Right2Link – Defending the signposts of the web

Jan 9, 2010 by Dirk Singer

Last year here in the UK there was a certain amount of controversy among communications agencies when the NLA, which represents Britain’s newspapers and doles out (paid for) licenses for the right to copy articles, decided to charge companies for sending around simple links on email.   In other words if I want to send someone a URL for a newspaper website, bringing it traffic, the NLA would like to charge me for the privilege.

Though the NLA has temporary backed down while a legal dispute snakes its way through the UK copyright tribunal, it’s of course part of a wider move by media publishers to control the flow of information to their sites by picking and choosing which aggregagtors and search engines link in, by waving the ‘copyright theft’ flag, when it’s convenient.

One organisation that’s decided to do something about it is aggregator News Now, which recently found itself blocked by Murdoch’s News International.   True, News Now is a commercial service, but then so is any search engine, which sells advertising.

News Now boss Struan Bartlett is behind a new campaign called ‘Right2Link’, which is out to defend the basic right to create and forward links.    The site is worth checking out as well as the short video above.   As Struan says, the threat is that publishers ultimately create exclusive deals with aggregators and search engines, with the end effect that bloggers, consumers et al are driven to their content – and so views and opinions – first.