as just how many words need to be strung together in the same order as a copyrighted work constitute a "quote." If an AP article says, "President Obama won," are those three words now off-limits for the rest of us? There may be questions about whether Fair Use can be tossed out without amending the Constitution, but they wouldn't be concerns for long. Sites such as Drudge will simply start re-phrasing their headlines. By not quoting the MSM article at all, they could avoid any questions about copyright infringement without actually changing the nature of their sites at all -- and without diminishing their "threat" to the MSM whatsoever. A link to an AP article titled "GOP's Snowe will vote for Democratic health bill" is not fundamentally different than the same link titled "GOP's Snowe voting for Democrats' health care bill," but does not contain any more than two words in a row that are identical. (And, BTW, when getting that example I realized that Drudge does NOT always even use the AP headline. The first headline I quoted was the AP's, and the second was from Drudge. And here I was going to make something up for the re-phrased example.) (Another BTW, I just quoted MORE than Drudge did from that article. Any elimination of Fair Use that prevented aggregators from collecting AP headlines and links would have to make what I just wrote illegal.) Bloggers already often re-tell news stories in their own words, so prohibiting them from using quotes would be of minimal impact. Once aggregators and bloggers simply stop using quotes and use their own words for headlines and to retell news stories, the MSM will be stuck in the same situation again. They will still have limitless competition from individuals online spreading the news, but they won't be able to cry copyright anymore. Their only choices will be to learn to deal, or to change the law again. Then what? Will we forbid individuals from even summarizing or retelling the news in their own words? You might call this a slippery slope, but I am not arguing that if we let the media start limiting news bloggers and aggregators then it will get out of control -- I am arguing that ONLY such authoritarian measures would allow the current media establishment to survive as it is. As long as we are free to fairly quote and link to the news, or retell the news in our own words, we pose a serious threat to the way they do business.
There is a third option, which is for the current media establishment to find a way to become something completely new. It's not the first time an industry has had to do this -- candle making had to survive the electric light bulb, didn't it? I'm not saying it won't be hard, it may even be as though the MSM dies and something new rises from the ashes. But the demand for reliable, accurate news has not died; it's bigger than ever! There's a fortune waiting for the company that figures out how to turn this massive demand into a money-producing endeavor.
So I ask you, do we have a moral obligation to give up free speech (either by widespread choice and self-regulation, or by statute) in order to prop up the current news media's choice not to change with the times? Or do we have a moral obligation to protect free speech, even if it means allowing the current structure to fail, and temporary hardship as a new structure emerges?
BTW, the comparison between quoting and linking news articles and illegally downloading entire songs or movies is fallacious. Regardless of Murdoch's accusation of "plagiarist," widely accepted "Netiquette" forbids the outright copying of written news articles outside of Fair Use. Aggregators obviously don't do this, since by nature they are just links to the actual articles. The vast majority of bloggers only quote the news and give their own commentary -- in fact it's the commentary that makes or breaks a news blogger's popularity. So, a more proper comparison would be between an aggregator or news blogger and a movie review site that includes quotes and an image from the movie.
Bob
· 1 month ago
Michelle,
Thank you for taking the time to respond so thoroughly!
There is a big difference between conversation and stealing content. The demand for music and entertainment hasn't died either - that isn't helping the vast majority of musicians, whom have to sell beer cozies and t-shirts to make a living because their own music is out of their control and traded freely - without their permission or compensation. Do you know how many full size independent film companies exist in the US today? The answer is zero. Diversity has been narrowed. You have the option of watching major corporate releases or hobbyist releases on youtube, dvd, and the very occasional screening. The middle is gone. You'll find the middle has/is disappearing in all sorts of marketplaces and industries as well.
You can argue all you want for the end of gravity, your entitlement etc. Does it change physical laws? If these large corps have too little ROI, they'll just take their $$$ and find another game to play. People can wallow in their 1st amendment rights while discussing the latest assumptions about an event that receives no news coverage. Or they can hold court on the latest celeb trainwreck. How do either of these serve an informed democratic republic? Free to talk - nothing to talk about... such irony lol.
