Blogspace vs. NPR

jonkl writes "National Public Radio's linking policy at npr.org has caused a fuss within the blog community that's hot and getting hotter. The policy's simply stated in two sentences: 'Linking to or framing of any material on this site without the prior written consent of NPR is prohibited. If you would like to link to NPR from your Web site, please fill out the link permission request form.' This is buried, of course, in a page linked to the site's footer, but somebody noticed and mentioned it to Howard Rheingold, who passed it on to Cory Doctorow of boingboing.net. Cory wrote scathing commentary, calling the policy 'brutally stupid,' even 'fatally stupid.' The outrage is spreading; this has to be a rough day for the NPR ombudsman who's deluged with email by now... ~24 hours after Cory's report." Reminds of the KPMG policy.

Web Indexing

So, when does NPR start suing Google, Alltheweb, and others for indexing, and even worse, CACHE-ING their site.

Damn Pirates!

linking?

Did we (slashdot) ask permission to link [npr.org]

Why oh why?

I just can't wrap my brain around something like this. What is the point of being on the web if you don't want people to visit your site? Provided, you actually want people to visit your site, don't you want to get your information out to as many as possible? (bandwidth issues not withstanding) Ergo, wouldn't you want every possible site that might be interested to link to your content?

Tough to think there is something you could refer to as "old fashioned" in regards to the web, but I can't find another way to describe it...

Jason

Maybe we should lobby the search engines

Actually, maybe we could convince some of the search engines -- Google would be especially nice -- to simply de-list anyone with such terms, along with a friendly notice about why.

I think it'd put a stop to things like this rather quickly.

Re:Why oh why?

Why don't this just do away with their domain name npr.org and have everyone visit them with via their IP address instead. No use making it easy for anyone.

Well, part of the reason...

I used to work for a regional public radio network's web shop, and we had some contact with NPR. They are a fairly slow-moving, bureaucratic organization -- partly because they are controversial and always under attack, and partly because their board of directors is made up of their several hundred member stations. For both these reasons, they tend to be a bit overprotective.

However, they're not completely backwards or out of touch with the web -- not by a long shot. They were online before most companies realized it was important, and were one of the first major media outlets to start giving all their content away -- free! -- online.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the stupid policy in question was penned by some lawyer in the early days of the web, when the answers to these questions were a lot less clear.

Hopefully this exposure will wake them up, and get their policy re-grounded in reality.

Re:Well, part of the reason...

Actually (I used to work for NPR, too), not all that much of their funding comes from the gov't. The majority of their money comes from contributions and the "funded-by" bites. The gov't still contributes a noticable chunk, but it's about 10-20%, IIRC, not the majority.

Of course, I worked at the central office in DC...I don't know what the funding situation was like for individual stations.

Framing vs. deep linking vs. linking

I agree that framing is different from linking: it loads the page into your browser, as the poster observed, which linking doesn't; and it provides the material in a different form and context. I've seen frames which made it look as if the inner frame material belonged to the outer-frame owner. That last, I think, goes beyond the permissible. (The more polite people using framing to box off-site material will provide a link reading "If you wish to see this material without frames, click here.")

But though framing is different from linking, should it be treated different legally? I think not: Cory points out how it can be useful.

And it absolutely should be legal to provide deep linking. That too provides material out of context, to be true, but it's the author of the material who chose to present it that way. The best defense against that is to provide a home page link on every page.

Another interesting point : what about linking increasing the bandwidth costs of the person linked to? I've noticed this happening a lot. 1) Popular blog gives a link to some obscure but interesting personal site. 2) Site gets a lot of hits. 3) Site owner's ISP takes the site down for exceeding its bandwidth quota for the month.

Whose fault is this, and what should be done about it? I think I'd favor a technical solution that would deliberately clog requests if they exceeded the quota, but wouldn't actually take the site down. IOW, pretty much what happens when the web is being slow anyway, only with a clear error message saying that was the reason: you could try again later when traffic was slower.

kinda takes the PUBLIC out of it doesn't it?

i thought the spirit of NPR was freedom of communication? or was i misled?

Ah, and we'll make it better

So we'll /. NPR and thus demonstrate to them that linking really *is* harmless, right?

Links on NPR

From the NPR linking policy: It is important to note that npr.org contains links to other sites

What do you wanna bet that NPR doesn't bother checking another sites linking policy before they link to it.

Stupid

It's trivial to block linking by looking at the referrer field and only allowing access if it's empty or from npr.org.

Why would NPR rather sue people than just prevent it at the source?

Hey, you violated their policy!

I hope you filled this [npr.org] out before deep linking to their site.

Wait... I just deep linked to a link prohibiting deep links! Ack! My brain!

Kinda Odd

With all that legal linking nonsense, it's funny that they don't even have a robots.txt file on their site.

Freedom of Speech

This is clearly a case of freedom of speech. Let's see NPR try to bring charges against someone for linking to their site. It'll be laughed out of court. It's a basic right for someone to be able to publish publically available information, such as a universal resource locator.

Just ask 2600.

whoops

Work Around

OK, they don't want me to link them. So istead I will set up a dynamic mirror on my server and link to that.

I'm not sure which is worse, a goofy policy like that, or that 'I' pay for NPR as a Tax-Paying citizen of the U, S, of A and am not free to utilize the information that 'I' paid for in way 'I' want to.

Revenge..

The perfect revenge is to put up a website explaining your policies about requiring permission to sending you cookies to your browser.

