There’s something stupid going on in Denmark right now. Danish newspapers are trying to ban deep linking to their content, mainly because of Google News. Global Voices have a great summary.
Specifically, the Danish Newspaper Publishers Association are frustrated that Google News in Denmark wants to list and link to articles of Danish newspapers without paying them royalties.
Bloggers don’t like this, of course. And we support them! Internet is about linkability, sharing and discussion – and that’s also what our product is all about. Twingly Blogstream doesn’t work if bloggers aren’t allowed to link directly to articles on our partners sites.
The blog editor at our Danish customer Politiken.dk, Kim Elmose, understands the importance of deep-links from blogs and is one of those who are against this silly proposal.
Kim Elmose published his response in his personal blog Mediehack, calling the resistance to deep linking counter productive, and pointed to the irony that most Danish journalists use Google News as a tool themselves.
From us at Twingly: please rethink. This is just silly.
Classic old school.
I read a blogpost (don´t remember where) comparing this to a discussion onboard the Titanic on how to align the sunchairs. In other words, does it really matter in the long run?
Old media has to face the consequences of new media sooner or later.