UK Newspapers Threatening Aggregator: Like Donkeys Suing The Inventor Of The Wheel

from the how-nice-of-them dept

Mathew Ingram points us to the news that some UK newspapers are apparently threatening UK-based news aggregator NewsNow. I've used NewsNow in the past, and I can't see what the complaint is -- at all. NewsNow provides headlines and links. That's it. At least when I was using it, it didn't even provide summary text. I actually discovered a lot of useful new sources when I used it, and that's because NewsNow always struck me as one of the best aggregators out there. It found a lot more than most of the others. To be honest, my big complaint with NewsNow is that they limit their free feeds significantly -- and there's no RSS or anything. After a while, I just gave up on using it, because without RSS, it just didn't fit into my daily method of following the news, no matter how useful the site is. However, it's really difficult to see what sort of complaint any newspaper could have with such a service whose sole purpose is to drive more traffic. It is, as the link above so colorfully describes:

the equivalent of a herd of donkeys filing a class action suit against the inventor of the wheel....

Unless there's something more to these legal threats -- and, admittedly, only one side is weighing in on what happened here, the whole thing just seems like a stretch by at least some UK newspapers to try to intimidate online sites into paying them.

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It Ain't The Link, It's What You Do With The Traffic

from the sigh dept

A media consultant, Arnon Mishkin, has a post up at Paid Content supposedly about The Fallacy Of The Link Economy, where he suggests that those of us (he links to us at Techdirt, for example) who are insisting that aggregators aren't a problem and that news sites should be happy about getting linked to, are wrong. But he seems to have gotten the basic argument wrong. He seems to think we're saying that the all you have to do is get linked to, and you should be happy.

But that's not what we're saying.

The link is a vote of confidence, but it's just a start. From there, you then need to actually do something with that link. Mishkin dismisses the value of the link by noting that most people who visit those aggregator sites don't click through. That's not news. That's the way it's always been, but that doesn't mean there isn't value there. On this, I can speak from personal experience. Over the years, we never worked that hard at building our own traffic (we never built a business that depended on traffic), but our traffic kept growing. Any time we were linked to from larger sites, some people clicked through, but we always knew it was a small fraction of the overall traffic to that originator site. But, so what? It's still new traffic that wouldn't have found us otherwise. On top of that, we knew that most of that traffic would visit us just that one time and not think to come back -- but again, that's fine. Because what did happen is that we started to build up our reputation.

So, no, getting a single site to link to you isn't that meaningful, and won't drive that much traffic initially (or even repeat traffic), but as you build up your reputation, and get linked multiple times in multiple places, and then build up credibility based on your content and your community then people start to come back. So, getting linked from a certain site once is meaningless. But as we would get linked multiple times, we'd start to notice that then our traffic would increase. It was a case of that other site helping introduce others to us, not because of a single link, but the combination of being linked to multiple times, along with having good content and good discussions -- and then people would realize that it was worth visting us regularly (or adding us to their RSS reader or whatever).

It's an ongoing process, but the fact that most people don't click through on a single aggregator link is meaningless. Those people wouldn't have seen the story anyway, but it may help build up the brand of the original site. And, I can assure you, over time, if you keep providing quality, that pays off.

The problem here is that Mishkin and others seem to think the value is in the single atomic story. It's not and never has been. Being unable to view the larger picture and the overall process misses the point. It's not the link alone that has value or the story alone that has value, but the overall process of building a community.

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Bit.ly's Business Plan To Datamine Links?

from the could-be-interesting dept

A lot of folks have been mistakenly mocking Bit.ly, the popular URL shortening service, which some dismiss because the functionality is quite simple to replicate (and, in fact, it was hardly the first or last such service). But, as has been discussed the real value in Bit.ly isn't so much the fact that it shrinks URLs, but in all the data it collects. The fact that it's become such a popular URL shortening service, means that it has all sorts of data on what's popular online at any given time -- including how many times something is added to a social network and how many clicks it gets. Part of the reason the service itself has been so popular already is the datamining it lets users do, so they can see how many clicks something gets, and apparently, the company behind it is planning to use that data to create its own news site, highlighting what's popular out there. Who knows if this will work (being a news aggregator hasn't made many companies very much money lately), but it does show how something as simple as a URL shortening service actually could have more going on behind the scenes, and shouldn't be written off because it can be replicated in just 10 lines of code. If you can get people to use your ten lines of code, the data itself can be quite valuable, if you know what to do with it.

