What’s one of the basic philosophies of the Internet?
The link.
By nature, websites are interlinked and content is discovered. Search engines link based on user queries, bloggers publish critique and commentary, and we can drift either aimlessly or with a purpose around cyberspace for hours and hours.
Simply following links.
So when the link is threatened by bureaucrats in repressed organisations that either don’t get the Internet, or want to play in it on their own terms, it’s time to sit up and take notice.
I’ve seen some pretty stupid “linking policies” over time, but they’re usually published by small websites and are a good source of ridicule.
When the big boys of media start shouting about it, you can still ridicule them, but unfortunately there’s also the possibility they might swing things their way.
Take Rupert Murdoch, for example. He’s the head honcho at News International, a beast of a media company that owns… pretty much everything. Or so it seems.
He wants to put a wall around most of his content, and stop search engines linking to it. Apparently, the tradition of linking and fair-use quoting is not OK in his eyes.
He’s not the only one, either.
Despite the fact that many more traditional news organisations have been proven to steal content, without attribution, from blogs and other online sources, when anyone innocently links (with full attribution) to one of their websites, that’s labelled stealing.
There’s even a ridiculous notion that publishers of any size or motivation would need to seek permission for every link they want to use (to an objecting web site).
Pathetic.
It’s true that there are many sites that rip off content. No-one’s immune.
Yet I don’t see what the problem is with links to original source material when a writer wishes to comment on that.
It seems that these media moguls don’t want the free publicity that search engines, bloggers and anyone linking via social networks can provide.
Maybe we should all voluntarily stop linking to those publishers that object so much, and simply find sites that embrace the spirit of the Internet instead.
Long live the link!
The goal for this idea is to stop feeds like Google News from linking to stories that normally require a paid subscription. With many print news sources putting their content online for free, the sales of those news sources has decreased dramatically.
Now, I’m no fan of Rupert Murdoch or News Corp (I think you’re thinking of News Corporation, the larger company of which Rupert is the CEO, and not News International, which is a British publisher under the umbrella of News Corp), but If no one is willing to pay for the news they need, professional journalism will become non-existent. Someone needs to pay for it. Just something to keep in mind, that’s all.
FG rocks!
Ahh yeah, News Int, News Corp. I get them and the Murdochs mixed up :)
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