Hacker News Reader

Comment by aaronsw | Hacker News Reader

If you read the actual report they're quoting (http://www.ftc.gov/opp/workshops/news/jun15/docs/new-staff-d...) you'll see, as usual, that the _Washington Times_ is being totally dishonest.

First, the report is simply a list of proposals news industry people have made about how to save their businesses, not new FTC proposals.

Second, it isn't a tax -- it's simply talking about news providers providing licenses for their content to news aggregators.

Third, the FTC isn't even talking about changing the law to create new legal rights against news aggregators. What they're actually talking about is removing antitrust barriers to news providers getting together and starting a joint licensing scheme.

In short, this is less than nothing.

View on HN

As the 'discussion draft' itself notes in its own words, "a compulsory license places an effective tax on certain conduct".

Several of the proposals listed involve creating broader IP rights ('hot news'; statutory truncations of traditional 'fair use'; a new statutory licensing scheme), or antitrust exemptions, all to allow favored traditional newsgathers the ability to demand payment from aggregators. In common parlance, that's enough like a 'tax' to make the description accurate in a popular account.

(The Washington Times didn't even highlight one of the most egregious ideas listed -- a $5-$7 fee per subscriber on all ISPs, collected and distributed by the federal Copyright Office.)

The least honest part of the WT coverage is calling the document a "draft proposal". As you note, it's just a laundry list of ideas. (In the document's own subheading, "potential policy recommendations to support the reinvention of journalism".)

But it's fair of the WT to suggest these ideas are being considered, and to alert those who might find them disconcerting before the proposals become any more concrete. And the ideas are heavy on new taxes, new licensing fees, new IP rights for old-line industries, and new government subsidies -- as should be expected from an agency looking for something to do.

Straight out of the source document -- "Nonetheless, a compulsory license places an effective tax on certain conduct."

A tax by any other name is still a tax -- and if these ideas are enacted there would be an effective "news aggregrator" tax.

Regardless, the opening paragraphs of the source document make it clear that these are NOT formal policy recommendations.

Agreed the source document labels itself as "POTENTIAL POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS TO SUPPORT THE REINVENTION OF JOURNALISM".

So I don't see why the bashing of the Washington Times Editorial as "TOTALLY DISHONEST" -- which CLEARLY makes reference to the "May 28 Draft proposal" in the first paragraph.

It's obvious that this represents a fairly accurate portrayal of the FTC's existing thinking and deserves to be scrutinized.

Not trying to be contentious here. I'm just not sure that the FTC has staked out a clear position on this issue, yet. They seem to be inviting scrutiny.

For example on page 5, the FTC asks the question,

"Is a “wait-and-see” approach preferable at this time, when experimentation to find new revenue sources is ongoing and the likely effects of some proposals may be difficult to gauge?"

The Washington Times are being totally dishonest because this not a FTC proposal, it is not a draft proposal either, it is just a summary of issues that are to be discussed in future meetings with the press and various roundtable discussions etc.

"It's obvious that this represents a fairly accurate portrayal of the FTC's existing thinking and deserves to be scrutinized."

No that is not obvious. Try reading the document. On the contrary, it is obvious that at this stage they are just throwing ideas at the wall. There is absolutely no indication that the FTC has endorsed any of these ideas or that they even came from FTC personnell (the document actually suggests that many of the ideas came from external sources).

If you do not like any of those ideas please comment on them (the document provides a link for that).

But if you are going to hold the FTC responsible for everything that gets mentioned in one of their discussions with the public as if it is their plan and idea, the FTC and the government will just stop having discussions with the public.

The phrase is "trial balloon".

If it doesn't get shot down, the formal policy announcement will include "we're just reiterating something that was discussed and agreed on previously".

At that point, some folks will say "hey, when did that happen" and others will say "it's too late to complain now".

There is no rational basis for claiming this was a trial balloon.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/trial+balloon - "An idea or a plan advanced tentatively to test public reaction."

Read the document's self-description quoted above.

Do you have any idea how many government documents are produced each year with similar sounding verbiage? If that's your criteria for being a trial balloon, then the government puts out millions of trial balloons every year. One for every man, woman and child!

A key part of the dictionary definition is intent and you have absolutely no evidence - none whatsoever - indicating that this document was intended to test public reaction. If it was, I imagine they'd have leaked it to a real newspaper and not to the humiliated house organ of a crazy cult leader who had himself proclaimed king of the universe. The Washington Times circulation numbers are pathetic so it is a terrible vehicle for leaking: the public's response can't be gauged if the public doesn't see the proposal to begin with.

