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New York Times Forces Apple to Pull Popular ‘Pulse’ iPad Newsreader
- NathanKP 16y agoThey'll probably be even less happy with Apple's new Safari 5 reader: http://experimentgarden.com/safari-5-reader-why-it-wont-work-for-long http://experimentgarden.com/safari-5-reader-why-it-wont-work...
- nooneelse 16y agoMaybe phones that already know the user's credit card number could keep track of a micro-payment each time the readability feature is used on a participating and non-content-obscuring site and send off a few dollars every N uses.
- NathanKP 16y agoMore likely they will just start putting ads in the article content itself.
- Calamitous 16y agoAnd that would be different how, exactly?
- lukifer 16y agoNext step: product placement in the news.
- megablast 16y agoProduct placement in articles. The BP oil spill has made its CEO so flustered he needed a nice cool Coke-Cola(r) to relax, mind interview. Clearly only a Coke(r) would do, as the CEO is a man of sense, staying away from the slightly detergent taste of Pepsi. Smart man.
- tjmaxal 16y agoIf the NY times hates people using their RSS feed why don't they just cut it off? It's no wonder print media is dying when you are willing to spend money on stupid legal fights when all you really have to do is police your own policies better. This reminds me of another HN article from this week where print media was seeking all kinds of govt regulations to prop up their dying industry, That kind of wasteful rent seeking behavior is exactly why most people don't care if the industry dies. They brought it upon themselves by failing to innovate.
- abstractwater 16y agoThey don't hate people using the RSS feed (which they sort of have to have to be on the web), but they don't want you to make money off of it.
- ugh 16y agoSelling feedreaders is not ok?
- bl4k 16y agonot the issue. the issue is that the nytimes was included as a default feed - and is used as a showcase for the app (note that they also make use of the nytimes name, logo etc.)
- latch 16y agoPulse doesn't charge you to add the NYTimes RSS feed to their application any more than the iphone itself charges you to do it.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- gokhan 16y agoIf I'm Opera, for example, selling browser software to people for browsing / reading nytimes.com, am I allowed or not?
- clammer 16y agoIf a paid for RSS reader violates their TOS, then wouldn't a paid for browser (html reader) do the same? If apple is such a leader in the open web, then why don't they try to defend the open web in court instead of rolling over without a fight? I'm hoping the real issue is just a matter of Pulse's marketing material. Should they remove trademarks from their copy, perhaps the NYT would back off.
- grantheaslip 16y agoThis is probably a stupid policy on the part of the Times, but they're entitled to enforce the use of their content however they want. "We disagree with their policy because they web should be open and free!" is not a valid legal defence. If the developers of Pulse and the Times settle this (in or out of court), I'm sure Apple would be happy to start selling it again, but they run a store and can be sued for selling something that knowingly breaks the terms of use of a content provider.
- clammer 16y ago>"We disagree with their policy because they web should be open and free!" Agreed. That's not the defense I was recommending.
- rbanffy 16y ago> wouldn't a paid for browser (html reader) do the same? Remember Safari and IE are also paid for. Safari for Mac requires OSX and is, presumably, included in its price. The same goes for Internet Explorer, whose EULA explicitly forbids you from installing on anything other than Windows. Safari for Windows may get away with that.
- jokermatt999 16y agohttp://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1413335 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1413335 Similar story from AllThingsD, and HNs discussion
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- pierrefar 16y agoI know I should get outraged and amused by this incompetence, but this is just sad. The NYT company invested in Auttomatic (Wordpress makers; see http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/business/media/23nytimes.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/business/media/23nytimes.h... ) and they got FiveThirtyEight, a blog, under their wing. Clearly they're thinking about what's next in media and experimenting, and then they turn around and do this mindless move. This kind of confusion makes me sad because it's a sign there is still a lot of inertia against their necessary evolution.
- logic 16y agoYou haven't seen anything yet. They'll be moving their content behind a pay-wall in 2011: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/business/media/21times.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/business/media/21times.htm... This move (going after perceived commercial use of their public RSS feeds) is actually consistent with their apparent current survival strategy.
- sfk 16y ago"The Pulse News Reader app, makes commercial use of the NYTimes.com and Boston.com RSS feeds, in violation of their Terms of Use. Thus, the use of our content is unlicensed. The app also frames the NYTimes.com and Boston.com websites in violation of their respective Terms of Use." I completely agree with this. People should stop arguing copyright matters on a purely technical level. Intent matters. The intent here is that other people should not make money off the RSS feed. This is exactly what happened in this case, so NYT's reaction is perfectly natural.
- ErrantX 16y agoI don't buy that. I can understand if the NYT took issue with pictures of their content being used in screenshots/promotional material (implies endorsement). Or if their RSS was used in any other way to actually sell the app. I can even understand them contacting the app owners and asking to be removed as a default feed (though that seems irrational it is only their loss). But forcing Apple to remove it... well that's just a net negative move for everyone. It's neither a smart or polite move. And the insinuation made was that the app sellers were misappropriating their content - which isn't true!
