First, the FTC proposes to extend the Copyright Act to make “facts” proprietary. That's right, “facts.” A new property right would be created for a newspaper to own the facts it uncovered, not just the way it phrases them. "Sir, you have the right to your opinions, but not to your own facts." The gentleman from New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan who once told another senator must be rolling in his grave.
The FTC suggests that "the copyright act allows parasitic aggregators to 'free ride' on others' substantial journalistic investments, by protecting only expression and not the underlying facts, which are often gathered at great expense."
Shouldn’t those who are part of the reported event and the chain of information linking the anointed journalist to this new pot of gold get some too? Would this new property interest be decided under a work for hire doctrine principles? Rupert Murdock would know how to decide what best to do with this smoldering pile on nonsense?
Why make facts proprietary? Why not? Whose getting paid at the FTC to think through anything these days when the call of the day is a never ending focus is on the demands of partisan campaigning?
• Establish a "journalism" division of AmeriCorps "to ensure that young people who love journalism will stay in the field."
• Increase funding for PBS and NPR "to build and maintain strong newsrooms at the state and local levels."
• Establish a National Fund for Local News, financed by current or new fees on "telecom users, television and radio broadcast licensees, or Internet service providers"--all to be administered through state Local News Fund Councils. (Ah, new local bureaucracies with taxing authority--what could possibly go wrong?)
• Give news organizations a tax credit for every journalist they employ. This could help pay their salaries.
What better way to assure fierce journalistic independence and watchdog vigilance than to have government subsidize it?
The FTC revenue-raising proposals:
• Small Business Administration-insured loans for new nonprofit journalism organizations.
• Higher postal subsidies for newspapers and periodicals.
• A broadcast spectrum tax (call it the "Tax on Rush") "which should result in a fund of between $3 and $6 billion."
• A tax on consumer electronics (dubbed "the iPad Tax" by the New York Post) worth "approximately $4 billion annually."
