micropayments and sports journalism

Those are really stupid grounds. Why not sue the computer manufacturers as well?

 

You really don't seem to understand the technology involved. Yes, cable systems and ISPs both make things pop up on a screen, but they aren't remotely the same thing.

Cable systems involve an entire infrastructure set up to deliver channels to a TV. It is a one-way pipe through which content is pumped, like the water network in a town, going from the central source to being split up into individual homes.

The internet is a system that connects individual computers all over the world to each other for two-way communication.

To say that the ISPs should pay newspapers makes no more sense than to say that the newspapers should pay the ISPs for allowing readers to connect to their sites and view ads.

 

Grad Student:

It would not work. People would have to think about paying for a story, and what would you get. A likely result is a good story with insight would be printed and passed around. The only way to do it would be for advertising clicks, and the problem with all media is that advertising dollars are drying up.

I hope your research finds something that will work. You will be wealthy and we will have more work.

 

Good post.

First of all, it would HAVE to involve a group of heavy hitters.

CNN would have to be involved because cnn.com is the most popular site for news on the web.

(Incidentally, if you want to poke a hole in my plan, a problem there is that Time Warner is both an ISP and a content provider. It would essentially be suing itself; Or, on the bright side-- to patch up the hole in my plan-- it could be the first ISP to agree to the fee. I do think Time Warner would be more interested in saving its news and publishing operations such as Time and CNN than warding off small subscriber fees in its ISP business.)

But you mentioned ad campaigns and a war over fees.

That happens in the cable TV industry all the time.

And do you know what happens in the bitter, bitter end?

9 times out of 10, the channel ends up on the system.

That's either through court decision, settlement or viewer demand.

 

Your continued comparison to the cable industry is really showing an ignorance of the technologies involved or the issues at hand.

For one thing, only three news sites are listed in the top 50 in web traffic among US users, and none are in the top 10 (and only two of those three were on your list, the third is Fox News).

We aren't as important as you think.

 

Indeed.

Don't worry. She's probably just playing devil's advocate anyway.

 

Another issue is that while you keep talking about keeping piracy at bay (which never works, incidentally), you are ignoring that you can't copyright news.

Even if a news site is blocked and unpirated, there's nothing stopping someone from rewriting every news story on the site and putting up their own, completely legal news site.

 

I understand that when I want internet service in my home or on my phone, I don't just wish it to be true, then it's done.

I have to call a company. And pay.

That company is a conduit, a disseminator, a middle man-- call it whatever you like.

In what other business can you think of, that the middle man takes 100% of the profit?

 

The phone company?

They are a conduit, but they are connecting you to readers as much as they are connecting readers to you.

Why shouldn't newspapers be paying ISPs a portion of their web advertisement revenue, under your same argument? These newspapers are profiting from having their computers connected to reader's computers by the ISPs, but not paying the ISPs a dime.

 

Or ... we should charge phone companies a tax because people talk about the news over the phone!

 

The Internet has, in essence, unbundled information from advertising, and it's become evident that people don't really value information. The result will be only a small percentage of current working journalists making a living in the profession in the coming generation.

 

Somebody in the music industry has thought of charging the ISPs.

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2008/04/music_plan

To many, the notion that internet service providers should pay money to rights holders -- music labels, artists, songwriters and publishers -- makes inherent sense.