Göteborg: Publishers must come together for content control
By Leah McBride Mensching, Wednesday 4 June 2008 at 16:58 :: Contact WAN and SFN :: #1734 :: rss
Göteborg, Sweden – Publishers must come together to control their own content on the Internet, as well as protect media rights to freely cover sporting events, the World Association of Newspapers' president and News International's UK editorial services director told newspaper executives Wednesday at the 61st annual World Newspaper Congress.
WAN President Gavin O'Reilly urged publishers and newspaper executives gathered at the conference to adopt Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP) technology, a non-proprietary, open system that allows the terms and conditions of Web sites to be placed in a machine-readable format, allowing publishers to control how aggregators and search engines use their content.
When content is aggregated by search engines, it is done so by crawlers, not people, which can't understand or take into account terms and conditions. The current system for content control, robots.txt, is sorely out of date, and is not consistently recognised or respected by all search engine crawlers, O'Reilly said.
Instead of tolerating misuse of content or embarking in a costly legal battle, O'Reilly and other “grumpy publishers, if I can call us the dinosaurs, got together a year ago,” and found a solution they believe will suit both publishers and search engines. “We realised very early on that ACAP faced hurdles. It wouldn't work if it was them against us. It would also fail if it only fit one particular purpose. And finally, it would fail if it was a secret proprietary tool. The solution had to be capable of enriching the online world.”
ACAP has received its fair share of “drive-by shootings from a lot of bloggers who don't like ACAP because it doesn't suit their a la carte views of the net,” O'Reilly said, and invited publishers to read criticisms and to have a discussion about it. However, those “loudest, most provocative voices” aren't necessarily right, and most haven't taken the time to talk to ACAP about their concerns, he said.
The list of publishers adopting the technology is growing, but ACAP, or any other content protection technology, won't work, and won't be adopted by major search engines like Google, Yahoo! or MSN, if not enough publishers adopt, he said.
Sports coverage under attack
Dominic Young, UK director of editorial services for News International, spoke next about another kind of control – the news media's right to cover sporting events is under attack, by events organisers and leagues, who use media accreditation to limit and even take ownership of coverage, he said.
Examples include the Premier League, the Rugby World Cup, FIFA, the cricket league in India, as well as concert venues and management.
The media covers sports and other entertainment events for the fans who can't be there, but events organisers are limiting media coverage, such as not allowing photos to be posted online for at least two hours until after the event, taking ownership of photos shot at the location by demanding copyrights be handed over, banning any coverage that puts the league in a negative light and demanding sponsors be listed in coverage. Clearly, the interests of fans are being trampled as sports associations, organisers and venues try to clamp down on freedom of the press in an attempt to gain even more revenue, “as if the witness of an event is not owned by the person who witnessed it, but by the sporting body that put it on,” Young said.
A body has been formed to deal with this issue, as sports organisers are tightening their restrictions, and also because the issue goes beyond sports. If sporting events can control media, who will be the next to try?
The News Media Coalition is working to seek an end to unreasonable editorial and digital restrictions, work with event organisers to manage relationship with media, promote consensus and avoid conflicts, ensure organisers value the interest created through coverage and work to negotiate and agree to terms well in advance of the event.
Although Young said he did not want to put readers in the middle of the battle, “the readers are the fans, and the fans are the engine room of sports, and they should know what's being done in their name.”
Visit YouTube for a video about ACAP, discussed by O'Reilly.
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