- ojbyrne 16y agoI'm not a lawyer, but doesn't that also apply to any for-sale RSS reader? If it doesn't, perhaps because a user has to add the RSS feed, then couldn't Pulse just do the same thing - ask the users to add RSS feeds (from a "suggested" list). EDIT: I see the story actually mentions this, and it now makes me characterize this as one of my favorite annoyances, the selective enforcement of copyrights. Big companies get a pass, or a backroom deal, joe startup gets crushed.
- latch 16y agoAnd why limit yourself to software? If its wrong for a piece of commercial software to consume the RSS feed, surely its wrong for a commercial piece of hardware to allow such consumption as well. And what about network operators?
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- natrius 16y agoTheir Terms of Service are unenforceable. You don't need a license to distribute code that asks the New York Times for their resources. The New York Times responds to those requests by saying "OK" and transmitting their content. They're free to stop doing that. If this were an Android app, there would still be ways to make money off of the app even if Google removed it from the store. Practically speaking, it probably wouldn't be very successful, but it's nice to know that the option is there.
- surlyadopter 16y agoAnother great example of how lawyers ruin everything.
- gojomo 16y agoThe definition of 'noncommercial' is a real mess. Even major 'free' browsers are commercial -- as they come from giant for-profit companies (Microsoft, Google) who ultimately hope to collect profits elsewhere due to their 'free' browser distribution. Do IE and Chrome violate the NYTimes license when they view NYTimes RSS feeds?
- cabalamat 16y agoYes, absolutely. As do ISPs. If I buy internet access, and use that access to read the NYT online, then my ISP is making a profit from the NYT's content without paying them. Ditto the companies that made my computers and all their components -- the NYT should sue them all!
- BrandonM 16y agoThe point is not that they allow the viewing of the NYT RSS feed, but that they ship with it by default, and use it as a selling point for their application. I don't agree with NYT's viewpoint here, but I can see where they are coming from. I think the Wired article went a bit over the top in saying that any piece of commercial software is disallowed from displaying NYT content.
- gojomo 16y agoIf the NYTimes complaint had been narrowly focused on the display of NYTimes content in promotional images/text, or even its default inclusion, I'd have more sympathy. Instead, the claim they're making suggests it's wrong for the app to display NYTimes content, even at the direction/configuration of the end-user. That's a problematic argument for the whole stack of 'commercial' tools used to read the NYTimes, from the computer and OS through the mobile data provider/ISP up through the browser and feed-reader apps.
- donohoe 16y agoI don't know for certain, but I think that IE, Chrome, others asked NYT for permission and don't just go ahead and use the RSS feed.
- zandorg 16y agoAt first glance, I thought 'pulse' meant it took your pulse. Not sure how that'd work.
- VMG 16y ago"just pop it on your wrist"
- gojomo 16y agoDoes Pulse identify itself in its User-Agent when fetching the RSS feed? If so NYTimes could have had their tech staff, not their legal staff, handle this.
- slig 16y agoIn-house legal staff must be free and have to be used to be justified.
- grantheaslip 16y agoGood to see nobody is blaming Apple for this; there are legitimate problems with Apple's handling of the App Store (though perhaps taken too far sometimes), but this is clearly not their fault.
- rbanffy 16y agoJobs could, conceivably, call the NYT and tell them they are full of sh*t and refer them directly to the makers of the application.
- grantheaslip 16y agoSure, but at that point Apple could be held liable for knowingly selling the app (and why you assume Jobs is personally handling this, I have no idea). This is the way almost every content company works: when they receive a takedown notice, they comply. Whatever money Apple is making from the sales of the app pales in comparison to the amount of money the Times' lawyers could wring out of them. If this kind of thing became a problem that was significantly affecting the platform, they may need to step in, but for one-off cases they're not going to. They're a publicly-traded business; they don't run on fairy dust and unicorn tears.
- rbanffy 16y ago> and why you assume Jobs is personally handling this, I have no idea By now, he certainly is. It would be nice if Apple stood by the developers that make the iPhone/iPod/iPad ecosystem what it is.
- ahoyhere 16y ago1. Pulse includes NYT as a preset in the feed reader 2. Apple shows off Pulse at WWDC 3. Pulse gets download 35,000 times, delivering the (limited) NYT feed to 35,000 eyeballs who might not otherwise check it out regularly 4. NYT forces Apple to take down Pulse. It's not an issue of misuse of content. It is a preset. Pulse is not SELLING the NYT's content, they are including the feed URL as one of several defaults in their multi-purpose feed reader because they think it's nice and their audience will like it. Now the app will go back online... and get many more sales because of this exposure... and all those new eyeballs will have to exert EFFORT to view the NYT's feeds. Say it with me, HNers... s-t-u-p-i-d.