> Do you have any idea how many government documents are produced each year with similar sounding verbiage? If that's your criteria for being a trial balloon, then the government puts out millions of trial balloons every year.

Do you have any idea how many regulations are added each year and how many bills are introduced? Almost all of them are preceeded with one or more documents gauging public interest and there are also such documents for policies that don't make the cut.

> A key part of the dictionary definition is intent and you have absolutely no evidence - none whatsoever - indicating that this document was intended to test public reaction.

Oh really? As I quoted "Now, one year later, staff responsible for this project present this draft for discussion of 1) the tentative conclusions outlined here about the current and likely future environments for news gathering and reporting, and 2) potential policy recommendations to address the issues raised during this proceeding."

Maybe they weren't interested in public reaction, but they certainly are thinking of these policies.

> The Washington Times circulation numbers are pathetic so it is a terrible vehicle for leaking

The document wasn't "leaked". It was published.

The document wasn't "leaked". It was published.

How do you think the WT knew to look for this specific document? Do you think that WT staffers, when not performing mass cult marriages, read every single government document published in DC?

In practice, publishing a random document is insufficient for a trial balloon since the vast majority of published government documents get no attention from the public. That's why trial balloons often involve leaks, sometimes instead of, sometimes in addition to publishing a source document.

Do you have any idea how many regulations are added each year and how many bills are introduced?

I don't see your point here at all. There is a very small quantity of information that the media can reliably present to the public every year. The vast majority of bills and regulations can never be presented to the public for trial ballooning, for reasons of bandwidth if nothing else. Which suggests that it is extremely unlikely that this was a trial balloon.

Maybe they weren't interested in public reaction, but they certainly are thinking of these policies.

That's precisely my point: you have no evidence that they published this specifically to gauge public reaction. Thus you have no evidence of intent. Which means that your trial balloon accusation is evidence-free.

> How do you think the WT knew to look for this specific document?

That's your argument? That no one does trial balloons through WT? How do you know that bigger sources were not also informed and decided to sit on it? (I found out about it through a line of contacts that had nothing to with WT.)

Suppose we accept your "it's not a trial balloon because it wasn't intended to test public opinion". That leaves us with "it was intended to slip under the radar and to pop up later as a done-deal".

Are you happier with that?

I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt and call it a trial balloon. You're free to assume malign intent on their part.

>> Do you have any idea how many regulations are added each year and how many bills are introduced?

> I don't see your point here at all.

You claimed that the mass of published proposals was somehow evidence against a specific proposal being a trial balloon. Since there's a comparable mass of things that actually become law and/or regulation, that claim doesn't make any sense.

Did you actually read what the document said, or did you just do a search for the word "tax"?

The compulsory license idea was not a proposal of the commission but a proposal of "one workshop participant." The commission's report just mentions as something that was mentioned in the round table discussions and then mostly criticises it. That is very far from the title of "FTC mulls taxing news agregators". Also the compulsory license would not be applied to news agregators but directly to ISPs.

Despite all the disclaimer's that this is some sort of loose collection of "ideas" -- the beginning of the report contains about 4 pages of FTC "staff’s key observations and conclusions to date".

Reading that is makes it clear to me that the current FTC regime wants to bail out newspapers and traditional media by erecting costs & barriers to new media and citizen journalism.

> First, the report is simply a list of proposals news industry people have made about how to save their businesses, not new FTC proposals.

The report says that the proposals come from FTC staff and as potential policy. I'll quote.

"In May 2009, the Federal Trade Commission announced a project to consider the challenges faced by journalism in the Internet age. Now, one year later, staff responsible for this project present this draft for discussion of 1) the tentative conclusions outlined here about the current and likely future environments for news gathering and reporting, and 2) potential policy recommendations to address the issues raised during this proceeding. We note that this draft does not represent final conclusions or recommendations by the Commission or FTC staff; it is solely for purposes of discussion, in particular at FTC roundtable discussions to be held on June 15, 2010, at the National Press Club."

"In other words, government policy would encourage a tax on websites like the Drudge Report, a must-read source for the news links of the day, so that the agency can redistribute the funds collected to various newspapers. Such a tax would hit other news aggregators, such as Digg, Fark and Reddit, which not only gather links, but provide a forum for a lively and entertaining discussion of the issues raised by the stories. Fostering a robust public-policy debate, not saving a particular business model, should be the goal of journalism in the first place."

Maybe this article isn't that well written or I'm not reading correctly, but I did get the impression that they are trying to charge for something

The editorial is definitely written that way. It doesn't exactly reflect what is in the FTC document, though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com