Hey! That's Mine!

The world changed this week. The US Congress and Senate were poised to pass legislation designed to stop or at least inhibit what the US Department of Justice feels to be rampant theft of intellectual property produced by content providers such as but not limited to RIAA, MPAA, and Universal Music. At the beginning of the week members of Congress thought they would be taking up non-controversial legislation, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) in the House and PIPA (Protect IP Act) in the Senate. (For detailed information check here.)

The world changed when both chambers, being feted by the usual business lobbyists in support of the legislation, were dumbfounded by the groundswell opposition that web sites like Wikipedia, Wired, Reddit, and Google generated seemingly overnight simply by dramatizing a worst case scenario outcome of these acts on their pages. They also put up on their sites why they opposed the legislation. Instead of lobbying elected representatives they lobbied the public and set up mechanisms for them to lobby Congress on their behalf. 

This was a fundamental paradigm shift away from the status quo of corporate lobbyists to the uncharted waters of internet democracy (anarchy?). For good or ill leaders and members of both houses scrambled to see who could distance themselves the quickest from the legislation while today both chambers announced that they would not be bringing the legislation to the floor until it could be further revised. (For a rather insightful article in the New York Times go here.)

This brings me to Case 2–A, What’s Yours Is Mine: The Ethics of News Aggregation, pg. 38, in Media Ethics: Issues & Cases by Patterson and Wilkins. I will consider this case in light of the code of ethics provided by the Society of Professional Journalists (see it here) as a guide for modern journalists.

Case 2–A reports how the Hartford Courant cut jobs from its news gathering staff but was pressured for content as their online presence became more robust. Instead of hiring back staff they began a process of “aggregating local news from surrounding dailies.” (pg. 38) Utilizing this methodology of news reporting (gathering?) conflicts with the above mentioned code of ethics in several ways. Here are but a few from the top:

• Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error. Deliberate distortion is never permissible.
• Diligently seek out subjects of news stories to give them the opportunity to respond to allegations of wrongdoing.
• Identify sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources’ reliability.
• Make certain that headlines, news teases and promotional material, photos, video, audio, graphics, sound bites and quotations do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context.

And, of course, the really big one —

• Never plagiarize.

These five statements come from the section titled, Seek Truth and Report It. The title alone raises its own ethical issue and questions whether aggregating news is the same as seeking it. Also, if news is aggregated how does one test accuracy, seek out subjects, identify sources, determine the context, or avoid plagiarism? If the stories I’m producing are not actually mine but flow from an aggregation of sources am I still a journalist? Am I still bound by my code of ethics?

I feel and think that if I choose to be guided by the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics then the dilemma presented by aggregating news stories is rather cut and dried. I cannot check out “my” sources because they are not mine. I cannot really determine the accuracy of the story since I really didn’t write it I only extracted from it. I cannot be certain of the context, question sources, or even be certain if plagiarism exists since I’m not chasing down the story. Instead I’m sitting at a computer collating material from various sources provided on the Internets. Therefore, in my understanding, I am not a journalist in the classical sense and perhaps this code of ethics no longer applies in my “newsroom.”

Still the question begs: is this right? Is it ethical to take the work of others and provide a synergistic rendition of it for my own purposes? How Google of me! At least Google maintains the integrity of the original story and links back to the actual source. What the Hartford Courant did, on the other hand, was a violation of the code of ethics especially where stories taken from competitors were not credited to the source from whence they came. That is plagiarism which, in my thinking, is the unpardonable sin a journalist can commit. The only way out of this ‘sin’ is for the Hartford Courant to come up with some other description of their employees than ‘journalists.’

However, the world has changed this week. Content providers, representing the old economies of news gathering, thinking they had finally crafted legislation to put this stubborn genie back in its bottle was suddenly confronted by a massive negative response from the public. It would appear that the public had grown fond of this genie that made content produced by the intellectual work of corporations and individuals free.

That ‘genie’ is also labeled or obfuscated as ‘internet freedom’ which tends to cloud the issue somewhat. It raises questions like: are intellectual property rights more important than the free flow of information? Is the monetary payoff of intellectual work more important than allowing that work, be it a story, video, or news, to be accessed by the largest number of people (i.e. free)?

As I consider the Ethical Models we have covered in the course I believe we are tied. From Aristotle, Bok, and Kant I can make the ethical decision that work produced and owned by an individual or corporation is the property of that entity. Therefore, when that work is delivered to the marketplace for consumption those who hold title to it should be compensated. It is right by my conscience (Bok), it is consistent and continues to be consistent (Aristotle), and I respect the individual (personal or corporate) as the proper source of the material (Kant).

Let me change hats now from a Modern to a Postmodern perspective. The age in which we find ourselves is one of great friction between the modernist world view and that of the postmodernist. In my estimation Bok, Aristotle, and Kant are fairly representative of a world view that implies there is one metanarrative from which true values and morals flow into all other narratives. Yet the Utilitarian, Pluralism, and Communitarian models of ethics points more towards a world where the center does not hold. In fact, there is no center, no metanarrative to guide all others. Rather there are overlapping and competing narratives in which values and morals are self-contained. In this world ‘truth’ is the narrative that is currently on the top which means that the values and morals carried with it provides the ethical framework as well.

Getting back to the Hartford Courant from the ‘old’ world perspective of modernism they are clearly behaving in an unethical manner as is Google, Reddit, and any other media source that aggregates or collects and disseminates materials without proper compensation or attribution. However, in the postmodern world the ethical situation becomes unclear. The ethical outcome of news aggregation is really dependent upon democratic response much like that to SOPA and PIPA this week.

Given that the popular response to news aggregation is generally positive (what would happen if Google News went dark?) then the ethical systems of Utilitarianism, Communitarianism, and Pluralism would favor the narrative of news aggregation and let Hartford Courant off the hot seat explaining that the service they provided to the community is important, the reach of the service is very broad and needed, and more people had access to the service which means their actions are ethical.

Let’s stir the waters a bit more. Yesterday Apple made an announcement in New York City concerning textbooks (see the keynote here). They released a program called iBooks Author. This program allows teachers anywhere and everywhere to compose their own textbooks by aggregating text, photos, graphics, video, diagrams, mathematical equations, keynote (powerpoint) presentations, among other hyper-linked media into an interactive book that can be used by students who have an iPad. The program is free of charge.

I downloaded it and searched in vain for some way to add a citation or footnote to text. There was none nor could I find any way to reference work from a different author/provider unless I add it in body text. 


The only way an author can publish an iBook textbook is via iTunes. Does this mean that Apple will assume the role of ethical gatekeeper as regards copyrighted materials or intellectual property that may find its way into the iBook textbooks authored by various teachers and professors? In the world of Kant, Aristotle, and Bok this is the least that they could do. However, in the new world of Utilitarianism, Communitarianism, and Pluralism a case could be made for anything goes.

The outcry against SOPA and PIPA and their subsequent defeat (before even being debated or voted upon) along with the release of iBooks Author (download from the App Store for free!) are seismic shifts in ethical consciousness. Perhaps it is pointing to a world where the cry, “Hey! That’s mine!” is responded to with an indifferent, “So?”