Hyperlinks: The End of Online Journalism?
GateHouse Media Inc. and The New York Times Co. will be facing each other in federal court this week in a fascinating case that is sure to be followed closely by bloggers and journalists across the nation.
GateHouse, one of the largest publishers of community newspapers in the United States, filed a copyright infringement suit last month claiming that the Globes' new local Web sites are using material without permission. The New York Times Co. is the parent company of The Boston Globe.
In what will likely be a precedent setting case for new media, GateHouse claims Boston.com is violating copyright and trademark laws by republishing headlines and lead sentences from GateHouse Wicked Local sites on Boston.com, linking to the original articles [on the Wicked Local sites] and as a result allowing visitors to bypass ads posted on the GateHouse home page. GateHouse also claims this is creating confusion about the source of the original story.
Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for The New York Times last month said the company believes GateHouse's claims are "without merit."
"Boston.com's local pages, like hundreds of other news sites, aggregate headlines and snippets of relevant stories published on the Web. They link back to the originating site where the interested user can read the entire article," Mathis said in a statement on Dec. 22. "Far from being illegal or improper, this practice of linking to sites is common and is familiar to anyone who has searched the Web. It is fair and benefits both Web users and the originating site."
Jeff Jarvis, who has been following the case on his blog BuzzMachine sees this as a danger to journalism. Many people would agree. "Gatehouse should be sucking Boston.com's toes begging for more links, not siccing lawyers on them," writes Jarvis in a post last month. "The move is not just brain dead but dangerous, for it threatens the ecology of links that I believe will be the underpinning of news online. Links are how original journalism will be supported."
If you're not familiar with the case, you can get some background by reading the two versions of the story. Boston.com's has published its take here, and GateHouse here.
Photo Credit: Dezz
UPDATE: Case settled out-of court
Thanks Matt and Jeffrey for pointing out the case has been settled. You can read the Agreement here (PDF). It was settled out-of-court, which may be fortunate or unfortunate depending on how you look at it. As it was an out-of-court settlement, there will be no judicial precedent set.
Comments
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Jarvis and everyone else thinking this the end of pisse-pauvre online journalism is talking complete and utter bolllocks.
There is plenty of prior art and fair use wotsit to say so.
However, Jarvis and y'all would be better off focusing on the increasingly tight chokehold of copyright and IP legislation, which is where the real threat lies.
What a farce - reminds me of some websites that are "not allowing" deep links, while the easiest way is to test for the referrer header field and redirect to the appropiate higher level or bouncer page.
If they cannot capitalize on boston globe traffic with viewer numbers, pre-rolls, or ads, they should be put out of business
Of course the threat must lie with copyright and IP legislation, which must be destroyed so that we can all live off magically infinite advertising revenue.
While there's a lot that's wrong/bad about this case, the key question is whether the links are driving increased views revenues (the position we'd like to hope / believe) or leading to decreased views / ad-revenue, in favour of the aggregating site.
Because that's a pretty important thing to know - is the balance in favour of large aggregators (who are going to be a lot better at selling more cost-effective ad-space) who don't really care where content comes from (so long as they don't have to pay for it) or do aggregators help drive the 2nd-tier business?
We cannot just presume the answer we want.
This is crazy. I dont see how any sane judge can rule in favour.
This won't lead to "the end of online journalism", this will lead only to decrease in traffic for GateHouse Media Inc. and other companies like them, which is good. Boston Globe and others just won't publish links to the stories from such sites.
The possibility of being sued for hyperlinking some other's page seems 'dangerous' but it's too crazy.
What about Social News aggregating sites like digg and reddit which provide none of the content themselves? Will they be the next target Gatehouse and companies who feel that way?
Also, do you ever envision having to pay to use a hyper link? Not that I am at all in favor of charging for links but it could be one way around the situation.
I agree that this will be an interesting case to follow. I didn't see an RSS feed on the Wicked Local site. If there was one, then the case would be thrown out because that is an invitation to use the links and leads. Without it, then it seems that fair use is more the question.
The issue of 'driving more traffic' because of the links might not be clear cut as well. If you are driving more traffic to the offended site, then you could easily argue that they are getting benefit, so why complain. But what happens, if in the process of driving more traffic, you are also driving more traffic to a competitor. That all of the sudden negates the added traffic, and if the competitor is actually gaining a higher percentage of traffic or business as a result, then it could be detramental to the have the links copied. There could be a long term negative impact.
Similar situations are occurring where companies are copying title and descriptions from third party sites and then requiring registration (thus charging) to get to the links of those article. Does fair use break down if the companies using the links are 'profiting' from the use of those links?
Again, I think this is a case worth watching...
On a personal note I think:
1. Weblogging may die if we are not allowed to quote someone.(Like I have done above to ReadWriteWeb).
2. Plagiarism is bad but every story on Internet is inspired by some one.
I'm torn here. I have met many local paper editors who feel any sort of attention (whether it be getting online or having links to their content online) will cut into their business.
The argument: "We don't want to cannibalize our content"
On the other hand, you have papers like the Times Union in Albany (disclosure: I blog for them), that actively tweets, diggs, stumbles, and encourages folks to link to them. They (and other Hearst papers) know there is money to be made from large inbound links and high page ranks.
I feel for the little guy. Most local owners I've met are a bit older than us social media folks and just when they think they are caught up with MySpace here comes Twitter, you know?
So just food for thought. Don't rush to judge newspaper owners who are wary of inbound links or their content being aggregated is what I am looking to say.
This case has been settled.
The case was settled today. Read more.
No details were made public - anyone have any additional info?
Wow...I would really hate having those referring links from a high-traffic site to my content. Wouldn't want my natural search rankings going up like that ; ) As one comment says, they simply need to find a way to capitalize on the content. If the homepage is the only place they show ads, the Boston.com traffic source opens up a whole new revenue stream for them with article-specific ad units. Google text ads, more targeted dispaly ads, etc. This is a blessing, not a curse.
Seriously? They cant win this thing... Am waiting until Google 'loans' NYT some lawyers just to make sure that nothing fundamental about the web changes
You can read the terms of the settlement here.
@Thorsten – It really is. It’s unfortunate that they don’t realize the benefits of having Boston.com link to them; it’s a typical example of why MSM is getting such a bad rap.
@Pallab – Yep, it really is. Luckily its been settled, but still, the idea that linking is wrong? C’mon...
@bloomdido – Probably not, but these types of things only hinder the progression forward.
@SMS – I think you’ve hit the nail on the head – is that what the ultimate aim is? I have no problem with people paying for links, I have a problem when it is not disclosed that the link is paid. And, I’ve heard of some traditional media organizations still doing just that – that's just not good.
@Joe – You’re right. In time, I expect there will be standards set, but for right now, it seems we have to watch the mess unfold ;)
@Manpreet It’s a tricky situation. The Web is world wide, fair use and copyright laws are usually either state or federal. Until there is some common standard we’ll continue watching these types of cases come up.
@Brandon I understand what you are saying, but I also believe newspaper owners understand business, and part of their business now includes the online world.
While they may not be involved with the Web or understand it (or even like it) I’d like to think they have enough business savvy to realize its time to learn new lessons, implement new ideas and move forward if they want to succeed
Thanks Jeffrey and Matt for pointing out that the case has been settled; I’ll post the link at the end of the post.
@Eric – I think as Brandon points out above, many owners don’t realize that there are benefits. We’re still living in a time when education about the Web is paramount.
@Mike – haha – I like that.