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2012: The year Irish newspapers tried to destroy the web
- cathyreisenwitz 14y agoGrooooss. Wonder how state-funded and regulated Irish newspapers are.
- andybak 14y agoNothing in the article suggests they are at all. What made you say that?
- skhg 14y agoWe have extremely strict libel legislation, and an independent press ombudsman. State funding is not a factor in the finances of the major papers who pushed for the measures mentioned in this article
- lostlogin 14y agoRegulation can be a form of oppression. Press freedom index. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index
- rmc 14y agoState-funded? Not really at all? Regulated, not very.
- coditor 14y agoAnyone can try to get money for links. The internet alternative of course is to eliminate all of their readership from anyone other than the local pub.
- skhg 14y agoGood luck to them... This was already tried in belgium http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/07/google-versus-belgium-who-is-winning-nobody/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/07/google-versus-bel... years ago
- derleth 14y agoBelgium... Ireland... who's next, Andorra? Frankly, 99.9+% of the world's population can get through their day without learning what happens in Ireland unless and until it affects a country with a more direct impact on their lives. The fact that country will almost certainly have newspapers that aren't actively trying to get blacklisted by search engines is just a nice extra.
- FuzzyDunlop 14y agoIgnorance may certainly be bliss but dismissing something because it presumably didn't happen in America takes that idea a bit too far.
- derleth 14y agoI of course never said anything like that, but it is a sign of how far we've come that it gets read that way. Cast your mind back to 1983 and ask yourself if 1983-you would have felt deprived not knowing the latest from Ireland unless and until a non-Irish news source, like the BBC, picked up on the story. Of course not!
- Kudos 14y agoThis isn't the 1983 or the BBC, it's 2013 and a niche news aggregator powered by its readers. If you just want stories that are big enough to be picked up by the BBC, read that instead.
- rmc 14y agoCast your mind back to 1983 and ask yourself if 1983-you would have felt deprived not knowing the latest from Ireland unless and until a non-Irish news source Fun fact: What happened in 1983 in Ireland was relevant to India in 2012. In 1983, Ireland passed a pro-life consitutional amendment, banning abortion in all cases (in practice)¹. In 2012, an dentist from India living in Ireland who was miscarrying and dying asked for a termination to save her life, she was refused one, and eventually died². ¹: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Amendment_of_the_Constit... ²: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar
- materialhero 14y agoLet them. Let them start charging for links. Let them miss out on the free SEO and let them fall off the face of the search engines. Let them lose their readership because nobody can find them and let them go bankrupt because no one is looking at their ads. This is how the internet works. If they can't figure that out, then its no ones loss but their own. A less greedy company will be happy to have sites link back to them and will eventually take their place.
- lostlogin 14y agoI honestly believe that this is happening to most papers already. There are notice exceptions, but they are few.
- sp332 14y agoCounterpoint: The New York Times Paywall Is Working Better Than Anyone Had Guessed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4970846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4970846
- don_draper 14y agoCounterpoints to your counterpoint: The New York Times is a) doing ok for now but not great [1] b) most importantly, the NYT is an American institution that is in a league of their own. Few newspapers have the prestige, quality and history of the NYT. [1] Stock price for NYT has gone down 80% in the last 10 years: http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ANYT&ei=g9XhUJiAJ6y50QGD1gE http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ANYT&ei=g9XhUJiAJ6...
- greenyoda 14y agoNot to mention that despite their paywall, anyone can still link to an article in the NYT, and people can read it for free (as long as they haven't read too many articles that month). The NYT seems to have realized that the links to them from all over the web are free advertising that they can't afford to do without, and that having lots of people discuss their articles on the web makes them more influential.
- derleth 14y agoThis isn't going to last very long. In a few months, at the outside, they (the newspapers) will have a condescending piece of back-pedaling that implies we were all too stupid to understand their statements, because obviously they never so much as implied they would charge people to link to them, and saying they did means we just don't get it. Then they'll maintain strict silence over it and refuse to even acknowledge questions about it. I hate when they do that.
- charonn0 14y agoSomeone should get on the horn to the grandchildren of the newspaper executives; they need to explain the tubes again.
- lucian303 14y agoThose who don't learn history ...
- smcgarr 14y agoI'm the author of this piece. If you'd like to see the letters we wrote on behalf of Women's Aid in response to the demands for money for links you can see them http://www.mcgarrsolicitors.ie/2012/05/10/newspaper-licencing-ireland/ http://www.mcgarrsolicitors.ie/2012/05/10/newspaper-licencin... and http://www.mcgarrsolicitors.ie/2012/12/06/newspaper-licensing-ireland-2nd-response-letter-re-demand-for-money-from-womens-aid-for-linking-to-newspaper-websites/ http://www.mcgarrsolicitors.ie/2012/12/06/newspaper-licensin... Thank you for your interest.