This is the current environment in which we exist. People steal content. These are the same people that shop at Wally world. The same people that will not pay for news. This is our consumable (disposable) society. It's all interconnected. We all are subject to gravity. There are no free lunches. When the environment we live in affects our basic interests, changes may be required. Someone's sacred bull may get gored in the process.
Michelle Potter
· 1 month ago
Bob, there is no reply button on your most recent reply to me, so I am *hoping* if I reply here it will end up in the right place.
You said, "There is a big difference between conversation and stealing content." I completely agree with that statement, and the sentiment that *stealing* content is wrong, but since we still seem to be at odds I must assume that we have different ideas of what it means to steal content.
There is an actual societal construct that the vast majority of people accept which addresses the issue of what it means to steal another person's content. This is called copyright. Copyright is not a natural right like free speech, but rather a limitation on free speech that we all agree is for the general good. I have stated repeatedly that I agree that anyone, online or not, who actually violates the news medias copyright is in the wrong. Let me be explicit that copyright violations should be duly pursued and violators should be sued.
However, since our society has statutorily defined what it means to "steal" another person's creative work, I simply cannot understand what you mean when you say that someone who is explicitly NOT violating copyright is "stealing." In what sense is a news aggregator stealing anything when they follow the very definition of "not stealing" -- ie, Fair Use? In what sense would a blogger who retells the news in his own words be stealing, when he has not taken anything that actually belongs to the original reporter?
Unless you believe that a reporter who "finds" the news and reports it, then owns the facts of that news. In which case I ask this. If a reporter writes an article about a baseball game, does he then own the facts about that game? Can I write a blog entry about that game? Can I write about the game if I was there? Can I write about it if I watched the game on TV? Can I write about it if a friend attended or watched the game, and then told me what happened? Can I write about it if I read a description of the game in the news? At what point does it become unacceptable for me to write a blog entry about facts that are publicly known? At what point does the reporter who "owns" those facts get to tell me that I can't write about what I saw with my own eyes, heard with my ears, or read? Fortunately those questions have been answered, since legally in this country no one can copyright or claim ownership of facts.
So, I ask again. If Google News, Facebook, Drudge, news bloggers, etc. are by definition NOT violating the copyright of the news media, then how exactly are they stealing content?
PS, you again compared quoting news articles to outright stealing entire songs or movies. Do you not see the difference between copying an entire article / song / movie and quoting PART of an article / song / movie? Do you see the difference between posting the new Disney flick to the newsbins so people can download and watch the movie without paying, and posting a clip of the movie in a review that encourages people to go out and see it? Do you see the difference between copying a book, and writing something that includes the title of the book and some quotes? Do you see the difference between copying a news article and quoting it?
Deborah Overdeput
· 1 month ago
Murdoch and Curley's comments are typical of executives facing the near extinction of their industry. If they were true entrepreneurs (or leaders of industry) they would be meeting and discussing how best to use the new media forums to evolve their business. Just goes to show you that those who ride the money train for too long forget how they got on the train in the first place. A little innovation please! -- and get on the Twitter jet!
Arijit Das
· 1 month ago
Internet is only for Spreading news, and i don't Google, and others are exploiting AP. Ya to too agree with the speaking of AP about the causes of the down falling of their Market.
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Ellen
· 1 month ago
People aren't going to get used to paying for news. I think as a whole we'll lapse into waiting for our news to leak rather than paying for it quickly.
paulmccord
· 1 month ago
This is interesting considering who is saying this. The media makes a living out of exploiting the fears of the public. Just listen to the scary music dubbed in every time they talk about Swine flu or even worse global warming.
. I feel sorry for these millionaires who made their money this way
Austin Beeman
· 1 month ago
What is likely going to happen, and probably is already, is that news organization are going to get paid from large businesses and political parties to 'spin' the news. Then the 'free content' is going to be fed to all the suckers that didn't what to pay for the news.
rufinus
· 1 month ago
u mean i could be paying for what I am reading now??? WTF?
All Comments
It is the internet that is killing the news paper and the lack of news paper sales that is killing the industry, not Google. All Google does is show a Headline, a company name (free advertising for the MSM) and 2 (two) lines of text, and all of a sudden they are "poaching their content", Really?
