Outlawing Links Won't Save Newspapers

I continue to be blown away by what I read about how newspapers can be saved. The latest comes from U.S. Appeals Court Judge Richard Posner who, in a blog post last week, suggested that one way to save newspapers from their demise would be “to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent.”

Are you freakin’ kidding me?

For the record, I did not get the judge’s consent to paraphrase him, quote him or link to his blog post. And because I’m not required by law (yet) to do so, I can still share it with you readers, providing you with information that you otherwise might not have seen. Isn’t that what the news business is all about? Sharing information.

After all, that’s how I stumbled upon the judge’s blog post - through a post on Barron’s Tech Trader Daily that also chimed in on the judge’s post. No, I didn’t obtain the consent of Barron’s or author Eric Savitz to link back to his post - but then again, Eric didn’t obtain permission to link back to the judge’s post either.

The point being: had Eric not linked to it, I might never have seen it. Had I not seen it, I never would have been able to share it with you. If you’re a journalist, what’s more important - sharing your work with the largest audience possible or blocking it from anyone who doesn’t ask for permission or cough up some money?

One other thing about the judge’s post: he writes that “…a newspaper with shrinking revenues can shrink its costs only by reducing the number of reporters, columnists, and editors…”

Hogwash.

Sure, reporter salaries can add up - but having worked in this business for nearly two decades, I can say with confidence that no one in those newsrooms is buying yachts or spending their summers at the summer house on the Hamptons. Well, no one sitting in a cubicle, that is.

One of the problems with newspapers today is that the industry still has the word “paper” in it. When I worked for a newspaper, we constantly heard about the rising costs of actually printing the paper - the paper itself, the ink, the presses, the salaries of the people who operate the press. That doesn’t even count the transportation costs - trucks that need fuel and maintenance, insurance and, of course, the salaries of the people who drive those trucks.

Newspapers are broken. There’s no doubt about that. But outlawing links to copyrighted material seems just a bit on the extreme side, dontcha think? Newspaper executives can blame the Internet for their woes if that makes them feel better - but they shouldn’t be mad at me or Google (GOOG) because their business model is broken.

Newspaper executives have been making bad decisions for a long time - and continue to do so with every pink slip they hand out. Do they really think that getting rid of the journalists - and their “fat paychecks” - is the way to bring readers and advertisers back?

On the contrary. They’re picking away at the very thing that makes them valuable - the journalism - and, in the process, they’re sending readers elsewhere for their news.

Comments

[Tim H.:]

Sam you are wrong!!! When a website such as Huffington Post reports a story rephrasing the headline and commenting on subject. Then links the story with a paraphrase: READ THE WHOLE STORY HERE. The link in turns takes you to say... Wash Post story. The Post or any newspaper/print media should be entitled to some kind of revenue payment as compensation. SINCE the website is using that journalist work and his employer is not being compensated for the money said journalist is being paid to report. In a nutshell you are wrong Sam. Same goes with AP's complaint against Google. These web site's should pay a royalty fee to print media content which they are using for free. Then proclaiming the death of newspapers. Freedom of press will sorely be harmed if all print operations seize to exist. Web only sites do not have the financial resources to do say Watergate reporting. Nor do they have the journalistic integrity with regards to in depth investigative reporting. This topic may not save newspapers. But they have a legit complaint. I hope newspaper's SUE online sites for filfering their content for free and gaining AD revenue at their expense. You are flat wrong and no suprise by your opinion considering who butters your bread Sam.

Jul 02 04:30 PM

[Warro:]

As usual, the Seeking Alpha gang is trying to say that using someone's hard work and capital investment for free is not theft. Rationalize it all you want boys and girls....

Jul 02 04:45 PM

[Windsun33:]

You are totally missing the point, which is not surprising - so have 95% of all the newspapers.


On Jul 02 04:45 PM Warro wrote:

> As usual, the Seeking Alpha gang is trying to say that using someone's
> hard work and capital investment for free is not theft. Rationalize
> it all you want boys and girls....

Jul 02 10:37 PM

[notsosmart:]

dead papers printing.judge posner(old?) doesnt get it.the coming generations dont need newspapers or buggywhips(thats been solved.) a local paper for obits,sales,charity events,local politics & editorials will survive on a very limited basis.i was watching tv when the news of m.jackson's illness & death was announced.now what wait for the next days times or wash.post,etc? between tv & the net the world is covered.get used to it.things change for better or worse quickly.

Jul 03 09:36 AM

[kpnwsalive:]

Sam who paid you to post this? Who paid them? The issue is that without some kind of commerce to support the content from origin throughout the "link stream" the process will break. It is currently subsidized by the print revenue engine and weakly propped up by the online ad content surrounding it. I am not saying that it should be supported by print forever, but without a transaction layer (or some financial model) to fuel the distribution of this content it is unsustainable. Help to deliver the ideas to financially support the model rather than take the "print is dead" approach to solving this problem.

Jul 03 12:16 PM

[BRUCE E. W.:]

It would be tragically ironic if the guarantee of our free press was inadvertantly subverted by a financial attachment to the 1st amendment. Participatory democracy is "linked" to an ability to freely discuss issues and electronic media facilitates that process. Richard Posner and his Chicago school of economic law is playing game theory with justice and in the process has myopically threatened the open ability of public discourse to actually be free flowing. Links, of course, are tantamount to footnotes and citations. As such they are indespensible as tools for intelligent discussion that can be substantiated. Richard Posner is simply looking for a one dimensional soulution to creating Pareto Efficiency by compensation (Kaldor-Hicks efficiency). By doing so he neglects the wider implications on the 1st Amendment. But perhaps "supply side" normative allocations are a token efficiency that would serve a privlidged class? After all, only those people who could afford to utilize a link or pay its court ordered compensations would be permitted to engage in well documented discourse.

Jul 03 11:39 PM

[Wisdom vs. ...:]

and writing hysterical blogs will not make Posner wrong. people will not create unless compensated, that is the point and it is irrefutable; and bruce, demand side monetary policy slowly ruined our econonmy 1962-1978, supply side built it from 1978-1992, then demand side slowly killed it from 1992 (arguable, when did Treasury policy start outweighing the Fed? were ADA and EEOC bigger factors?) to current, so supply side 3, demand side 0, during my lifetime, thanks for proving the opposite of your point. oh wait, did you mean supply side 1st amendment policy? supply side serves everyone who likes freedom and building wealth, and demand side serves everyone who is already rich, as we have seen in the past

Jul 04 01:22 AM