COPYCENSE

Commentary by K. Matthew Dames, Executive Editor

In a direct attempt to compete with Google’s News offering, Yahoo! has launched a beta version of Yahoo! News. Yahoo News is a blend of bots and brains, as human editors refine the listings that the automated search algorithm produces. Like its competitor, the Yahoo News page will allow users to customize the interface using cookies.

What remains to be seen is whether Yahoo! News will encounter some of the copyright problems that Google News has begun to encounter. Last month, Google dropped Agence France Presse ("AFP") from it source list after the French news service sued Google, claiming that Google’s display of AFP’s headlines, images and story leads without permission ran afoul of U.S. copyright law. Earlier this month, news wire giant Associated Press announced that it was discussing with Google the possibility of licensing its content to the search company. Google currently uses the AP feeds in its News service without compensation.

In a talk I gave last week on Open Access, I drew a parallel between these actions taken by news industry giants, and the lawsuits lodged against consumers by the recording industry. In both instances, technological advances have disrupted the business and profit models that established companies in established industries have followed for years. In each instance, the response of established companies (or their lobbying organizations) has been to sue, either to maintain profit margins, or to maintain the status quo until another profitable business model can be developed. (Conistent with this approach, we may see AFP and AP join Reed-Elsevier and Thomson in promoting database protection legislation before Congress.)

And in each instance, this strategy totally misses the boat.

As has occurred in the music industry, the value of content in the news industry has been diminished. It seems clear that consumers are less likely to want to pay for most kinds of content, be it music, artistic, or journalistic. And when it comes to news content, people do not expect to pay at all. One could reasonably argue that this is shameful or wrong; be what it may, it is simply the way things are.

On the other hand, consumers seem willing to pay premium prices for content that includes something that adds value to the content. There are several ways that companies that specialize in providing printed content can add value: static citations, optimized PDFs, and multimedia enhancements are some of the initiatives that come to my mind.

With the advent of RSS, the trend toward open access (particularly outside the United States), and the decreased relevance of print material as a primary information source, the news industry is in the exact same position as the music industry. Hopefully, companies in the news industry will be smarter than their brethren in music and film and leverage new, disruptive, and distributive technologies into new customers and revenue streams instead of desperately clinging to business models that will render them extinct regardless of their legislative and litigation tactics.

See also:
Mark Glaser. Inside Yahoo News. Online Journalism Review. April 1, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ Covering the Intersection of Collaboration and Technology in our New Afternoon Edition. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"The digitization of the world�s enormous store of library books�an effort dating to the early 1990s in the United Kingdom, the United States, and elsewhere�has been a slow, expensive, and underfunded process.

"But last December librarians received a pleasant shock. Search-engine giant Google announced ambitious plans to expand its ‘Google Print’ service by converting the full text of millions of library books into searchable Web pages.

"Most librarians and archivists are ecstatic about the announcement, saying it will likely be remembered as the moment in history when society finally got serious about making knowledge ubiquitous."

Wade Roush. The Infinite Library. Technology Review. May 2005.

SNTReport.com™ Covering the Intersection of Collaboration and Technology. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"What are ‘orphan works,’ why are they important, and why I have I heard so much about them recently?

"This FAQ is answered by Peter Hirtle, Technology Strategist and Intellectual Property Officer for Cornell University Library."

Peter Hirtle. Adopting "Orphan Works". RLG DigiNews. April 15, 2005.

Editor’s note See also SNTReport.com’s prior story on orphan works.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"Internet users consumed more bandwidth than ever last year, driven by the growing popularity of peer-to-peer networks and heightened demand for video files.

"Burgeoning demand also prompted internet carriers to upgrade their network capacity to handle the upswing in traffic, a new report indicates.

"According to TeleGeography, a telecommunications research firm, international demand for bandwidth grew 42 percent in 2004, with the largest upswing in usage coming from Asian nations."

Joanna Glasner. P2P Fuels Global Bandwidth Binge. Wired News. April 14, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"The BBC is making 20 more radio shows available for listeners to download onto their digital music players.

"People will be able to download shows, such as technology programme Go Digital and some Radio 1 audio, in a trial."

BBC News. BBC Radio Podcasts 20 More Shows. April 15, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"Jennifer Urban, a law professor at USC, wanted to watch home movies of her 7-month-old nephew Peter in England, but nothing seemed to work. The videotapes and DVDs were in the wrong format, and the digital movie files were too big to e-mail. Then Urban hit on a software program called Grouper. And in addition to movies of her nephew, Grouper offers Urban, who specializes in copyright law, insight into how technology is testing the boundaries of copyright in a digital age.

"Grouper allows Urban to copy movies and pictures of young Peter directly from her brother and sister-in-law’s computer without worrying about formats or oversized e-mail attachments. Unlike those global networks with millions of users, though, Grouper also lets Urban pick and choose with whom she shares online — and sets a strict limit of 30 people per group.

"What makes Grouper troubling to some entertainment industry executives are the other things people can do with it."

Jon Healey. Testing Copyright Limits. LATimes.com. April 12, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ Covering the Intersection of Collaboration and Technology in our New Afternoon Edition. A Seso Group™ Venture.