That Link You Just Posted Could Cost You (Boards.ie Ltd.) 300 Euro

KamiKazeKitten

Brilliant. Can't wait to see them try this, just wish I'd be able to see the 'oh sh!t' looks on their faces when their advertising money disappears down the drain.

ColeTrain

jd007 wrote: »

Not the farmers journal!

NOOOOOOOO!!!

I can see the pitchforks coming out because of this.

stimpson

This is just payback for all the Alison O'Riordan threads. We only have ourselves to blame.

Javan

KamiKazeKitten wrote: »

Brilliant. Can't wait to see them try this, just wish I'd be able to see the 'oh sh!t' looks on their faces when their advertising money disappears down the drain.

According to the story on the McGarr Solicitors site, they already have tried it.

They sent a demand letter (in May 2012?) to Women's Aid looking for money for links from the Women's Aid site to one of the news sites.

It is not clear whether that demand was the only demand made. It seems likely that other organisations were contacted as well. I'd say we are hearing about this largely because Women's Aid gave permission for the correspondence to be published.

It is appropriate, I think, to raise a storm about this. A social media campaign calling for a boycott of these sites and letters to the various editors expressing displeasure for a start. I'll be writing a few letters tomorrow and over the weekend. I'll be calling for a withdrawal of all demands, a public apology and a donation to any charities that were contacted.

Lady Chatterton

gctest50 wrote: »

These too ?

http://www.newspaperlicensing.ie/v2/regional.php


Regional Newspaper Member Titles.

Regional Newspapers

The Athlone Voice
The Longford News
The Midland/Tullamore Tribune
The Roscommon Champion
Anglo Celt
Meath Chronicle
Westmeath Examiner
Westmeath Offaly Independent
Sligo Champion
Clare Champion
Connacht Sentinel
Connacht Tribune
Galway City Tribune
Connaught Telegraph
Dungarvan Leader
Dungarvan Observer
Enniscorthy Guardian
Gorey Guardian
New Ross Standard
Drogheda Independent
Fingal Independent
Bray People
Carlow People
Wexford People
Wicklow People
The Dundalk Argus
The Corkman
The Kerryman
Waterford People
Donegal Democrat
Donegal on Sunday
Dundalk Democrat
Kilkenny People
Leinster Express
Leinster Leader
Leitrim Observer
Letterkenny People
Limerick Chronicle
Limerick Leader
Longford Leader
Nationalist and Munster Advertiser
Offaly Express
Tallaght Echo
Tipperary Star
Kerry’s Eye
Marine Times
Mayo News
Donegal News
Cavan Post
Donegal Post
Finn Valley Post
Inish Times
Leitrim Post
Monaghan Post
Meath Post
Wicklow News
Southern Star
The Avondhu
The Carrigdhoun
Nenagh Guardian
Athlone Topic
Meath Topic
Offaly Topic
Westmeath Topic
Tuam Herald
Western People
Kildare Nationalist
Laois Nationalist
The Nationalist
Waterford News & Star
The Kingdom
Sligo Weekender
Roscommon Herald
The Enniscorthy Echo
Wexford Echo
New Ross Echo
The Irish Post

Regional Free Newspapers

Dun Laoghaire Gazette
Dundrum Gazette
Blanch Gazette
Castleknock Gazette
Lucan Gazette
Clondalkin Gazette
Swords Gazette
Malahide Gazette
South Tipp Today
Kildare Post
Letterkenny Post
Sligo Post

The Clare Champion and the Clare People are not on the list. The Clare Forum will rock on :D:D

Sinfonia

Javan wrote: »

It is appropriate, I think, to raise a storm about this. A social media campaign calling for a boycott of these sites...

No no no, they'll learn better when they learn all by themselves.

If they think they're failing because people have boycotted them, they won't realise how stupid they are.

fasttalkerchat

If you copy and paste it Boards would be claiming their work as their own... I'd say there'll be no complaints over newspaper links being shared. In fact most have a button to automatically post the link to your facebook!

Edit: just saw they tried to scrounge from a charity... anyone have a link? :P

eth4

No doubt that absolute sh1thead Sean Sherlock is in favour of this.

Seaneh

This is one of the stupidest ideas I have ever seen...

What a pile of ****ing idiots.

Javan

Sinfonia wrote: »

No no no, they'll learn better when they learn all by themselves.

If they think they're failing because people have boycotted them, they won't realise how stupid they are.

And how do you think they will fail if everyone continues to support them as usual?
The licensing demands were not sent to large companies with the resources to fight. The demands were sent to a charity that has much more important work to do.

