New York Times Forces Apple to Pull Popular ‘Pulse’ iPad Newsreader
wired.com
wired.com
It's no wonder print media is dying when you are willing to spend money on stupid legal fights when all you really have to do is police your own policies better. This reminds me of another HN article from this week where print media was seeking all kinds of govt regulations to prop up their dying industry, That kind of wasteful rent seeking behavior is exactly why most people don't care if the industry dies.
They brought it upon themselves by failing to innovate.
The hell of being the NYT is that you're too big to pivot all the time, so you need to pick a plan and stick with it. And if, ten years from now, it turns out you picked the wrong plan, you will feel awful because you lost the New York Times, for gods sake, when all you had to do was follow the soon-to-be-obvious-in-hindsight Plan X.
What is happening here seems clear: the Times is freaking out about iOS apps. Apple has cleverly offered the dead-trees publishers something that looks like the model they know, where they control the experience and the design and, not incidentally, the ad placement. And now the Times gets confused. Do they buy Apple's offer? The way the music publishers did? If they do, will their glass look half-empty in five years, or half-full? Or should they continue the earlier plan and try to compete on the open web where the mass of people are? And can either of these models support anything that resembles the existing staff and properties of the Times?
Apple wants (probably not consciously, or at least overtly) to be the de facto hub for content distribution, and their hardware wants to be the de facto hub for content consumption. Not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with this (though some of us would like other options), but it's the way Apple is doing this that causes contention among the ranks.
Even though I do not own one (I did spend about 30 minutes at Best Buy reading the NY Times Editor's Choice App), it feels very much like Apple is renting an experience to users, instead of selling one. A casualty of the digital age perhaps? Is the idea of owning content a dead one?
A question for another time.
And readers aren't going to be forced to abandon old media. They must be coaxed. If you want readers on iOS, or Kindle or anything else, you need to offer an experience that is better than print, and better than the open web. Because readers have many alternatives.
I agree that the current ebook model is rental, not sales. We will see how that plays out. My expectation is that the buying of print books will persist, alongside the ebook rental market, until the DRM comes off the ebooks. Lending books is an important use case. Borrowing library books is an important use case. Shifting media from platform to platform is an important use case.
I have four reasons why I want to buy media rather than rent it:
I want to be able to consume it as I like. I don't want it to be tied to a device that I might sell or that might break. If I get a new device, I want to be able to move my media to it.
Convenience. I want to be sure that, when I need book X, I can get to it quickly.
Future proofing. I want confidence that the media I like won't get taken off the market and disappear into a black hole where it will never be seen again. This happens depressingly often in commercial publishing. Consider the dreadful fate of the version of Star Wars I saw as a kid.
Price. I don't want to have to pay hardcover price for everything. I'm kind of resigned to the fact that ebooks won't be much cheaper than normal books, but I do want them not to be significantly more expensive.
Music and movies have effectively solved most of these problems, basically because they either have no DRM or are easily rippable. Because it is easy to rip music, via the so-called "analog hole" if nothing else, I can always move it to another medium in an emergency. I can back up my music and video onto hard drives or web services. If I encounter a video or song on YouTube that I really like and am afraid is going to go away, I can back that up too. And it turns out that it's hard to stop video from circulating on the internet, so the risk of stuff going out of print and becoming completely unavailable has gotten much lower. Indeed, the ease of online distribution is flooding YouTube with more old video material than I ever knew existed.
In such a world, I'm increasingly happy to move to an all-rental model for most movies and music.
Books are different. They are really hard to rip from physical media: Scanning is a total pain in the ass. The rental ones have DRM. There is no lending of ebooks, and they can't be moved from reader to reader unless the vendors support it. And so, famously, there is no guarantee that the thing I paid money for won't just evaporate.
Which brings up another important criterion: It is hard to compete with the durability of the printed book, which is more archival than any digital data I own. Even my crappiest pulp paperbacks are likely to outlive every piece of digital media in my house. Contrast this with DVDs: They're not just physically frail, but the whole format isn't guaranteed to outlive me: What good are the disks if the players go the way of the Victrola, or even the eight-track player? That kind of makes it easier to sell me on rented DVDs: The alternative to a cheap rental is a dubiously durable personal copy. But alternative to ebooks is the codex book, a medium that routinely lasts hundreds of years, which I can read so long as I still have vision, and which is probably cheaper to buy. (Though not, alas, cheaper to store or move.)
