While it may be definitive, this battle between News Corp. and NewsNow may portend the battleground: Is it a right to link out, or does one need approval?
Blogger, author, academic and journalist Jeff Jarvis has been a longtime proponent of what he calls the link economy. He sees it as essential to journalism's success --- you scratch my back, I scratch yours, in essence --- and believes the business model of the future will owe much to using this link economy.
But Rupert Murdoch's team has another idea. It won't let NewsNow link to its content, feeling that the aggregator's repurposing of it denies News Corp. of revenue it should have to itself.
In his latest column for rhe Guardian, Jarvis is rather pointed: "I fear that what is really in danger here is the doctrine of openness on which journalism and an informed society depend."
He asserts that if a link is public for one, it should be public for all.
What do you think?