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.

No linking? Try and stop it

[deepchasm]

Their "linking policy" will have absolutely no affect.

1. It's a matter of free speech.
2. Linking has been shown to be legal [gigalaw.com] in the courts (the article linked to includes more issues than just linking - you want the 7th paragraph.)
3. Last but not least, it's completely anti-net, and braindead.

Re:Framing vs. deep linking vs. linking

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever use Google Image Search? The framing it does of its detailed search results are a perfect example of the kind of unauthorized framing that is both useful and important.

Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no requirement that ads be viewed, either on a website or on television.

There is no law mandating that viewers pay attention to certain content.

There is no implicit agreement that viewing certain content also requires watching a commercial message.

Fact is, people can ignore advertising.

The problem and misunderstanding exists because of the power of the advertising industry. Advertisers have taken for granted they can influence the pysche of the public by advertising, never realizing that, given a choice, people may not watch what they have to offer.

I just dare the government to mandate me to watch advertising....

Well, part of the reason...

[melquiades]

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:Kinda Odd

[BlowCat]

And by the way, it's fun to play with their SQL server [npr.org]

watchingyou?

[sys49152]

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.

[TheFlu]

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: That's not entirely true

[nohup]

"It's a basic right for someone to be able to publish publically available information, such as a universal resource locator."

That's not entirely true. There have actually been court cases where they have ruled that linking to a URL can be infringing. Some of these include Starbucks, Religious Technology Center v. Netcom On-Line Communication Services, and US Intellectual Reserve Inc vs. Utah Lighthouse Ministry Inc. Here's a good article about the topic [domainnotes.com].

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

[Reziac]

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.

Re:Well, part of the reason...

[gclef]

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.

Have Your Cake and Eat It Too

[pjrc]

Thank you, Anonymous Coward, for posting an exact copy of Meriadoc's comment Cory's discussion board [quicktopic.com]. Maybe you really are Meriadoc??

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

[Dr. Smeegee]

Heh. Ask the owners of class 'D' radio stations in the early 80's. NPR was one of the main culprits behind the "Professionalism in Broadcasting" initiatives.

Re:Donations from individual listeners are HUGE

[Anonymous Coward]

listener donations are the largest single source of funding for Minnesota Public Radio, and account for a very significant chunk (about half, IIRC) of the overall budget. And yes, this only works if `the listeners' means `foundation grants and sponsoring businesses'. And yes these program fees account for slightly more than 50 percent of the annual budget, which for 2000, was just over $100 million.

This contrasts very sharply with the claims that the goverment does not fund it. As one listener very carefully worded his response:

Federal grants account for less than 2% of NPR's annual budget so what the hell are yout talking about?

*BUT*

There is a small missing sum. If you recall, "about half" of NPRs budget comes from private donations. That means that "about half" comes from other sources. Maybe only 2% of their annual budget comes from federal grants. But that's four variables:

ANNUAL
BUDGET
FEDERAL
GRANT

There are longer (and shorter) term budgets
There are other expeditures outside the budget
There are other government levels than the Federal
And there are other ways to obtain money from the government than through grants.

For starters there's the FCC licenses. Do you know how much NBC paid for their spectrum? Do you know how much they would have had to pay if they hadn't lobbied, campaigned, and outright bribed with billions of other dollars. The right to be one of only 4 television outlets in America in turn provides them with no small ability to grant non-monetary favors.

Next there's the state moneys. Do you wonder why recently nearly every program on NRP/PBS is brought to you by "Minnesota Public Broadcasting" (in Los Angeles) or "Oregon Public Broadcasting" or whatever?

Then there are the programs aired. Nearly every program is specifically funded by, you guessed it "Federal Grants" -- of course NOVA's production costs aren't a part of NPR's budget. NPR only has to pay so much to license the show that was already produced with tax dollars.

Then there is the fact that most Federal money to fund PBS isn't in the form of a grant. Depending on how slippery your budgeteer was, even the "National Endowment for the Arts" (Grant) may not qualify as a grant. Depending on what the word "as" means. However, I think the budgeteer got it backwards, and less than 2% of NPR's (actually he meant PBS) budget is directly allocated in the Federal budget and that grants, endowments, etc. are the unaccounted for remainder.

And don't forget what another poster pointed out. That all those donations are actually tax deductible. So it is money that would otherwise have been taxes if it weren't going directly to NPR. And by the way, it's the rich that get those tax breaks.

Think of a your neighborhood toll bridge that a) was funded with money for gas and vehicle taxes. b) was also funded by an increase in the sales tax. c) was also funded by moneys delegated to the sate from federal income tax. d) is now being funded by tolls. Each of which probably covered the full cost which, by the way, was 4 times what it would have cost to build if it were done by a private company on their own budget which, by the way, it was -- a private company with political connections, probably owned a large campaign donator (which money was tax deductible.)