They can stop Google anytime they want. The power of "User-agent: Googlebot Disallow: /" will prevent Googlebots from "Poaching" there content. I wonder why they have not used it. I can give you 300,000,000 reasons a month if you still need an explanation.
Was this the new york times reporting? or the man on the street?
We are used to getting our news for free. They have empires built on making money from "giving" us the news (or at least, their slant of the news).
I think Nguyen's reply is most apt - "Adaptation's a bitch" - but that is where they are failing. They could stand to profit from the "new media ways" but instead are fighting tooth and nail to stay in their ivory towers. Why? To stay at the top. Instead of getting dirty, realizing that the new ways won't make them rich but will keep people making money.
It's too easy for someone to read about what happened in Iran from an Iranian blogger - right NOW. Or we can hear a news anchor recall his trip, complete with sappy pop-music, political/personal spin/agenda/etc. The new news media will be dominated by the public, and the old media can either hold their hand out and help or die fighting a losing fight.
(My two bits)
So, the publishers should have a tiered, paid model for information delivery where I can pay to get news delivered to me in a premium/custom fashion. One form of premium would be early access. I may pay to get editorial content from well-known writers early and also pay to be able to be among the first to then forward that content into my social network. Think of it as me paying to be an "electronic paperboy". Except this paperboy gets to filter, edit and comment on all that news and send it through the lens of my personal branding. Bloggers do this now already but in a very manual fashion. News giants like AP could make it easy for me to become a my own editor of "all the news I think is fit to print". This is hyperlocal applied to the business of editing the news stream. You then have something people are willing to pay for.
Then when people who don't subscribe click the unique URLs I provide it, gives them limited time access to the content but they can't comment or easily forward the content into thier networks. The content itself would come with formatting/cobranding that labels the page as having been recommended/spun by me. The wisdom of the crowd would then decide who does the best polish and delivery of the news and that person, and the provider of the raw news and opinion content, could all get paid.
They could also show prominently on all the pages which social media influencers (ePaper Boys/Girls) have driven the most traffic to that news story and show a profile of those influencers. This will drive clicks back to the web content of those influencers.
What this does is recruit the top social networking influencer voices to pay premium prices for premium access to the best written pieces from the media. Those influencers then become proactive and trusted promoters of the best news gathering outlets on the web. The news outlets that recruit and retain the best social media influencers will also draw the most traffic and the most ad and subscription revenue.
Soon most people will want to pay either for a subscription to become a news editor of their own "My view of the world of news" or to get full access to the most popular and respected influencers to see the news through their lens.
By allowing everyone to set up their own virtual news room the traditional news gatherers will earn both subscription and ad revenue, just like the old days, and they can share that back to those people who emerge as the most influential and most followed. This is a win/win/win for all involved. All of us want to be influential voices. this model allows me to be more efficient in becoming an influential voice on the net.
This is the kind of innovation necessary to remake how news is done and how it is monetized.
Further the idea: "if you aggregate our article than you have to grab the in post ads that come with it. " policy
Ad revenue is a big part ok huge part of their revenue model.
Say from the green home article section
Im a green home or eco content site owner
I grab a article about solar from "news site" with their advertisers included
result equals Relative placement with in niche and target demographic
results for their advertising base, further reach, impressions and most
likely better ROI because of social spread.
Cost to the paper/media outlet Nothing
Income = adspaces that equal results will increase ad spend revenue.
Win for them, their advertisers, and the content user.
I can't wait to see how successful Newscorp and AP are implementing their scheme to charge fees for use of their content.
Does this mean that AP and Newscorp will pay for headline stories that break on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube or even Mashable?
Walter Adamson @g2m
http://xeesm.com/walter
As a web designer/programmer and visual journalist, I believe in the freedom of information flow, open-source content, what have you.
But also in the same role, that's how I make the measly living that I do. I am not a multimillionaire. But when the big guys like AP and NewsCorp go down, the rest of us who work will no longer even make the low pay that we do with minimum to no benefits.
With that said, I don't do what I do for the money, for course. But I still have bills to pay.
