Freedom to Link

NewsNow has launched a campaign to support the freedom to link in light of a recent dispute with News Corporation. The news aggregating site based in the UK gathers its articles by creating links from their site to different online news sources. The reason that News Corporation has a problem with this is that NewsNow charges users for a special subscription on its site, providing tailored feeds built to your specifications or e-mail alerts for breaking news. Essentially, NewsNow is making a profit on articles that News Corporation has created.

But is linking like this stealing? The internet is widely viewed as public domain, and Struan Bartlett, founder of NewsNow, believes that "linking is a public amenity." What's public is meant to be seen and commented upon. Linking is just how we are able to get to it.

Jeff Jarvis argues that "By trying to cut off links, News Corp is also endangering journalism." He believes that linking is a benefit to journalists because it creates ways for readers to find their stories. It is also a way for writers to ethically source the material that has been used.

Whether or not News Corp has a right to deny someone the ability to link to their sites in public domain has yet to be determined. It seems that they are trying hard to prevent other sites from using their material, and trying to control what is not controllable.