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Mary Kay Sues Yahoo For Inserting Ad Links In Emails

from the trademark-fun dept

We've seen way too many lawsuits involving companies suing search engines for trademark infringement due to paid search adveritisng, but the latest lawsuit is a bit different. It appears that Mary Kay (who has a long history of being an aggressive enforcer of trademark) has sued Yahoo because of the way it inserts ads in email. Apparently Yahoo employs that incredibly annoying process of hotlinking certain text words to pop up advertisements. I've seen this on various websites (now blocked thanks to No Script) but I didn't realize Yahoo used the same annoying process in email as well. Mary Kay claims that this is confusing, and this actually does raise some interesting legal questions. First of all, I could see how some people might actually be confused by these sorts of ad links. While they usually look a little different than a real hyperlink, unless you're paying attention, you might get confused and think it's a normal link, rather than an ad. But that just speaks to confusion over what the link is. Once you hover over it, it becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly that it's an ad. I have a lot more trouble believing that it would then confuse many users. That said, even if it is confusing, there's a question as to whether or not Yahoo should actually be liable for any confusion. After all, it's just using an automated system to insert these ads. I might argue that it's obnoxious, annoying and unnecessarily intrusive, but it's not clear that it should be illegal.

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UK Newspaper Agency Wants To Regulate, Charge For Linking Privileges

from the hello,-let-me-explain-to-you-the-web dept

Every time you think that we'd reach that point in our internet evolution that people knew better than to think they could "regulate" or charge people for the privilege of linking to them, you find out otherwise. Jeff Jarvis points us to the rather amusing news that the Newspaper Licensing Agency in the UK, which currently licenses things like clippings and reprints of newspaper articles, has now declared that it also controls the right to link to newspaper sources, if done for commercial purposes. So, for example, PR services that used to send out clippings, but now just send out links to online sources will soon have to pay up, according to the agency. This is quite an interesting interpretation of how the web works, to claim some sort of extended right to how one can use a link to your site. It's basically saying "to hell with the way the web works -- and has always worked from its earliest days -- we want to pretend that things are the same as they used to be." It is, in so many ways, the equivalent of demanding that all automobiles only be driven with men waving red flags walking slowly in front of them. Good luck, Newspaper Licensing Agency, in convincing the world to pretend the web doesn't work the way it has always worked.

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Why Do Newspapers So Rarely Link Out?

from the good-questions dept

Bijan Sabet is asking a good question. It's one that's been asked plenty of times before, of course, but it remains relevant: why do so few newspapers ever link off of their site? He points to recent articles from the NY Times, the Boston Globe, the LA Times and the SF Chronicle, and notes that none of them have links to outbound sites. Some of this is due to a confused view of the web, that you never want to send people to another site, because (incorrectly) that means fewer page views on your own site. Of course, that ignores the fact that sites like Google have made quite a nice business out of sending people to other sites -- a business those very same newspapers are all quite jealous of. And, it also stems from the old line belief that the job of a newspaper is to tell you "everything you need to know," so why would you ever admit that there may be other sources of value? And, of course, that's why some people are getting sick of newspapers. Plenty of other online sources have learned that linking to others is an important part of the conversation, as is allowing readers/users/community members to explore the story themselves -- and to contribute to it. I still find it amusing when someone follows a link I've posted and then adds some interesting perspective/data point/fact and claims that they've somehow "caught" me making an error. That's part of why I post the links in the first place -- hoping that readers will continue to dig deeper and figure out more of the story and contribute and add to it. It's too bad so few newspapers feel the same way.

