We’ve been hearing all of these stories about the importance of extending copyright further over news content and how mainstream publications can’t handle other publications acting as “parasites” — using their news without paying…. And at the same time, there seems to be a huge double standard. Apparently people are questioning the journalistic ethics of ESPN for offering to pay $500 for the Lebron James dunk video, which made some news recently when James supposedly tried to suppress it.
However, the bigger point here is: smaller publications are considered parasites for rewriting a story from a major publication leading people to put forth proposals that these sites pay the original publication. But… when it comes to a video from an independent entity, it’s suddenly an ethics violation to pay the copyright holder? In the first case you have company A (the major publication) demanding money from company/person B (the indie publication) for “using” their work. In the second case you have people saying that it’s unethical for company/person B to get money from company A for using their work.
Can someone please explain how that’s not a double standard?
When the mainstream publication is reporting it’s unethical to pay for copyrighted material? But when another publication writes a story (not copies it, even) based on reporting from a mainstream publication, it’s suddenly a violation? By the mainstream publications’ own reasoning, wouldn’t accepting money from these “parasites” be just as unethical? After all, those smaller publications would now be paying for news, which apparently is incredibly unethical in the mainstream journalism book…
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