Likely to also share the same fate as the Tirpitz.
Of course failing to innovate is their own fault. They would have been better to hire smart web engineers and planners from the start. Now they are playing catch up game while other people make money off of content that costs them money to produce.
I completely agree with this. People should stop arguing copyright matters on a purely technical level. Intent matters. The intent here is that other people should not make money off the RSS feed. This is exactly what happened in this case, so NYT's reaction is perfectly natural.
EDIT: I see the story actually mentions this, and it now makes me characterize this as one of my favorite annoyances, the selective enforcement of copyrights. Big companies get a pass, or a backroom deal, joe startup gets crushed.
Then someone pointed out that Pulse doesn't come bundled with the NYTimes RSS feed - rather it lets people add whatever feed they want. Pulse isn't making money selling NYTimes content, its making money selling a way to consume content.
One of the comments says: "Pulse actually ships with the NYT built in."
Without having cleared this up, it's difficult to judge the matter.
EDIT: If wired.com is not grossly incorrect, I do think that the feed was built in:
"The developers of Pulse, Akshay Kothari and Ankit Gupta, are bemused, and are planning to contact Apple to fix the problem. They’ll do this by removing the NYT’s feed from the app ..."
By that logic, Safari ships with Apple and CNN "built in". Along with a bunch of other undesirable bookmarks and feeds.
It wasn't even a very good example, since Pulse is all about showing headlines with photos, and the Times feed didn't have photos in it so it was just a wall of text.
Yes - but you bet Apple did actually ask CNN and others beforehand and CNN said Yes. That has been my experience.
Is one thing for a user to add a RSS feed, its another to pre-package it in a commercial app.
Its not about 'free traffic' its about saying 'hey, thats not cool' IMHO. I would also add, until his all came up I wouldn't have guessed it was an issue until I thought about it more.
Disclaimer: I do work for NYT but have nothing to do with this whole drama. I'm just as interested as anyone here. Oh, and all this is my personal opinion and not necessarily that of blah de blah blah blah....
It is a Headline and Summary with a Link. Completely different. I doubt that changes your point or your mind, but lets be clear on whats going on.
I would also add, that this in itself (IMHO) is harmless, but there is also the issue of using NYT content etc in marketing materials (screenshots) for a paid app.
I think that the RSS link/headline&summary by itself is harmless, but that together its a bigger deal.
BTW I don't necessarily disagree with you. I just feel that people are dealing with each issue isolation and losing the overall context.
The only thing they are pre-packaging is a link. Yes, it displays the content, but it's no different from any other piece of client software in that regard. They do not pre-package any NYT content, which was what I mean when I said it's only a link.
The ad material is the only place where the NYT might have a case, but it seems pretty clear that was not their issue, or they would have objected to the ad, not the software.
at most nytimes could have introduced something like a "non-commercial utilization only" tag to their feed. in that case the ipad bundled browser would also have to block the feed, since apple isn't giving the ipad away for free.
They are not making money off the feed - they have other feeds too. They charge you for the app you can use to read any feed.
If that's so, Apple is charging for a device that makes money off, among other things, the NYT RSS feed. All Apple products should then be pulled out of the market. In reality, every computer and networking device should too.
The Pulse News Reader app, makes commercial use of the
NYTimes.com and Boston.com RSS feeds
Now one could argue that displaying the NY Times feed in the screen shots is commercial use of the feed. But in that case, they should argue that the Pulse advertisement infringes on their copyright. Not the Pulse application itself.
Saying otherwise, would be like saying that shooting a gun into a crowd and killing someone isn't murder if you intended for the bullet to make it through the crowd without hitting anyone.
Such licensed artwork (images, icons, etc...) that become part of a commercial application are different than same artwork displayed in an application.
