Prediction: the AP will not exist in 10 years

I've blogged about the A.P.'s odd journalistic logic before (as have many others), but this is sure going to turn some heads: declaring that search results, links, quotes and the brief synopses used by news aggregation sites like Google News represent a violation of copyright law's Fair Use doctrine, the AP will hereby attempt to control links to any of its online articles. To monitor use of their content, all AP articles will soon house software they call a "wrapper" that will send data back to headquarters, and they have urged all other news organizations to do the same.

Certainly, the problems of profitizing news in the internet era are legion. As this Economist article notes, it costs a fantastic amount of money to maintain a worldwide network of editors and journalists – and that's exactly what good news requires.

My hopes lie with a microtransaction model of payment such as the one proposed by Journalism Online, where readers would pay cents per article rather than dollars per newspaper. Though it wouldn’t remove news organizations’ temptation to emphasize popularity over quality, it would at least solve one major problem: the ability to responsibly use news searches to read multiple articles on a given subject. While I’m happy to pay for news, I don’t trust any one newspaper to get it all right, all the time: better to rely on multiple streams of information that allow choice over what to read.

(I’d be particularly enthusiastic about a solution that charges based on the actual cost of production and distribution, which would share the cost across the entire readership: the more readers, the cheaper the cost to each individual. If the charge could be delayed a week or so for the number of readers to accumulate, it would create a marvelous incentive to share.)

Perhaps this move by the AP is the first towards such a model. Frankly, though, they don’t seem to be that smart.

For one thing, although they cloak their attempts to control content in legal language, they will not pursue any legal recourse against those who quote or link to their articles: “We’re not picking the legal remedy today,” says Tom Curley, AP CEO president. Why? As the above-linked NYTimes article on the subject remarks, “Executives at some news organizations have said they are reluctant to test the Internet boundaries of fair use, for fear that the courts would rule against them.”

No shit. While reproducing an entire article for profit would probably violate fair use, the AP doesn't have a prayer of arguing against internet links and short quotes in court. The relevant law comes from Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 107 of the US Code:

[T]he fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Note the emphasis on criticism, comment and news reporting. While the AP could try to make an argument based on the scale of the internet’s use of their content and its effect on their bottom line, really no court is going to rule that a headline and a link violates fair use. Yet rather than viewing the links as FREE ADVERTISING, that is precisely what the AP claims.

The campaign might make sense with enormous, successful, for-profit companies like Google: get them to share some of their still-climbing profits with the organizations that provide them with higher quality search results. But negotiations like that take place behind closed doors, not in such a public sphere. Also, Google News already has a licensing agreement with the AP.

No, they’re targeting people like, well, us here at The Train of Thought. (For the record, we make no money here.) For my part, if they don’t want me linking to their articles, then I won’t link to their articles. But lord knows why they want that.

Their stated goal is “not to have less use of the news articles, but to be paid for any use.” I agree, journalists should be paid. But the AP appears to be adopting an attitude of petulant extinction. Seriously: you want to increase traffic by taking a belligerent stance towards the non-profit blogs, aggregators and search engines that direct traffic your way? Good luck. Way to be, as they saying goes, dead right.

Recent Developments in Journalism I: I Want My Rocky

As media institutions around the country face increasingly sever economic challenges, the closing of Colorado's oldest newspaper, The Rocky Mountain News, sounded as loud an alarm bell as the NYT's freefalling profits.

But in an inspiring reaction to the close, the paper's journalists didn't stop reporting. Instead, a group of former editors, reporters and staffers started a new, professional-looking group blog called I Want My Rocky, with the tagline "Colorado’s oldest newspaper stopped publishing Feb. 27, 2009, but it didn’t die." They even stole the "R" web symbol from their deceased institution.

It's tragic that the increased emphasis on blogging has damaged the economic viability of quality media in this country. But it's possible – and I stress possible – that the Rocky's experiment will pave the way for creative solutions to the fundamental shift that is coming to the industry. If they can maintain the interest of the former Rocky's subscriber base while offering greater freedom (and perhaps personal recognition) to the reporters, then they might just end up with an even better product than before.

And at the very least, this represents another step in the continual blurring of the boundaries between blogging and traditional journalism.

The Onion Reports Real News As Though It Were Not

In an article entitled Area Woman Becomes Republican Vice Presidential Candidate, The Onion raises the most substantive challenge to the reality/satire distinction since Henry Kissinger won the 1973 peace prize in real life:

WASILLA, AK—In a dramatic capper to a year that already saw her son's hockey team go to district finals, a successful remodeling of the den, and her scoring of front-row tickets to a traveling production of the Broadway smash hit Les Misérables, Wasilla resident and former beauty queen Sarah Palin, 44, was chosen as the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee. The mother of five, who enjoys attending church potluck dinners with husband Todd, an unemployed commercial fisherman, reportedly "jumped at the chance" to become the second most powerful person in the country. "Oh, what a nice thing for [GOP running mate] Sarah [Palin]," said Debbie McInnes, who met Palin two years ago at an advanced step aerobics class at the Wasilla YMCA. "She's such a good person, and so pretty! I think she'd be super-enthusiastic to take on that job." Although Palin ultimately never got the chance to come within a heartbeat of ruling a global superpower and its 300 million citizens, she said she was happy enough to have beaten out the other potential Republican VP candidates, including a Nebraska receptionist and a congresswoman from Ohio with more than 20 years of political experience.

