Oh really?

Sir Tony O’Reilly held forth in the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday, in an interview that surely hasn’t been reported widely enough yet. Plenty of visionary stuff in this (reg required), from the man who brought you this. Let me quote you a wee bit.

“I can’t see display advertising on the internet being a real factor in the future. Newspapers for the next 25 years will be the ultimate browser. They are tactile, portable and cheap and go well with a cup of coffee.”

However, he believes newspapers have been too generous displaying stories on the internet. “We need to be very, very controlled about what we put on the internet,” he warns. “Give readers the byline and a line of copy and after that they’ve got to pay for it, or buy the paper.”

An honours law graduate, he says: “I’m on the European Publishers Council and we’re trying to put together a fighting fund to get the best lawyers in the world and surround papers with copyright laws which protect their intellectual property. It is intellectual capital and we want to protect it, meaning if it stolen, it is theft.”

[...]

“But if you have great writers on your paper, you need to surround them by a wall and if you want to get into the compound, you have to pay.”

Under this strategy, Independent.co.uk continues not to provide a site search, which I strongly suspect is a world first, of sorts.

BROWSE / IN TIMELINE
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COMMENTS / 2 COMMENTS

No search on the Indy site is very frustrating for Indy readers. But you can always use Google and restrict it to the Indy by adding the phrase “site:independent.co.uk”.

Mind you, it doesn’t help when they give browser pages titles like “Motoring : app6″, “Features : app5″. (Is that the application server it’s being served from? Yeech.)

Nik added these pithy words on Jul 26 05 at 3:55 pm

It’s important to see his background in this story, which is maybe why it’s being disregarded by some. He’s a lawyer for the publishing (i.e. business) side of newspapers and magazines. He’s kind of obliged to stand up for the business, money-making side of newspaper production as his job depends, to a large extent, on having intellectual copyright to defend.

In my sector of education we have the same struggles - any material I create as an individual becomes automatically copyright of my authority. Not that it stops me sharing. However, some local authorities have used this argument to gain cash from national, public groups (on the same side) for the right to reproduce and share work of teachers that have already given permission for it to be used. Unfortunately, it’s not up to the creator any more.

It makes the whole concept of ‘intellectual copyright’ a farce: the “intellect” that came up with the idea never sees any of the cash or the glory!

Ewan McIntosh added these pithy words on Jul 26 05 at 10:22 pm

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