These dinosaurs do not have a patent on the news. It will get reported and traffic will be pushed to some other news site if not to the MSM. We the people do not care where it comes from as long as it is free and does not require a subscription.
I hope the MSM blocks Googlebot and Google stops indexing them. I would love to see all that ad revenue go to small, independent, non-corrupt news groups, instead of the normal pack of slanted scumbags that make up the major 4.
All things considered the old model was wasteful in that your choice was buy the whole thing just to get what you wanted. In music, the breaking point for me was in the transition to cds, which while cheaper to produce than cassettes ended up costing twice as much for an album. When you only care for maybe 4 songs out of 12, $18 was just outright unacceptable. Even the local news banner story only to show it to you last, or spending 1.5 minutes or so to preface the weather half way through only to let you know the weather is coming later borders on comical. Is none of the content compelling enough to be above this gimmickry. The answer to local reporting is Livestream/BlogTV. They like the old guard are nothing more than delivery/syndication systems. Besides, YouTube competes with Directv and national for my viewing hours.
Very seldom is any content creator good at everything. Financials other than in all of 2007/2008 perhaps excel at Financial reporting but might need to leave politics alone. Some are great at world reporting but not so much, anything else. Content creators are really being called upon to identify what they excel at and leave the rest alone, because no one is willing to pay you for that. These guys are simply lamenting the death of their profit models. The new model is micropayment and the sooner bloggers and real reporters figure this out they will be the better for it. Yesterday, you needed a proper newspaper to distribute/syndicate the news. Today, not really. Once there is an "iTunes/Live Nation" for news, commentary and other reporting, that allows you to select from a menu of written content types with specific combinations and price points, we'll be able to go ahead and have a proper burial for * Times. After all, I wouldn't mind supporting my favorite bloggers/reporters. I routinely click ads on their sites just to make sure they're compensated.
That's a crisis in the advertising industry that few people seem to be talking about in this debate. TThe people buying tradition ads _ the local pizza shop, for instance _ just don't value online as much as they do print.
That's for the big guys with their own sales team. If you're joblo running adsense, then it's gonna be a lot lower, probably in the $1-2 dollar range.
When I criticize media (and I often do) I point out what I believe the future of it will be, sites like Mashable and TechCrunch. If the AP and FOX were wise they would divide up these giant news organizations into smaller ones devoted to niches and loose all the dead weight they carry. Then they could monetize each division separately and with less overhead meaning they remain profitable and in business.
It's either that or die out because this is not a battle either of them is going to win with the current strategy.
The second problem is the one oft referred to as trading print/TV dollars for internet pennies. When you have spent your whole career getting the dollars, it's hard to get used to the pennies. The only way out is to get as many pennies as you can, because the days of the dollar and digital media are clearly in the rearview mirror.
Finally, like the music discussion boards even to this day - a lot of armchair quarterbacks know not of what they speak. Theories, venting and forecasts need to be based in reason - on both sides - to achieve a productive result. Both MSM and New Media need to co-exist and there is more to be gained from open discussions and synergy than combat for both sides.
These are the exact same issues that froze the labels for five years and it's both obvious and understandable as to what has these guys stuck now. Anyone who needs help figuring it out, is welcome to call me. I have lots of experience with both sides of both fields.
Additionally, no one has a right to steal someone else's work. No one has a right to just copy a news article wholesale and pass it around, even if he includes a link. Copyright laws are intended to give the original author a chance to make a profit from his own work.
However, once a person has read or heard the news (whether he paid or not), or once a person has seen or experienced something newsworthy himself, he has EVERY RIGHT to pass that information along to others, assuming that any direct quotes are within the limits of Fair Use. What is the difference between telling everyone at a party about an article I read in Time Magazine, and blogging about it? A wider audience? Are free speech rights limited by audience size?
Make no mistake, free speech is the real right in question here. As long as internet users have free speech, they have the right to spread the news, and there is nothing the MSM can do about it. Even if all MSM news was completely locked down, or even completely removed from the internet, I could still buy and read a newspaper, sit at my computer desk, and tell the whole world about Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize -- without plagiarizing the paper or committing any crime or misdeed whatsoever. And if my words are interesting enough and relevant enough, people will read them. Until the MSM accepts that fact and adapts their business model accordingly, they will suffer.
