AP Proposes ASCAP-Like Fees For the News 146
eldavojohn writes "Techdirt directed my attention to an article where the AP discussed pressure from new devices and mediums today giving them cause to create a clearinghouse for news — much like the music industry's ASCAP — to 'establish an enforcement and payment system.' You'll notice that the story I am linking to and quoting is an AP story ... would Slashdot then be required to pay these fees? We have seen DMCA take down notices and fee discussions before from the AP."
Re:Donation Link needed (Score:3, Informative)
Donations do not work well like this. They work well for massive fundraising, but as for a steady income? Forget about it. The product (the new story) is consumed and forgotten about. When I ran my own forum for my own niche interest, if I needed to upgrade something, I put out the word, and I would say only 1 or 2 users stepped up and gave 90+% of the donation money, and the others either gave nothing or cheaped out the other 10%. As the site got bigger (more followers), one would think it got better but it actually got worse, it was as if everyone thought "There is so many people here, someone else will probably donate what's needed." And these were all for expenses running the site (didn't even cover that, but it was a hobby so okay). For a paying job, no way, everyone needs a painless way to give, and the guy working shouldn't be begging for income.
That is why advertising is attractive, because everyone, in essence, is paying toward something. But that too has been subverted (and really, with pop-ups, rightly so). Also the problem with advertising is that as it becomes ever more ubiquitous but the amount of advertisers paying for adverts stay roughly the same, the value of each individual advertistisement will be driven down. More and more people playing for the same size pie and all that. Also, something will eventually have to be bought down the line, be it a coffee or a car, to make it pay. You can't run the whole world on adverts, subsidizing people's cars or houses (as some on /. apparently assume imo going by some posts). The amount spent on advertising gets tacked right back onto the product (obvious is you ever compared to Walmart brands to the brand names) so the freebies really aren't free.
What is really needed is a viable micropayment system. Not a paypal you log into, but something where you click a button and can give 3 cents or whatever the price of admission is. Amounts you really don't thing about. $5 max or something on an account to be spent so fraud wouldn't be too attractive.
Re:Please provide links to studies (Score:1, Informative)
Most everybody participated. Americans give a HUGE amount to charity.
Here is one report:
http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2007/June/200706261522251CJsamohT0.8012354.html [america.gov]
If you want more you can google it yourself. I'm not here to spoon feed you because you've been too lazy to pay attention for the last several years.
Re:Donation Link needed (Score:3, Informative)
That is not a fact based piece at all. Hell it is full of slant and makes the claim that donations to church is charity instead of a voluntary fee for service.
The entire first paragraph makes claims about presidential candidates donations based on their tax filings. I donated $15 to the humane society today, in cash. Do you think I will bother to put that on my tax forms?