We are trying an experiment here. Rather than rewrite a post we have made on another of our blogs we have set forth the link below. That blog is for general counsel but the point is applicable to digital matters.
Here is a summary:
An article in The New York Times Magazine on Sunday March 14th on basketball provides an object lesson that you should own whatever data may emerge from any digital initiatives memorialized in a legal agreement.
Site Scraping Gets Rough
March, 2009
Why this matters: traffic=ad revenues. Scraping gets riskier.
Last month, the New York Times Corporation settled a suit brought by Gatehouse Media Inc., which runs websites for 125 Massachusetts newspapers. The NYT’s Boston Globe was essentially scraping the Gatehouse sites.
Technically (and this distinction is important), the Globe site was returning readers TO the page of the article. Gatehouse complained that readers were bypassing the ads on the home page. This is interesting.
Intuitively, one would think that a large number of readers who were returned to the Gatehouse site (albeit at a subsidiary page) would in fact go to the gatehouse homepage. But no, Gatehouse wanted more (rightly or wrongly). It also turns out that Gatehouse could figure out how to block this process, which probably led to the NYT offering to settle–so as to avoid case law that goes against them.
So what?
Sites regularly scrape or otherwise link to other sites–usually to the subsidiary pages. We get a lot of people asking of us if they can do it. Well, this case—though settled and therefore not an opinion for purposes of precedent–suggests (to no one’s surprise) that doing so will subject you to legal challenge that will cost a lot to defend.
It makes sense, too. Again, no opinion as to whether it is right or wrong, legal or not, but common sense should tell us that people who own the rights and go to the trouble of posting content where they want it posted should be able to control access to it.
Of course, Google is another matter.
The Paper Is Dead! Long Live the Paper!
March, 2009
As of St. Patrick’s Day, much had already been written about the “death” of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer print edition, which the parent company, the Hearst Corporation, shut down on that green day. The paper is now web only, with twenty in the newsroom, down from about 160.
This is not the only news about newspapers these days but, to me, what is most important is the content plan of the P-I site. Here’s my take:
Little original content (weird).
Include existing blogs (good but unstable; if they are that good they will leave for a better gig.)
Links to other sites: While many news sites do this, is it really wise? Link to other sources within the Hearst family (see below).
Local government officials as columnists: Now there’s a thriller. Snore.
Hearst magazine content: This is a good idea. Hearst owns numerous magazines. Repurpose the content AND link to the magazine sites. Keep the traffic in the family. This is probably a good idea.
How they will differentiate themselves from the sites of local TV stations remains to be seen. At least the inclusion of commentary may make it fresh.
What seems to be missing from the reports of the plans are social networking and UGC functionality. Local Little League teams or AYSO teams should be invitted to create their pages there. It would cost the P-I little to enable such additional pages to be created.
In that approach, they could become something of a virtual community center. But whatever direction they take, they should build a brand–or build on the brand they have, which is a pretty good one. And, the good news in all this: the newspaper industry now has a testbed–one of many more to come in the very near future, like the next couple of months, given the terror felt (rightly or wrongly) by newspaper corporate owners.
Long live the paper!
Full disclosure: a variation on this blog will be (or has been) posted on the blog “Convergent Realities” at www.thectcnetwork.org.
Hollywood Pros to Post on YouTube?
January, 2009
The William Morris Agency just cut a deal with YouTube that will enable YT to display professionally-produced videos–presumably with the famous actors in the WM stables. We like this idea: In fact, it’s about time. Here’s why:
1. Low production quality is he standard on YT; it will be good to see something worth seeing.
2. Almost paradoxically, that which is of good (production) quality is the copyrighted material from the studios–i.e., professionaly-produced.
3. The problem with the material mentioned in #2 above is that most of it is pirated–or at least no one is getting paid for it.
4. This (and their other deals with the studios) may actually make some money.
5. Besides, YT is a good platform–now it can get better.
6. Oh yes, I forgot: YT now has credible competition in this space. Hulu.com.