If their first demand was sent to Facebook then I'd agree with you. Grab some popcorn and watch the fireworks. Their demand was sent to Women's Aid. That fact alone deserves a strong response from all of us.

Solair

I'm not buying any of those papers until they drop this nonsense.

the groutch

Ben Dunne will owe Boards.ie alot of money for all the threads he steals from Consumer Issues for his page in The Sun

haydar

I still can't believe this!

Is it definitely true?

Solair

Will they also charge broadcasters for "what they say in the papers" segments on current affairs shows too?

I think I will be charging the papers for any references to my Tweets. I'd say 450 Euro / copy of the paper sounds reasonable!

Tombi!

So... they want to stop us linking.

Can't I just copy and paste an article from there and say "I found this randomly on a non-Irish site"?

Also, they're a pile of idiots.

grenache

Not inforceable.

It's like me asking everyone to have a licence just for saying my name. There's not a court in the land that would uphold such a ridiculous case.

Link away!

Jimoslimos

Seems like an IRMA type racket to me. Lobby group bullying small and medium sized businesses for money.

Solair

I'd say a lot of journalists working for the broadsheets and locals will be delighted though that their articles will now receive absolutely no publicity and they'll have to pay €300 to link them from their own twitter account / blog / CV (when they have to emigrate to get a job when the paper goes bust)

keithclancy

So are they going to remove all those buttons at the bottom of their articles ?

E.G.
Like this on Facebook
Twitter.
Link this story.

Give me a break like.

humbert

I think what's important to take from this is how little(none) media coverage this got in Ireland from the other news sources.

Annasopra

Jimoslimos wrote: »

Could you post a link to that story from a reputable news source please?

http://www.mcgarrsolicitors.ie/2012/12/30/2012-the-year-irish-newspapers-tried-to-destroy-the-web/

Jimoslimos

Jimoslimos wrote: »

Could you post a link to that story from a reputable news source please?

Biggins wrote: »

http://www.mcgarrsolicitors.ie/2012/12/30/2012-the-year-irish-newspapers-tried-to-destroy-the-web/

mango salsa wrote: »

http://www.mcgarrsolicitors.ie/2012/12/30/2012-the-year-irish-newspapers-tried-to-destroy-the-web/

WHOOSH!;)

TPD

Doubleyou doubleyou doubleyou dot irishtimes dot com slash newspaper slash breaking slash 2013 slash 0103 slash breaking23 dot html

Innocent!

YeatsCounty

keithclancy wrote: »

So are they going to remove all those buttons at the bottom of their articles ?

E.G.
Like this on Facebook
Twitter.
Link this story.

Give me a break like.

It's a plan that's brilliant in its idiocy.

Tea_Bag

I feel like Ireland as a whole doesn't understand the internet, at all. the amount of ludicrous **** some people come out with is mind boggling.

other countries must be laughing at us.
google is probably ashamed to be associated with us. who will the politicians blame when google and Microsoft etc pull out?

thank god for boards.ie or I'd have lost all hope.

ScumLord

This makes no sense at all, it's like running out of petrol in your car and deciding the best way to fix it is to take the wheels off.

I stopped reading those papers a long time ago so I couldn't give a fiddlers what they do. I don't think they report unbiased news anyway, people would be better off if these papers shot themselves in the foot and disappeared.

KyussBishop

Made a thread on this in Politics for good measure:
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056845183

This is truly and utterly one of the most stupid things these newspapers could do; no matter what happens as a result of it, this harms them.

As I said in the other thread:
Perhaps people should petition Google/Facebook/Bing/Twitter etc. to remove all links to these newspapers websites, since by linking them, they are obviously violating the papers desire to not be linked?

stmol32

I've become a bit obsessed by this story today (cheers OP).
It seems to be slowly but surely gaining traction (see Mcgarrs homepage) so anyone who can think of ways of spreading this further please do.

In the meantime I followed these links and apparently something similar has been done before in Belgium with hilarious results.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110718/16394915157/belgian-newspapers-give-permission-to-google-to-return-them-to-search-results.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121213/08013521375/belgian-newspapers-agree-to-drop-lawsuit-over-google-news-after-google-promises-to-show-them-how-to-make-money-online.shtml

p.s. I'm pretty sure Techdirt won't sue me for linking to these articles.

mconigol

LOL

The Aussie

stmol32 wrote: »

Something similar has been done before in Belgium with hilarious results.

