Tag Archives: links

The hot new idea among people who think about “journalism,” and the sanctity thereof: let’s ban linking, on the internet ! Let’s also ban wheels, in order to save the horse industry. Let’s also ban talking about things! This whole argument is premised on the assumption that we must save newspapers. At the cost of making the internet into an inefficient mess! So Richard Posner, professional smart man and US Appeals Court judge who writes 23,000 words per day, floated the idea of banning links (and more!) , so internet cannibals don’t keep stealing newspaper content for nothing: Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers from so impairing the incentive to create costly news-gathering operations that news services like Reuters and the Associated Press would become the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion.

Continued here:
Let’s Screw Up the Entire Internet to Save Newspapers