MediaSavvy

Way back in 2002, I blogged “Let a thousand top-level domains bloom“. How about a million? A billion?
ICANN wants to allow anyone with the gumption and the tech chops to own their own top-level domain.
When we end the artificial scarcity of domain names, we’ll end the artificially high prices for “dot-com” domains. The idea of anything dot com will be as quaint as the 4:30 autogyro to the Prussian consulate in Siam.
Sure, it will create some problems with fraud and trademarks. But we have these already and restricting TLD’s is not the solution. I’m done with the current terrible system that gives registrars first grab at expiring domains so they can “auction” them off to the only interested bidder. And I can’t wait until I no longer see the term “domainer” on the net.
But mainly I can’t wait until I can auction off the rights to microsoft.parr and google.parr.
Originally published on my blog at JupiterResearch.

The Associated Press’s “Don’t quote us” policy is worse than I feared.
Not only are they employing DMCA takedown notices against clear cases of Fair Use and requiring payments for quoting as few as five words — their proposed licensing agreement has an anti-disparagement clause:

You shall not use the Content in any manner or context that will be in any way derogatory to the author, the publication from which the Content came, or any person connected with the creation of the Content or depicted in the Content. You agree not to use the Content in any manner or context that will be in any way derogatory to or damaging to the reputation of Publisher, its licensors, or any person connected with the creation of the Content or referenced in the Content [Ö]
Publisher reserves the right to terminate this Agreement at any time if Publisher or its agents finds Your use of the licensed Content to be offensive and/or damaging to Publisherís reputation.

Of course, this is exactly one kind case that Fair Use is intended to protect — criticism of poor reporting.
What’s interesting, and unknown right now, is the degree to which this policy was vetted by the AP’s board, which is made up of newspaper owners. There is no doubt that this policy is bad for AP’s owners, who depend on links (and the quotes that go with them) for a big chunk of their direct traffic, as well as their Google juice.
Personally, I’m observing this policy by posting some AP content to my (other) blog.
Originally published on my blog at JupiterResearch.

I was surprised to find myself mildly sympathetic to the AP’s desire to keep bloggers from quoting from its stories. After all, unlike just about every other media organization on the planet, the AP doesn’t have a web business to promote. The distribution of AP stories to its clients is its core business and one that could be arguably threatened by unfair reuse. I’m also struggling to remain objective, because regularly I quote my local papers at length all the time in my own local blog — with their encouragement — but always urging my readers to read the whole story at the source.
But, ultimately, I don’t see how the AP can be right about this, and I suspect they’ll come to their senses.
The AP’s clients benefit from the traffic generated by these blog links. We’ve been encouraging them to seek out local bloggers to quote and link to their stories. This is going to complicate the outreach efforts of AP’s customers.
But the real reason is more simple, which can be seen in these 101 words I’m quoting from the New York Times story linked above:

“The principal question is whether the excerpt is a substitute for the story, or some established adaptation of the story,” said Timothy Wu, a professor at the Columbia Law School. Mr. Wu said that the case is not clear-cut, but he believes that The A.P. is likely to lose a court case to assert a claim on that issue.
“Itís hard to see how the Drudge Retort ëfirst few linesí is a substitute for the story,” Mr. Wu said.
Mr. Kennedy argued, however, that The Associated Press believes that in some cases, the essence of an article can be encapsulated in very few words.

If the essence of the article can be encapsulated a very few words, I’d argue that it wasn’t much of a story in the first place. Just as, I assure you, I didn’t capture the essence of the Times’ story above. It’s a much better piece of work than that. I urge you to read it at the source.
Originally published on my blog at JupiterResearch.