Class links, shows the stupidity of doing the same thing, I wonder if they expect a different result. :pac:

miamee

A little update today with reaction to the original story - http://www.mcgarrsolicitors.ie/2013/01/02/some-reaction-to-irish-newspapers-demanding-money-for-links/

Javan

stmol32 wrote: »

I've become a bit obsessed by this story today (cheers OP).
It seems to be slowly but surely gaining traction (see Mcgarrs homepage) so anyone who can think of ways of spreading this further please do.

In the meantime I followed these links and apparently something similar has been done before in Belgium with hilarious results.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110718/16394915157/belgian-newspapers-give-permission-to-google-to-return-them-to-search-results.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121213/08013521375/belgian-newspapers-agree-to-drop-lawsuit-over-google-news-after-google-promises-to-show-them-how-to-make-money-online.shtml

p.s. I'm pretty sure Techdirt won't sue me for linking to these articles.

It is a bit worrying that the local court agreed with the newspapers initially.

The Irish newspapers may have learned from that; they are not (as far as we know) asking Google for money, they are asking Women's Aid. If the charity coughs up then they get some free money, if not then they lose very little.

To stop this sort of nonsense we need to make sure the cost to them is high enough.

stmol32

Javan wrote: »

It is a bit worrying that the local court agreed with the newspapers initially.

The Irish newspapers may have learned from that; they are not (as far as we know) asking Google for money, they are asking Women's Aid. If the charity coughs up then they get some free money, if not then they lose very little.

To stop this sort of nonsense we need to make sure the cost to them is high enough.

I agree it is worrying the tactics they are employing (the scurrilous scumbags) but I've had a look through McGarrs responses to the nli and they seem to be lawyering them up pretty good, so fair play to McGarrs they're my new heroes.

On a different tack these are my two favourite comments on their site.

1. It’s not clear from your article whether NNI are asserting copyright to non-clickable links?
   For example, if I write in a printed publication that there’s an interesting article “on page 12 of today’s Irish Times”, is that not a de facto link?
   
   
   Posted by David Byrden | December 30, 2012, 9:43 pm
2. Excuse me, but I just realised that I may have accidentally put a “link” in my previous comment!
   To protect myself from a possible 300 Euro liability, I must now state that there is NO interesting article on Page 12 of the Irish times, nor indeed on any other page, and in fact I must urge you never to look at that newspaper at all!
   
   
   Posted by David Byrden | December 30, 2012, 9:48 pm

GLaDOS

How many people here visit the websites of newspapers apart from when they're linked through boards, facebook etc? I know I almost ever do. And I haven't bought a physical newspaper in donkeys years.

I doubt if I'm alone in saying 95% of the traffic they get from me is through these links.

tricky D

Tim Berners-Lee should invoke some sort of idiot tax on this kind of stupid rubbish: 500% of the charged link revenue should do nicely.

Allyall

It's not true.
If it was, it would mean that the Newspaper industry in Ireland haven't got a clue about how the internet works. Which would be in an impossibility in this day and age. The Irish newspaper industry would have to be living under a rock, or out of a bottle.

VinLieger

Then thats exactly the case as its completely true

mikom

The death rattle of the fish and chip wrapping.

Biggins

Allyall wrote: »

...The Irish newspaper industry would have to be living under a rock, or out of a bottle.

Lets be honest - in Ireland alone, they wouldn't be the first group of people to be like this!
(If you noted above in a previous post, other daft people/org tried the same stunt in Belgium - they failed quickly.)

Allyall

Biggins wrote: »

Lets be honest - in Ireland alone, they wouldn't be the first group of people to be like this!
(If you noted above in a previous post, other daft people/org tried the same stunt in Belgium - they failed quickly.)

I was partially kidding. They are known to like the odd tipple.
I honestly can't understand why they would see this as a good idea, the previous format of media had it easy. They didn't know what to do when the internet arrived. Daily Mail (UK) (yeah i know, rag) has embraced it, and turned into possibly the most read online paper in the World.
Meanwhile American Tactics being introduced everywhere. Claim as yours and sue.

Also, at least in Belgium it was 2006 when they started suing. The Internet was relatively young, web 2.0 was just launching and advertising was soon to become a massive earner for popular websites. These gobshiites haven't realised it's 2013, and that those links drive traffic to their sites.. .
Someone made reference to Ireland not "getting" the internet. To an extent, i'd have to agree. The Irish Government haven't a clue what it's about, ask them and they'll probably tell you "it's porn and pirating, to be sure."