If model 2 impacts the primary production of content (the goose who lays the golden eggs), this model needs to be strongly considered as a threat. Gravity exists. As a society we can not just shrug and say 'whatever...'
What happens when writers, artists, journalists can no longer produce a living from the products they produce? How does this serve a civilized society? The big businesses will just move on to some other industry. When we have less qualified news outlets providing news, and investigating (this area of news is already in decline), how will this affect our ability to stay informed? Heresay, rumours? Same goes for any other creative field.
The loss of these products and services, just add to the race to the bottom in the marketplace. Less people working, more offshoring, less diversity... a vicious cycle.
A recent roommate of mine (Wharton grad) and her Gfs laughed at me because I actually pay for movies and music instead of downloading for free. She earns 6 figures a year and not only finds nothing wrong with stealing content, she feels entitled.
I think it's obvious that this is not only going to happen, it is already happening. So we have some choices here. One is that everyone on the internet can agree to give up what we Americans have Constitutionally guaranteed in the 1st amendment. Everyone can just decide that even though we have a legal right to tell other people about the news, we shouldn't, in order to protect the MSM. Frankly, that seems extremely unlikely.
The second choice would be the complete elimination of Fair Use. The "threats" that the AP and Murdoch want to eliminate include Facebook (which, when you post a link only pulls a headline and a couple of sentences) and their perennial foe, Drudge (which only quotes headlines -- mere sentence fragments). This would have far-reaching effects, including a need to except the "official" news media to allow them to quote political speeches and the like. Other questions would be raised, such as just how many words need to be strung together in the same order as a copyrighted work constitute a "quote." If an AP article says, "President Obama won," are those three words now off-limits for the rest of us? There may be questions about whether Fair Use can be tossed out without amending the Constitution, but they wouldn't be concerns for long. Sites such as Drudge will simply start re-phrasing their headlines. By not quoting the MSM article at all, they could avoid any questions about copyright infringement without actually changing the nature of their sites at all -- and without diminishing their "threat" to the MSM whatsoever. A link to an AP article titled "GOP's Snowe will vote for Democratic health bill" is not fundamentally different than the same link titled "GOP's Snowe voting for Democrats' health care bill," but does not contain any more than two words in a row that are identical. (And, BTW, when getting that example I realized that Drudge does NOT always even use the AP headline. The first headline I quoted was the AP's, and the second was from Drudge. And here I was going to make something up for the re-phrased example.) (Another BTW, I just quoted MORE than Drudge did from that article. Any elimination of Fair Use that prevented aggregators from collecting AP headlines and links would have to make what I just wrote illegal.) Bloggers already often re-tell news stories in their own words, so prohibiting them from using quotes would be of minimal impact. Once aggregators and bloggers simply stop using quotes and use their own words for headlines and to retell news stories, the MSM will be stuck in the same situation again. They will still have limitless competition from individuals online spreading the news, but they won't be able to cry copyright anymore. Their only choices will be to learn to deal, or to change the law again. Then what? Will we forbid individuals from even summarizing or retelling the news in their own words? You might call this a slippery slope, but I am not arguing that if we let the media start limiting news bloggers and aggregators then it will get out of control -- I am arguing that ONLY such authoritarian measures would allow the current media establishment to survive as it is. As long as we are free to fairly quote and link to the news, or retell the news in our own words, we pose a serious threat to the way they do business.
There is a third option, which is for the current media establishment to find a way to become something completely new. It's not the first time an industry has had to do this -- candle making had to survive the electric light bulb, didn't it? I'm not saying it won't be hard, it may even be as though the MSM dies and something new rises from the ashes. But the demand for reliable, accurate news has not died; it's bigger than ever! There's a fortune waiting for the company that figures out how to turn this massive demand into a money-producing endeavor.
So I ask you, do we have a moral obligation to give up free speech (either by widespread choice and self-regulation, or by statute) in order to prop up the current news media's choice not to change with the times? Or do we have a moral obligation to protect free speech, even if it means allowing the current structure to fail, and temporary hardship as a new structure emerges?