Secondly, send a cease-and-decist letter to npr.org to stop setting cookies while you browse their site.

Maybe then they'll learn, that if you put information free to the public, without authentication, what the hell are they to expect?

Wondering why NPR might do this?

STOP! THINK! Why would NPR do this?

The reason is that NPR hosts high-bandwidth audio material and the website archives many of the shows. NPR doesn't care if you link to a text article, but if I create

www.bestofnpr.com

and then offer DIRECT links to the .ra files than NPR's got a problem. I can make money off of NPR's work and cost them a fortune.

You may agree or disagree with the policy, but at least understand that NPR has some pretty legetimate fears. Personally, though, I don't see this as a legitamate solution, but it's understandable.

Re:Wondering why NPR might do this?

Yes - exactly. If anyone actually took the time to look at the Link Permission Request page they might see that what they are really referring to when they say links is links to the audio content. They're example text: (e.g., "Listen to NPR's David Kestenbaum's report on the Space Shuttle, originally broadcast on NPR's All Things Considered® April 4, 2002").

They did go about this all wrong by using very broad wording. I can't imagine that they don't want people linking to their html pages freely (e.g. http://news.npr.org/). It seems like everybody here is flying off the handle over what really is nothing. The linking policy has an intent, and I'm certain that the wording of it will be changed - within a week at most - to match that intent.

watchingyou?

For no good reason I viewed the source of the permission form. Ironically, the form's action tag is: http://iris.npr.org/cgi-bin/watchingyou.pl

Not only that, but the high-tech folks at NPR use this form to generate an email. The recipients are listed in a hidden field on the form. So if you want to give the ombudsman a break, you can send your thoughts directly to the people who evaluate the link requests: [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail].

Link me, but don't frame me.

I have no problems with linking to my site from anywhere, but when other sites frame my site and try to present my information as their own, I don't particularly enjoy that. Here's how you can prevent "framing":

<script language="JavaScript">
<!--
if (self.location.href != top.location.href) {
top.location.href = self.location.href;
}
// -->
</script>

Re:Link me, but don't frame me.

Side effect: anti-framing scripts will sometimes crash browsers (even with javascript disabled!) on YOUR site, preventing them from reading YOUR content entirely.

Better might be to plainly label each of your pages, so even if they wind up framed elsewhere, it's obvious whose material it is.

This is a total non-issue!

It makes sense for an organization to dislike deep linking because

A. It can make their content appear to be someone else's and

B. They have no control over broken links when they change their content and this makes their site look broken and stupid.

C. Framing someone else's site is bullshit, and people who don't like it can do what it takes to stop it.

However, is it really all that hard to redirect foreign deep links to the main page? Is it? Or to send the not founds there so they don't just send most people to microsoft? Come on kids, read your docs! Learn your trade!

If you still want the search engines to deep link, it's a little more work, but it can't possibly be more of a hassel than a lawsuit you probably won't win.

As for the main page, I think it's as simple as asking for 'the right not to be refered to', which it's been shown repeatedly that you just don't have.

If only people would quit wasting time and just move on to something beneficial, like harnessing the power of stupidity, the earth would be a better place.

=mortimer

My Letter to NPR

Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 12:26:45 -0700
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Link Permission Request

Hello,

It is trivial to tell your webserver to check the referring page of a
visitor. If the visitor is referred to npr.org from an address that is
*not* npr.org, you can deny them access, or redirect them to a page
explaining why npr.org does not allow hyperlinks.

While this is really lame, it would address your bandwidth cost concerns
without resorting to such ineffectual assertions that linking is
"prohibited". That's wishful thinking.

Love,
Jason

This is NOT unusual

I work for a small local government doing web developement. From accross the state we get together once a quarter to share ideas. One time we had a bunch of lawyers come and give a presentation. I got alot of information out of it and we actually discussed this topic. The lawyers say that linking is a problem and point to some of the existing deep linking precedints (M$ vs TicketMa$ter). They recomended putting such a policy on our websites. We argued that this is against the concept of the web but they argued back (don't remember all of the argument).

I believe that if you look at a lot of sites, especially large comercial sites they will include this policy.

Make More Sense

Wouldn't it make more sense for NPR to write a policy that OK's all links but allows them to reserve the right to block links from specific referrers?

This gives them control, allows sites to get the links you know NPR is approving, and only requires technical response to deal with abusers.

In NPR's defence

Seems NPR has hit quite a nerve.

What about The New York Times site? (free reg req'd, blah, blah) Their site is often linked to from /. and requires a reg. Free as it is, what purpose does it serve? To see who is reading what? Or to stop people from linking directly to their stories?

Next /. poll, how many of those complaining pledge to NPR?

Ever listen to NPR? Hear any ads? See any on their website? Even our precious /. has ads.

As a taxpayer, I OWN part of NPR

When you consider that they receive as much as 1/3rd of their funding from DIRECT taxpayer subsidy, and even more than that from inderect subsidy (the increased taxes all others bear because of their tax exempt status), to say that I don't have any right to link to any damn part of their website I want to is ludicrous.

Get out of my back pocket, NPR, and REALLY become a private company, with private property, and get back to me.

Re:bad news for the Internet?

Much as I hate to say it, I think this case might represent the end of the free Internet as we know it. Ironic that it would be brought about by NPR, which is usually so supportive of the public.

Like that time they lobbied to prevent microtransmitters?