The Business Beat

The incomplete story from Tallahassee.

An editorial about the strike in the Famuan Online.

* Accessing the Famuan online requires registration. Ugh.

Yesterday, a post to the CMA listserv mentioned students “borrowing” from the Web for material in their student newspaper. Such borrowing is, in many instances, wrong and a violation of copyright. However, there are legitimate means of obtaining material for use in student publications without running afoul of copyright law. Stock Xchange is a stock photography website that offers unrestricted use of most images, and the images are usually high resolution. There is also Creative Commons, a system that allows copyright owners to let others use their original works without having to ask permission. I wrote about CC in May of this year: Creative Commons.

Today, we find out that some of the newspapers in the Gatehouse Media fold have embraced the Creative Commons. Lisa Williams, guesting at Jay Rosen’s PressThink, has details, Newspaper Chain Goes Creative Commons: Gatehouse Media Rolls CC Over 96 Newspaper Sites:

That little badge is news. The TAB is owned by GateHouse Media, a newspaper conglomerate that owns 75 daily and 231 weekly newspapers. And the TAB isn’t the only paper that got a silver CC badge this week. Without fanfare, the company is rolling out Creative Commons licenses covering nearly all of the 121 dailies and weeklies they own in Massachusetts. The CC license now covers 96 of the company’s TownOnline sites, which are grouped within a portal for their many Eastern Massachusetts newspapers.

Howard Owens, whom we frequently cite around here, is the director for digital publishing for Gatehouse. Kudos to Howard and the Gatehouse company for opening up their content.

College publications would be wise to look into using Creative Commons to license their content. You can place limits on how material is used, but the key is to let people spread your material and keep it flowing in conversation. In a world where remixes and mashups are all-too-common, locking down content that has little economic value after its publication is old-school thinking. CC is also a good way to find material that students can use legally in their publications.

UPDATE 11:50 EST 12-15-06: Howard Owens discusses CC on his site today (with no mention of the Gatehouse moves), and provides two points that are worth repeating:

Some publishers may be afraid to take this step because they think they are giving up copyright, but they’re not. CC is a license. You don’t surrender copyright (or even really control) at all.

and

If I had another piece of advice for publishers considering CC: Don’t allow remix. News organizations have ethical obligations to accuracy and fairness not to explicitly allow people to change the news. You need to preserve the right to prohibit people from changing the meaning of the content.

UPDATE: Martin Stabe commented after I posted this, and reminded me that I had my legal issues mixed up (reporting on matters before the courts vs. libel). Indeed, I was thinking of an entirely different On the Media report than the one I originally linked (in September, not October). The end of this post has been rewritten to reflect that change. Thanks for the assistance, Martin.

UPDATE 2: Stabe sends along another post from Philip Young that asserts that libel might be an issue in this case. See here for details.

A few weeks ago, we pointed out the case of blogger Jackie Danicki, who was accosted on a London train platform. Martin Stabe notes that the rules of publishing in the U.K. change now: Court reporting rules apply to bloggers, too.

But on Friday, a man was arrested in connection with the incident. That means that proceedings are now active and it’s time for all the bloggers following the story to brush up on their British media law if they don’t want to risk prejudicing a potential future trial or even being held in contempt of court.

British laws differ from U.S. laws with respect to how reporting on matters before the courts is done. In September, NPR’s On The Media had a fascinating discussion of British rules about reporting matters before the courts. Here’s the transcript, and here’s the mp3.

More updates re: St. Louis convention - Will Robedee of KTRU at Rice University mentioned this morning that the speaker during his 1:30 p.m. - 2:20 p.m. session on legal issues in podcasting will be Colette Vogle, author of the Podcasting Legal Guide. This is a definite must-see for those interested in podcasting or vlogs.

Details:
The Legal Issues Involved in Podcasting
Further discussion on the legal issues involved with podcasting, including copyright, indecency, etc.
Directors Row 46,Fourth Floor
Will Robedee, Rice University

There’s a debate that’s been raging about a concept called “net neutrality” that college media outlets should be watching closely, as it could affect their online futures.

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The University of Southern Indiana Shield appears to have been the latest student newspaper to feel the wrath of self-appointed campus censors last week:

Sometime late Wednesday night, almost every print copy of The Shield disappeared from the campus racks. We distribute 2,500 copies of the Shield around campus every Wednesday afternoon, at locations like the Rice Library, the LA, and the UC. Though this is editorial speculation of the wildest sort, the disappearance of this issue might be linked to the fact that we ran the controversial picture from the latest edition of the Aerie (see Brandon Cole’s story for more information).

The problem is that the theft of the newspapers has brought the issue more publicity than before. The campus access channel has video footage, and the campus Republicans - who are apparently upset about the photograph - hosted a scan of the image that led to the newspaper theft on their web site.
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The USA Today has a story today about libel lawsuits being filed against authors of weblogs: “Courts are asked to crack down on bloggers, web sites.

Robert Cox, founder and president of the Media Bloggers Association, which has 1,000 members, says the recent wave of lawsuits means that bloggers should bone up on libel law. “It hasn’t happened yet, but soon, there will be a blogger who is successfully sued and who loses his home,” he says. “That will be the shot heard round the blogosphere.”

The article casts as a trend what has always been the case: libel suits are often filed to silence the critic as much as collect the money.

Still, the spread of such suits should remind us all that the basic defense in libel is the truth of the statement - that applies whether you’re a blogger or a publisher.

via Romanesko