- danh 16y ago5. Pulse mysteriously appears again in App store, without explanation. http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/08/pulse-ipad-2/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/08/pulse-ipad-2/
- ugh 16y agoAnd nothing seems to have changed. The developers don’t know why it’s back and the screenshots still show the New York Times. Curious story. If there’s one good thing about this whole thing, than it’s that a lot more people now know about this app and will maybe even buy it. My little theory is that the New York Times saw the bad press rolling in and called up Apple.
- farmerbuzz 16y agoThe fact that there is some set of companies that can "call up Apple" really turns me off to iPhone development. I certainly can't "call up Apple".
- CamperBob 16y agoWell, you can email sjobs (at) apple.com, though, and get some transient Internet fame by blogging the snarky reply. That counts for something.
- thunk 16y agoBwahahahaha. "Lip my stocking!" [1] with NYT playing the part of the escort. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2dtAi5Za-s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2dtAi5Za-s
- perlpimp 16y agoWhat happened is that they chose legal route to enforce their business model, not technical one. If they did use technology , they'd just force login to load RSS feed and that would be the end of it. As well they use the legal route to put focus on themselves. Like "hey we aren't dead yet!". And while annoying digerati , they managed to spread the word about themselves across so much of a news medium. Just a ploy to gain market share.
- sil3ntmac 16y agoThis literally just happened to me today as well. A client of mine has an app where he posts links from time to time to various sites. Users can then click these links and an in-app browser slides over and loads the page. After I uploaded the app, he posted a link to a story on the L.A. Times website, as well as the WSJ website. Today the app was rejected, and we got a feedback response from Apple: Thank you for your response and prompt attention to the Trademark issue. Please provide documentation evidencing that you have authorization from Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal to include content from their sites. Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal have previously objected to other applications that feed from their sites, and believes that such features infringe their rights. I thought about Apple's response for a while, and decided that LAT and WSJ should not have this kind of control over who gets to link to their website. Moreover, it's not like the app scrapes ads off of all their pages... the papers still generate page views and ad revenue, which in the end is what they want, right?
- davidedicillo 16y agoGood thing NY Times didn't realize Safari can use as RSS reader, otherwise they would have ask Apple to remove it from their OS. Sad to see these companies not grasping how the industry is changing in our times.
- troystribling 16y agoJust noticed that it is back in the app store. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pulse-news-reader/id371088673?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pulse-news-reader/id371088673...
- steve19 16y agoIts back in the store http://twitter.com/pulsepad/status/15725974258 http://twitter.com/pulsepad/status/15725974258
- mawhidby 16y agoIt appears as though the Pulse app is back in the App Store http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=371088673&mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D6 http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftwa...
- brandnewlow 16y agoIsn't the solution to rate limit RSS pulls and charge developers for overages? Just treat it like an API and charge for conspicuous use like every other web app out there and be done with it.
- dalore 16y agoSo does that mean if you add the RSS to your google reader, google is then breaking their tos because google display ads?
- JoeAltmaier 16y agoPerhaps NYT wants Pulse to come to a license agreement. Its just business.
- mkramlich 16y agoif you couldn't see the fnords before, perhaps you can now
- adammichaelc 16y agoFrom danh "Pulse mysteriously appears again in App store, without explanation. http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/08/pulse-ipad-2/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/08/pulse-ipad-2/ "
- kmfrk 16y agoThis is yet another mind-boggling case of people punishing their own fans; we are not talking miscreants of ill will. Judging by the time between the WWDC display and reaction, they seem to have given it little thought. If people don't like fans using the RSS, truncate or remove it altogether. It is beyond me that NYT, who seem so willing to innovate and understand the new frontiers of technology, would add themselves to the list of these weird cases. Also, The Barbra Streisand Effect for reference-dropping measure.
- sandee 16y agoI think, NYT and other publishers think Ipad as a possible revenue source for them. Quite different from PC ecosystem. In future they may have their own custom app, and would like people to buy news straight from them, or they can group together the publishers to create a aggregator app, where the newspapers are making the money, instead of Tech-App Middle man. It will take some time for them to figure out how to make this model work. Till then be prepared to get a legal assault from them on any news apps.
- zmmmmm 16y agoWhat interests me here is that Apple is now the arbiter of these things rather than the courts. If Pulse was released as a desktop application and the NYT sent them a cease and desist then Pulse could refuse and eventually have their day in court to claim fair use, or that they are in compliance with the terms of use or whatever. However now we have Steve Jobs sitting in the place of the courts. His decision is arbitrary and Pulse has no avenue for appeal other than by pleading and praying for his mercy. Regardless of whether he decides the app can stay or go it is utterly wrong that he is being given this privilege. I hope that content providers and app developers alike look at this with revulsion and seriously consider other ways to move forward than placing so much power in one individual's hands.