So the European Court of Justice decides that even a snippet of text from a newspaper can be enough to break the law, in the same week that The Associated Press decides to take aggressive steps to protect its content.
First, here’s the predictable response that the web’s most vocal analysts are barking to anyone who’ll listen: the traditional news agencies are waging a war that’s already lost. The music and movie industries have spent the last five or more years learning that lesson, and have now decided that it’s easier (and more rewarding) to piss from within the tent.
And those entertainment industries arguably didn’t face the oversupply issue that news faces today: the day of the release of a new Eminem album didn’t coincide with the launch of 52,000 beat-for-beat photocopies of the same thing (well, not 52,000, anyway). A corner store owner will tell you that you can only sell so many bean cans to so many people. Get the supply of tins to meet demand, and you’re in the money. News is not in short supply.
Now a hopefully less predictable response (especially when so few people say this out loud): no-one should be allowed to completely copy the original work of others. I can name several instances in recent months of thieves copying our sites in their entirety. It’s enraging: our journalists work incredibly hard to produce our content, for which we pay them well. To take that content in full and claim it as your own without having the manners to ask permission or provide any credit is, well, shitty.
But I’m much less offended when someone quotes our work, and links back to it. In fact, I’m usually grateful. Especially if that link’s from a high-ranking site, and the producer / journalist has been kind enough to choose their anchor text well.
One issue here is degree. Pointing to me: great. Pointing to me with quote from my piece: thanks. Taking the whole piece, including images, and claiming it as your own: forget it. And there’s a mushy slab of turf between No.2 and No.3 that can cause its own world of tears.
The other issue is the establishing actual value in news. The newspaper industry is thrumming with talk of charging for content, led by a decline in display advertising yields that – as this piece from the WSJ infers – may in part be a result of the emerging copy/paste news sites). The success of that strategy will rely on the benefit their journalists bring to the audience. In theory, those who bust the most guts on behalf of their readers will earn the largest reward.
This could be great news for journalistic standards. A totally free web doesn’t always reward excellence; in fact, you can draw a crowd with a combination of SEO know-how and a liberal approach to appealing to the lowest common denominator. Switch to paid, and we’ll be back to the oldest (and finest) law: sweat for your paying audience, or be prepared to lose their subscription at a moment’s notice.
The next few months will answer a fascinating question: will people pay, after years of being handed endless cans of beans by the store owner without being asked for a penny? And if the punters don’t buy, what will happen to the copy/paste news sites who will have nothing to point to but a payment gateway? Oh…. hold on a minute…