The first is embedded by the commercial developer, the second is initiated and viewed by the user. Otherwise, by just viewing such licensed material in a commercial browser, you'd be breaking the license of the artwork. It's a catch 22 that makes no sense.
Again, the developer is selling a tool to better view content (not selling content). The tool in this case is software. Apple is doing the same, but their tool is hardware and no one complains.
If you got this far, you have violated my TOS and infringed my copyright.
I can understand if the NYT took issue with pictures of their content being used in screenshots/promotional material (implies endorsement). Or if their RSS was used in any other way to actually sell the app.
I can even understand them contacting the app owners and asking to be removed as a default feed (though that seems irrational it is only their loss).
But forcing Apple to remove it... well that's just a net negative move for everyone.
It's neither a smart or polite move. And the insinuation made was that the app sellers were misappropriating their content - which isn't true!
If this were an Android app, there would still be ways to make money off of the app even if Google removed it from the store. Practically speaking, it probably wouldn't be very successful, but it's nice to know that the option is there.
Thank you for your response and prompt attention to the Trademark issue. Please provide documentation evidencing that you have authorization from Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal to include content from their sites. Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal have previously objected to other applications that feed from their sites, and believes that such features infringe their rights.
I thought about Apple's response for a while, and decided that LAT and WSJ should not have this kind of control over who gets to link to their website. Moreover, it's not like the app scrapes ads off of all their pages... the papers still generate page views and ad revenue, which in the end is what they want, right?
Instead, the claim they're making suggests it's wrong for the app to display NYTimes content, even at the direction/configuration of the end-user. That's a problematic argument for the whole stack of 'commercial' tools used to read the NYTimes, from the computer and OS through the mobile data provider/ISP up through the browser and feed-reader apps.
http://experimentgarden.com/safari-5-reader-why-it-wont-work...
The BP oil spill has made its CEO so flustered he needed a nice cool Coke-Cola(r) to relax, mind interview. Clearly only a Coke(r) would do, as the CEO is a man of sense, staying away from the slightly detergent taste of Pepsi. Smart man.
However now we have Steve Jobs sitting in the place of the courts. His decision is arbitrary and Pulse has no avenue for appeal other than by pleading and praying for his mercy.
Regardless of whether he decides the app can stay or go it is utterly wrong that he is being given this privilege. I hope that content providers and app developers alike look at this with revulsion and seriously consider other ways to move forward than placing so much power in one individual's hands.
Similar story from AllThingsD, and HNs discussion
They're a publicly-traded business; they don't run on fairy dust and unicorn tears.
By now, he certainly is.
It would be nice if Apple stood by the developers that make the iPhone/iPod/iPad ecosystem what it is.
If users were free to acquire software for their devices without Apple's interference, the authors would have the option to continue distributing the app and take their chances in court with the NYT.
Apple doesn't stand to lose much if they have to remove an app from the app store (even a top selling app), but they stand to lose a lot in a lawsuit. The cost of litigation might exceed what Apple stands to make on the app regardless of whether they win or lose a lawsuit. Therefore the App Store model gives companies leverage to destroy developers' apps and by extension to determine what kind of apps are available to users
You certainly can need a license, if that's the manner in which the owner is distributing it. The fact that it's allowed by the protocol doesn't mean that it's automatically legally permitted.
I think this is a bad idea on NYT's part but that they do have a leg to stand on.
Does a company have the right to dictate how its information is distributed? Even when they make it freely available?
One might argue that the most important part of the story is the first sentence, summary, or lede, and that the NYTimes is forgoing a lot of its own resources if they aren't able to charge people for it. But then -- can they fairly dictate that their RSS information is only valid for non-commercial users, but invalid for commercial users which compete with their own products that support their business?
On the one hand, we might want them to provide this RSS feed. It's better than nothing. It may even be seen as a service for the general public. And we might want to see them succeed as an organization, because we think their function in society is important, etc. So should we allow them to prohibit use of their information for commercial purposes? Even if those commercial purposes are only briefly and independently involved in the whole pipeline of news consumption?
Yes. Pulse is not distributing the New York Times' content. They're distributing a program that asks the Times' for their content. The Times' obliges.