BTW, the comparison between quoting and linking news articles and illegally downloading entire songs or movies is fallacious. Regardless of Murdoch's accusation of "plagiarist," widely accepted "Netiquette" forbids the outright copying of written news articles outside of Fair Use. Aggregators obviously don't do this, since by nature they are just links to the actual articles. The vast majority of bloggers only quote the news and give their own commentary -- in fact it's the commentary that makes or breaks a news blogger's popularity. So, a more proper comparison would be between an aggregator or news blogger and a movie review site that includes quotes and an image from the movie.
Thank you for taking the time to respond so thoroughly!
There is a big difference between conversation and stealing content.
The demand for music and entertainment hasn't died either - that isn't helping the vast majority of musicians, whom have to sell beer cozies and t-shirts to make a living because their own music is out of their control and traded freely - without their permission or compensation. Do you know how many full size independent film companies exist in the US today? The answer is zero. Diversity has been narrowed. You have the option of watching major corporate releases or hobbyist releases on youtube, dvd, and the very occasional screening. The middle is gone. You'll find the middle has/is disappearing in all sorts of marketplaces and industries as well.
You can argue all you want for the end of gravity, your entitlement etc. Does it change physical laws?
If these large corps have too little ROI, they'll just take their $$$ and find another game to play. People can wallow in their 1st amendment rights while discussing the latest assumptions about an event that receives no news coverage. Or they can hold court on the latest celeb trainwreck. How do either of these serve an informed democratic republic? Free to talk - nothing to talk about... such irony lol.
This is the current environment in which we exist.
People steal content. These are the same people that shop at Wally world.
The same people that will not pay for news.
This is our consumable (disposable) society.
It's all interconnected.
We all are subject to gravity. There are no free lunches.
When the environment we live in affects our basic interests, changes may be required.
Someone's sacred bull may get gored in the process.
You said, "There is a big difference between conversation and stealing content." I completely agree with that statement, and the sentiment that *stealing* content is wrong, but since we still seem to be at odds I must assume that we have different ideas of what it means to steal content.
There is an actual societal construct that the vast majority of people accept which addresses the issue of what it means to steal another person's content. This is called copyright. Copyright is not a natural right like free speech, but rather a limitation on free speech that we all agree is for the general good. I have stated repeatedly that I agree that anyone, online or not, who actually violates the news medias copyright is in the wrong. Let me be explicit that copyright violations should be duly pursued and violators should be sued.
However, since our society has statutorily defined what it means to "steal" another person's creative work, I simply cannot understand what you mean when you say that someone who is explicitly NOT violating copyright is "stealing." In what sense is a news aggregator stealing anything when they follow the very definition of "not stealing" -- ie, Fair Use? In what sense would a blogger who retells the news in his own words be stealing, when he has not taken anything that actually belongs to the original reporter?
Unless you believe that a reporter who "finds" the news and reports it, then owns the facts of that news. In which case I ask this. If a reporter writes an article about a baseball game, does he then own the facts about that game? Can I write a blog entry about that game? Can I write about the game if I was there? Can I write about it if I watched the game on TV? Can I write about it if a friend attended or watched the game, and then told me what happened? Can I write about it if I read a description of the game in the news? At what point does it become unacceptable for me to write a blog entry about facts that are publicly known? At what point does the reporter who "owns" those facts get to tell me that I can't write about what I saw with my own eyes, heard with my ears, or read? Fortunately those questions have been answered, since legally in this country no one can copyright or claim ownership of facts.
So, I ask again. If Google News, Facebook, Drudge, news bloggers, etc. are by definition NOT violating the copyright of the news media, then how exactly are they stealing content?
PS, you again compared quoting news articles to outright stealing entire songs or movies. Do you not see the difference between copying an entire article / song / movie and quoting PART of an article / song / movie? Do you see the difference between posting the new Disney flick to the newsbins so people can download and watch the movie without paying, and posting a clip of the movie in a review that encourages people to go out and see it? Do you see the difference between copying a book, and writing something that includes the title of the book and some quotes? Do you see the difference between copying a news article and quoting it?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFle2YoQwWg
WTF?