Should You Be Sued For Linking? - WebProNews Tells It

Should you be sued for linking? WebProNews Tells It

In an age where the web appears to be getting more and more open, with the rise of data portability and everybody sharing stuff with everybody else, it is fascinating to see that a newspaper publisher is suing another one that is linking to its content.


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Editor's Note: The Internet is based on linking, and news aggregation is just part of how it is done. This has become more and more the norm over the past decade. Generally speaking, this kind of practice benefits all parties involved. The original source gets more exposure along with its advertisers (who love exposure by the way), the aggregator gets content, the readers get more places to find content they're interested in. Would you have a problem with a publisher linking to your site using your article headline and lede?
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GateHouse Media Inc., which owns 125 Massachusetts newspapers as well as web properties like WickedLocal.com, sued the New York Times Co. because its Boston.com-run website "Your Town Newton" was posting headlines and small article snippets from WickedLocal.com.

Now the snippets linked to the original site, but that was not good enough for GateHouse. The company claimed that this created confusion over where the content originated, and leads to readers missing out on advertisements from WickedLocal's front page.

It seemed that GateHouse was not considering the very real possibility that readers would never have made it to their site in the first place had Boston.com's site not driven them there. Then readers would be missing out on the ads on the article pages too, and frankly, I can't see how that would help GateHouse's cause. Boston.com offers its parent company's stance on the matter:

In a statement, New York Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said the company is simply doing what hundreds of other news sites already do -- aggregate headlines and snippets of relevant stories published elsewhere on the Web -- and believed GateHouse's lawsuit was without merit.

"Far from being illegal or improper, this practice of linking to sites is common and is familiar to anyone who has searched the Web," Mathis said. "It is fair and benefits both Web users and the originating site."

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It was like GateHouse was not interested in expanding its web traffic. Traffic comes from links. And many, many sites drive traffic to other sites by doing exactly what Boston.com did. They show article titles and snippets and link to the original.

Ever looked at a Google SERP? Ever shared a link on Facebook? Ever browsed tech news on Techmeme? Digg? Most publications would love to be linked to via these venues.

Since I originally posted this article, the two companies announced that they reached a settlement, the details of which can be read in their entirety here. Under the terms of the settlement, the New York Times Co. has agreed to remove all GateHouse feeds that contain headlines and ledes from Boston.com.

GateHouse will implement solutions that prevent the copying of its content from its sites and RSS feeds. "Nothing shall prevent either party from linking or deep-linking to the other party's websites," provided that the other conditions are met. The agreement of course applies to all of GateHouse's and the New York Times Co.'s properties.

So there you have it. It's settled, but the topic is still up for debate is it not? Who would've won tihs case? Fair use still exists right? As Paid Content points out though, the New York Times Co. is in no position to deal with a lengthy and costly legal battle.

To me, it still seems like GateHouse's loss. It should be interesting to see how much difference in traffic there is after losing the Boston.com links. Yes, they can still "link" to them, but I would imagine the rate of links will be significantly reduced. After this, I'd be surprised if they still wanted to link to them anyway.


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Our CEO Rich Ord has a great deal of experience in news aggreagation. He offered the following commentary on the subject:


Linking is the basis of the Web

Linking is an old issue on the Internet and has generally been accepted by news organizations as a benefit to them. The idea that so-called "deep linking" is evil and is a violation of a news organizations copyright is ridiculous and goes against the very nature of the Web. If a news site doesn't want to be linked to then they shouldn't put pages on the Web.

I originally came up with the concept of linking directly to news stories with the founding of NewsLinx.com back in 1996. I was approached by many news companies, including ironically, the New York Times. They asked if I had permission to link directly to their news stories and I answered, "No I don't." I then asked if they would like me to stop linking to their articles, and every single news organization told me to keep linking.

Since then, deep linking to news stories has become mainstream and accepted as a win-win for the publisher and the news aggregating re-publisher. Examples include Google News, Drudge Report, Techmeme, WebProWire, Topix.com and thousands of articles written each day which deep-link direct to articles.

The Web is based on links and couldn't exist without them.

Rich Ord
CEO, iEntry, Inc.
Publisher of WebProNews
richord@ientry.com

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Thanks for reading,

Jennifer Korol
Industry News