> But then -- at what point can they fairly dictate that their RSS information is valid for non-commercial users, but only invalid for commercial users which compete with their own products that support their business?
They can prevent distribution of their content for commercial purposes, but Pulse isn't doing that. The Times can't prevent receipt of their content, but they can choose not to give it to certain users to begin with.
> It may even be seen as a service for the general public. We might want to them to succeed as an organization, because we think their function in society is important, etc. So should we allow them to prohibit use of their information for commercial purposes?
No. That would prohibit creating commercial web browsers or any other innovation in the consumption of content that creators freely provide. The trade-off isn't worth it. If the Times' can't find a way to survive, I'll donate money to organizations who can. There's no need to sacrifice more of our rights to incentivize journalism.
The NYT company invested in Auttomatic (Wordpress makers; see http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/business/media/23nytimes.h... ) and they got FiveThirtyEight, a blog, under their wing. Clearly they're thinking about what's next in media and experimenting, and then they turn around and do this mindless move. This kind of confusion makes me sad because it's a sign there is still a lot of inertia against their necessary evolution.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/business/media/21times.htm...
This move (going after perceived commercial use of their public RSS feeds) is actually consistent with their apparent current survival strategy.
In future they may have their own custom app, and would like people to buy news straight from them, or they can group together the publishers to create a aggregator app, where the newspapers are making the money, instead of Tech-App Middle man.
It will take some time for them to figure out how to make this model work. Till then be prepared to get a legal assault from them on any news apps.
If people don't like fans using the RSS, truncate or remove it altogether. It is beyond me that NYT, who seem so willing to innovate and understand the new frontiers of technology, would add themselves to the list of these weird cases.
Also, The Barbra Streisand Effect for reference-dropping measure.
As well they use the legal route to put focus on themselves. Like "hey we aren't dead yet!". And while annoying digerati , they managed to spread the word about themselves across so much of a news medium.
Just a ploy to gain market share.
2. Apple shows off Pulse at WWDC
3. Pulse gets download 35,000 times, delivering the (limited) NYT feed to 35,000 eyeballs who might not otherwise check it out regularly
4. NYT forces Apple to take down Pulse.
It's not an issue of misuse of content. It is a preset. Pulse is not SELLING the NYT's content, they are including the feed URL as one of several defaults in their multi-purpose feed reader because they think it's nice and their audience will like it.
Now the app will go back online... and get many more sales because of this exposure... and all those new eyeballs will have to exert EFFORT to view the NYT's feeds.
Say it with me, HNers... s-t-u-p-i-d.
Curious story. If there’s one good thing about this whole thing, than it’s that a lot more people now know about this app and will maybe even buy it.
My little theory is that the New York Times saw the bad press rolling in and called up Apple.
This drastically reduces who you can develop for, and is one of the silliest reasons I have ever heard to not develop for the iPhone.
If apple is such a leader in the open web, then why don't they try to defend the open web in court instead of rolling over without a fight?
I'm hoping the real issue is just a matter of Pulse's marketing material. Should they remove trademarks from their copy, perhaps the NYT would back off.
If the developers of Pulse and the Times settle this (in or out of court), I'm sure Apple would be happy to start selling it again, but they run a store and can be sued for selling something that knowingly breaks the terms of use of a content provider.
Agreed. That's not the defense I was recommending.
Remember Safari and IE are also paid for. Safari for Mac requires OSX and is, presumably, included in its price. The same goes for Internet Explorer, whose EULA explicitly forbids you from installing on anything other than Windows. Safari for Windows may get away with that.
"Safari for Mac requires OSX"
"Safari for Windows may get away with that"
But this is just nit-picking. I agree that the Times is being completely ridiculous here. There are all sorts of commercial entities involved in people reading the Times RSS feeds - Apple, Pulse, the users' ISP, the Times' hosting company, various telcos in between the two, the folks who made the routers the packets pass through, etc. The Times doesn't seem to have accepted that they don't have direct contact with their readers online; they're just one part of a larger ecosystem.
Safari for Windows is just an attempt to get Windows web developers to test against Safari. No Windows user I know of uses Safari as the main browser.