On a side note, now that I'm thinking (Very rarely do that), it's not just the Irish newspapers, they're just looking at an unintelligent "solution" to their money woes.
Many other companies in the U.S. have thought they owned the internet, and still do, and put some serious pressure on Governments around the world, and our government, unfortunately, will be one of the first to bend over.. When some "genius" *(I use quotes too much) thinks they have a solution to internet policing, they'll pay a fortune, and Enda Kenny/Micheál Martin or whoever is in charge when that time comes, will be grinning and clutching the pillow.

Javan

Biggins wrote: »

Lets be honest - in Ireland alone, they wouldn't be the first group of people to be like this!
(If you noted above in a previous post, other daft people/org tried the same stunt in Belgium - they failed quickly.)

Really? From my reading of the TechDirt articles the case in Belgium was not quick (it lasted five years) and the publishers arguably did not fail (the court ordered Google to remove links).

Fair enough; once they realised just what they had done the newspapers were eager to get Google to accept a license at a nominal cost, but that does not change the fact that, basically, they won their case.

Allyall

Javan wrote: »

Really? From my reading of the TechDirt articles the case in Belgium was not quick (it lasted five years) and the publishers arguably did not fail (the court ordered Google to remove links).

Fair enough; once they realised just what they had done the newspapers were eager to get Google to accept a license at a nominal cost, but that does not change the fact that, basically, they won their case.

They won the battle.. But may not have won the war.
Do google index them now?

Why would google pay them to index them? With all the people clambering to get on top of google results, that would make zero sense.

Overheal

Cienciano wrote: »

So if you put the link through a URL shortener site like tinyurl will it be ok?

Excellent loophole, actually.

You can also use just****inggoogleit or bit.ly or reddit etc.

All of which are not Irish, so they stand a really fat chance of imposing any licensing fees on a single one of them.

You know, I thought surely today the dumbest thing I was going to read was the company that tried to sue for patent infringement against other companies because they have a patent on - Not on the scanner itself - but on scanning a document to PDF and emailing it. Yep. They have a patent on how you use your scanner. Rather than sue Lexmark, HP, Canon, or Epson, etc. they are trying to go after small businesses, and getting laughed at.

But then I read this thread, about this stupid Irish Newspaper Licensing fee.

I can't wait to see what new dumb thing I will get to read about by the end of the day.

Biggins

Javan wrote: »

Really? From my reading of the TechDirt articles the case in Belgium was not quick (it lasted five years) and the publishers arguably did not fail (the court ordered Google to remove links).

Fair enough; once they realised just what they had done the newspapers were eager to get Google to accept a license at a nominal cost, but that does not change the fact that, basically, they won their case.

I meant that those that wanted to charge for the use of links - quickly discovered that the advert revenue dropped probably big-time over night!
They were then nearly begging Google then to do what they had been doing previously.

The Irish idiots that have come up with this latest idea obviously have decided not to go after the big boys but pick on the small people instead - a charity at that.

Despicable!

Allyall

Overheal wrote: »

I can't wait to see what new dumb thing I will get to read about by the end of the day.

I though this was pretty daft, considering how unsuccessful they have been with Betamax, Minidisc (in the long run), Sony format, etc.. and the fact that they are rapidly going down the crapper.

Sony patents technology to stop people playing second-hand games.

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/sony-patents-tech-to-block-used-games-6401992

Who would want to buy one of their machines after that? who is going to supply their games?

Javan

Allyall wrote: »

They won the battle.. But may not have won the war.
Do google index them now?

Why would google pay them to index them? With all the people clambering to get on top of google results, that would make zero sense.

Yes, Google do index them now, after reaching an agreement that saw Google give the publishers both money and training in exchange for a license.

Google would pay to index because the court ordered them to do so.

Allyall

Javan wrote: »

Yes, Google do index them now, after reaching an agreement that saw Google give the publishers both money and training in exchange for a license.

Google would pay to index because the court ordered them to do so.

Tis daft.

Peanut

Nothing will happen but this is embarrassingly dumb.

Nate--IRL--

I don't understand how this could be legal.

Nate

Lord TSC

It's a typical Irish mentality.

"What? We're losing our base of customers? Well, that leaves us with two options.

We could reaffirm our remaining base, reward them for loyalty, try and maintain a good public image and use it as a foundation to draw in more customers. Build ourselves back up. Try and draw people back to print media, and/or evolve so we become relevant to modern day needs.

NAH! Let's try and screw the remaining people for as much as we can. We'll lose them, but at least in the short term, we'll make something."