Oh Sarah, how you have felled the mighty.

Vinny Cerrato is beyond ridiculous

For the past few weeks, I've been planning a comprehensive post on my conflicting feelings when it comes to supporting the Washington Redskins. Ultimately, I'll continue to love and root for the Skins simply because it's what I've done for as long as I can remember. Still, with an insane owner who surrounds himself with yes men, not to mention the abomination that is the team's nickname, you start to feel somewhat guilty to be a Redskins fan.

When it comes to yes men, there is none more demented or powerful than Vinny Cerrato, the recently promoted EXECUTIVE vice president of football operations, which is about a hundred syllables longer than just calling him the general manager just to piss everybody off (JJ pointed out Cerrato's pretentiousness here before).  I wasn't even going to get into the idiocy of him hosting his own radio show, but in only his second segment, he took his well known feud with Washington Post Redskins beat reporter Jason La Canfora to an all-time low by accusing him of calling the NFL to charge the Redskins with tampering.

From the D.C. Sports Bog:

Cerrato: Ok, let me read the tampering rule. It says about head coaches: "During a club's playing season, no club may request permission to discuss employment with a head coach for the current or future season." Last time I checked, Frank, we do have a head coach, and there was no discussion there of anything to do with a head coach or job opportunities. All it was was discussing his opportunity with a guy from NFL Network, Adam Schefter, who that's his job is to talk about these things. And that's what we discussed, about him being fired, which will probably happen today from what everybody's reporting. And there was also mention that I read on Pro Football Talk about him possibly going to Syracuse. So I don't see why Jason La Canfora would call the league office to charge us with tampering.

Michael: Vinny, Vinny.

Cerrato: Yes George?

Michael: Let me ask you this. If it were tampering--and that is a very serious thing--if it were tampering, what would happen to the Redskins?

Cerrato: Well, this George: If we were caught tampering, we would lose draft picks and be fined heavily. Look at the New England Patriots, Minnesota Vikings, a lot of teams that have had these things happen lately. You're gonna get fined heavily. So this guy, one of the reasons I want to do this show, George, is to give my opinion on these things, so when things come up I can voice my opinion. But when a guy is trying to hurt the franchise of the Washington Redskins, I'm gonna stand up and I'm gonna defend the Washington Redskins. Because there is nothing that happened on that, this is just a guy attacking us, and I wish that he would just be professional like the rest of his colleagues that cover the Redskins. Period.

Hanrahan: Vinny, my question is how did you find out that...?

Cerrato: The NFL called.

Hanrahan: Ok, they called you? And what did they say?

Cerrato: They just thought it was kind of a joke. They were just giving us a heads-up that Jason La Canfora called and wondering....I mean, it was ridiculous, you know? Maybe he should be out at practice watching practice, George.

This is just shameful, clear evidence that Cerrato and Snyder have it out for La Canfora. The Washington Post's sports editor responded to the accusations on La Canfora's blog, the Redskins Insider:

Emilio Garcia-Ruiz asked me to share this with you:

We've had some calls and emails about statements made today by Vinny Cerrato, who said on his radio show that Post reporter Jason LaCanfora had called "the league office to charge us with tampering."

Jason did not "charge" anyone with anything. He called the NFL's public relations staff last week to ask how the league's anti-tampering rules would come into play if Vinny Cerrato answered a question during his new radio show about a player or coach under contract to another team. Sports radio hosts are often asked these sorts of questions, and we were curious whether Cerrato would be limited in the way he could respond by virtue of his position as a team GM.

Jason did not make any sort of complaint whatsoever. (In fact, reporters cannot charge teams with violations of NFL rules. Only other teams can file charges like tampering.) He referred to Cerrato's questions about Raiders coach Lane Kiffin only to provide context for the question he was asking. He did not write about the issue.

It's clear that La Canfora wasn't "charging" the Redskins of anything, as he's not even able to do so as a sportswriter (it would have to come from a fellow NFL executive or official). The Redskins brass don't like him because he writes negative things about the team. Guess what guys... that's called journalism, you idiots! He is supposed to provide an unbiased perspective of the team and I think he does that well. Having guys like this in charge of my favorite team is as infuriating as it is insulting.

How can Redskins fans defend behavior like this? The sad truth is that we can't and devoted fans are forced to root for the Skins in spite of their ownership.