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Reporter Questions Why The NY Times Erased All His Work For The International Herald Tribune

from the this-is-a-good-question dept

Back at the end of March, we were surprised that the NY Times, in consolidating its regular site with the site of the International Herald Tribune (which it owned) had broken all the links to IHT.com. Rather than taking them to the article in question on the NY Times site, it simply took them to a landing page. This was just a bad idea all around. It appears that a former reporter for IHT, Thomas Crampton, discovered this over the weekend and has brought renewed attention to the issue by issuing an open letter to the NY Times asking why it "deleted" his career -- in that all of his early work that appeared in the IHT is now gone (some, but not all, of it remains in the NY Times). Additionally, he pointed out that this is also causing problems for Wikipedia, notably with any article that relied on evidence from an IHT article. While we've seen others erase old articles as well (and the Associated Press is famous for forcing all its partners to take down AP articles after just a short time period), it still is amazing in this day and age that anyone thinks it's a good idea to break links to news stories -- especially when the value of archives found via search engines is so high.

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Facebook Overreacts: Decides All Of The Pirate Bay Is Illegal

from the oh-really? dept

I didn't bother writing up the story from a couple weeks back about a The Pirate Bay feature to easily share links to torrents on Facebook, because it wasn't particularly interesting. But, you knew that someone would overreact negatively. The question was whether it would be the entertainment industry or Facebook first. It looks like Facebook may have won. Rather than dealing with it intelligently, it overreacted and has blocked any and all links to The Pirate Bay, noting that due to the ongoing lawsuit and "controversy" it's basically decided to assume all links to The Pirate Bay are infringing and a violation of Facebook's terms of service. Now, it may very well be true that the majority of content shared via The Pirate Bay is unauthorized and infringing. But, even so, this seems to go too far. There are plenty of legitimate uses for The Pirate Bay, and there is a significant number of legitimate offerings on the site. Furthermore a link should not be considered infringing by itself. No copyright is infringed by a link alone. There were plenty of more reasonable ways that Facebook could have handled this, and it chose the sledge hammer approach. And, as David Title points out, the likely end result is merely that an arms race has begun, where The Pirate Bay will create a workaround, and Facebook will have to block yet again...

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Why Didn't The NY Times Properly Forward IHT Links?

from the not-the-most-intelligent-move... dept

At times, the tech geeks at the NY Times show that they understand what it takes to be a modern online newspaper. At other times... it makes you wonder. Valleywag notes that when the New York Times shut down the International Herald Tribune, which reprinted many nytimes.com stories at their IHT.com website, the NYT pointed every IHT link to a single landing page, rather than properly forwarding them to the proper stories at the NY Times -- effectively breaking tons of useful links online (including plenty right here on Techdirt). For a company that was just among those complaining that Google didn't rank its stories high enough, perhaps the powers that be at the NY Times should take a look at its own policies before whining to Google.

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Can A Link, By Itself, Be Copyright Infringement?

from the someone-please-explain dept

A report in Billboard Magazine mentions that the IFPI and the MPA (the global versions of the RIAA and the MPAA respectively) have successfully been able to get ISPs in Mexico to take down 35 blogs which they say contributed to music and movie piracy. Specifically, they charge that the blogs had thousands of "infringing links." Of course, that leads to a rather obvious question: what the hell is an "infringing link"? Is it a link to infringing content? If so, then Google and pretty much any search engine is equally guilty. Simply linking to something, by itself, is not and should not be considered infringement.

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Woman Sues Mayor For Order Demanding She Remove City Links From Her Website

from the abuse-of-power dept

GigaLaw points us to the news of a lawsuit filed by a woman in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, against that city's mayor and other officials for demanding that she remove links to the city's police department from her website. The woman believes that the demand was in response to her own support of an effort to recall the mayor.

Apparently, sometime after this effort, the mayor's secretary asked the city attorney if it was legal for the woman to link to the city's police department website from her web design company's website (totally separate from the website about the mayor's recall). The city attorney told the mayor that a link is perfectly legal -- but offered to send a cease-and-desist anyway, which the mayor approved. The woman says she felt threatened in getting a cease-and-desist from the mayor's office and took the link down.

From the facts presented in the article, this certainly sounds like an abuse of power. There's nothing inherently illegal in just linking to someone else's website, and it appears the city attorney even knew this. So it looks like the mayor and the city attorney decided to send the cease-and-desist anyway to intimidate the woman -- which worked (at least temporarily). While it's not clear if this woman will be able to win any damages, it's good to see her fighting back against what appears to be an abuse of power.

