Modest, albeit moronic, proposal

[sigma7]

How do you save newspapers from this instant-access online news cycle? One journalist/lawyer (now there's an unholy hybrid) thinks he has the answer:

What to do? Here's my proposal: Newspapers and wire services need to figure out a way, without running afoul of antitrust laws, to agree to embargo their news content from the free Internet for a brief period -- say, 24 hours -- after it is made available to paying customers. The point is not to remove content from the Internet, but to delay its free release in that venue.

A temporary embargo, by depriving the Internet of free, trustworthy news in real-time, would, I believe, quickly establish the true value of that information. Imagine the major Web portals -- Yahoo, Google, AOL and MSN -- with nothing to offer in the category of news except out of date articles from "mainstream" media and blogosphere musings on yesterday's news. Digital fish wrap. And the portals know from unhappy experience (most recently in the case of Yahoo) just how difficult it is to create original and timely news content themselves.

Yes, let's bleed the Internet dry of its most appealing feature. It's both impractical and probably illegal. Someone's not thinking this series-of-tubes thing too clearly.

Comments

[begstodiffer.livejournal.com]

Heh, what a great way to open up a competing market! It'll work for two hours until bloggers start posting news they read in the print media. Then, just after the inevitable, lawsuit-saturated, copyright whine-fest, independent news outlets will open up on the Internet. Their main selling point will be that they deliver timely news online.

This all sounds kinda familiar... oh yeah - that's how online news got started in the first place. :D

[bishop282.livejournal.com]

A temporary embargo, by depriving the Internet of free, trustworthy news in real-time

They currently have the first part of that down, free. Now they need to work on the second part, providing trustworthy news. Maybe if they started doing that, they might not be in as much trouble. The only thing I trust them to do is support our enemies, ala Al Qaeda Intelligence Service (NYT).

[opheliasclone.livejournal.com]

I know, I know. Old subject. But for my two cents, this is not an illegal concept - just a dumb one. Legal experts worldwide generally agree that you can delay one form of distribution for your media content in favor of another. It's no different, really, from having movies open in the theaters before you can buy them on DVD or rent them at the video store.

Here's the problem, though. While it may be legal, it's financially disadvantageous to withhold content from the internet. The internet is unique in its inherent ability to go over or around obstacles that might obstruct pure, unadulterated free speech and the corelated media consumption that goes with it. Anything you fail to provide over the internet that is technically feasible to provide will ibso facto be provided by someone else, preventing you from making money on it.

I predicted the growth from print media to audio to video. Next up is software distribution, which in some cases requires relatively large upload speeds even in comparison to video. As the internet grows, so grows this problem. Asking to turn back the clock is a typical response from a prior generation, and we'll hear it many times. But it will never work.