Copyrighted News Content
Australia and the world is facing a crisis when it comes to original, professional journalism. While the skills are still there, and the market is still there, making a profit from journalism is becoming more difficult.
For example there are many services that make news accessible without actually creating the content. They simply repackage or rewrite an original story for their own profit. This has a direct, negative affect on the amount of quality journalism we can access, while providing easy profits to non-journalist businesses.
Proposal: a copyright system for news. Newspapers never needed such protection in the past, because papers were printed once per day, and any copied stories would be a day late. Times have changed.
We still want people to quickly access the latest news on whichever platform they choose, so this would be more like a Creative Commons license.
- stories would be registered using the blockchain
- only registered entities can participate
- registered entities can lose their status if they are unethical
- all copied or rewritten news items must link to the original source
- only applies to news about events that occurred in the last 24-hours, or investigative journalism
Providing a link is a small price to pay for copying / rewriting the news uncovered by others. On the one hand, this already happens, without linking. On the other hand, we expect a financial model to emerge. This is only the first step.
We would push for this to be an international initiative, or else it is unlikely to work.
Why it will work: registered news services will standout, via a logo and certification. In the age of fake news, consumers will learn which to trust, and which to distrust.
Implementation costs will be low relative to the potential increased income, or even simply the survival, of quality news services.
Australia managing the service will help us transition into a future where trust has value, while our old industries wane.