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Latest Sneaky Web Attack: Hijacking Your Clipboard To Post Spammy Links

from the now-that's-creative dept

Spammers and scammers keep upping the game against security researchers, sometimes in creative ways. And, in fact, it would appear that the latest sneaky trick making the rounds is almost admirable in its sneakiness. For example, take a look at this latest hack, which hijacks your clipboard, and repeatedly places a link to a site for fake security software. The hijack takes place through flash advertisements (even those found on legit sites), which is all the more reason to use AdBlock or FlashBlock or NoScript or something to protect you. However, what it's banking on, is the fact that plenty of people quickly cut and paste links they want to send around or post in other blogs and forums. When done quickly, many people won't even notice that they're not pasting the link they thought they cut from elsewhere -- thus getting lots of folks to inadvertently spam links. This must be incredibly annoying for those who get hit with it, but that doesn't take away from the creativeness of the attack itself. Even security researchers, like Mikko Hypponen, are grudgingly tipping their hats on this hack: "It is a pretty clever technique. Our work would be so much easier if our enemy would be stupid."

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Suing Google Because You Don't Like What It Links To

from the another-day,-another-bogus-Google-lawsuit dept

Google's lawyers certainly are kept busy these days, given all the questionable lawsuits that seem to keep showing up. We've already covered numerous examples of Google getting sued by people who don't like how certain sites are ranked -- including last week's story of a Chinese professor who is planning to sue Google (and Yahoo) to call attention to the fact that both search engines have removed all evidence of his existence from their search engines in China (after he called for a more democratic China). Reader Jon writes in to let us know of a slightly different lawsuit against Google. Rather than complaining about missing content, this one is about there being too much content found by Google. That is, two Australian real estate agents are suing Google for linking to an allegedly defamatory article about the agents.

Of course, even if the article is totally and completely defamatory, it's hard to see how Google has any liability whatsoever. If there's a defamatory article, then the liability is on whoever wrote it and put it online. The fact that Google found it in a search shouldn't transfer liability to them -- even if (as the agents indicate) Google was told that the content was defamatory. Google is merely a search engine and cannot be held liable for the content it links to. Hopefully this case gets thrown out of court rather quickly.

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Why Is Business Week Telling People They Can't Link To Its Site?

from the you-got-me dept

We've been linking to Business Week's website for many, many years here on Techdirt. A quick search shows a long list of posts that all link to articles on the Business Week site. In fact, Business Week has hired a PR firm that has often sent us stories, requesting that we write posts to them. I actually found it rather amusing that a publication would have PR people to try to get more buzz about its own articles -- but those PR people were always friendly, and some of the links they sent were actually quite good. Yet, apparently, someone didn't make this clear to other folks at Business Week. Mathew Ingram points us to a post by SmugMug's CEO, who claims that Business Week demanded he take down a link to a story about his company, pointing to this user agreement that forbids deep-linking, among other things. In the past, we've seen other sites make such claims, though none have been shown to be legal. You simply can't forbid someone from linking to you, no matter how much you might wish to do so. It's rather surprising that a site like BusinessWeek.com would have such a policy in place (especially while actively seeking such links from others) and even more surprising that someone there would move to enforce such a policy. In the meantime, if they would prefer it, we can stop linking to Business Week.

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One Year After Google's AP Deal... And Nothing To Show For It (Other Than A Lack Of Lawsuits)

from the makes-you-wonder dept

We were just talking about how confused news organizations are with the fact that Google News gives them free traffic, but it's time to revisit one of the earlier disputes on this topic. In 2005 the Associated Press contacted Google to express their concern over Google News linking to AP content. This, of course, is ridiculous. There is absolutely nothing illegal about linking to content (or including a brief snippet of that content). However, with the AP making a lot of noise about this, last August Google signed a deal with AP, paying them an unknown amount of money to license AP content. This seemed strange -- and, in fact, Google insisted that the deal had absolutely nothing (nothing!) to do with the links to AP content on Google News. Rather, Google insisted, the deal was about some new product that would make use of licensed AP content. Well, some have noticed that an entire year has gone by and no such product has been revealed. It's looking more and more like Google simply paid the Associated Press off to prevent a lawsuit (and, possibly, to put pressure on Google News competitors to pay off news organizations as well). Perhaps Google really is working on a new product that will use AP content -- but in the meantime, it looks like it paid the AP for a year's worth of content it didn't need to pay for.

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