In response to furious criticism of its online linking policy, National Public Radio will no longer require webmasters to ask permission to link to NPR.org.
But there are still limits on linking to the nonprofit radio network's site. Links to NPR's site "should not (a) suggest that NPR promotes or endorses any third party's causes, ideas, websites, products or services, or (b) use NPR content for inappropriate commercial purposes," according to a new policy posted on Thursday.
Webmasters implicitly agree to abide by these rules simply by "using" NPR's site, and NPR reserves the right "to withdraw permission for any link," according to the policy. The network also prohibits webmasters from "framing" its content on their sites.
Jenny Lawhorn, a spokeswoman for NPR, said that NPR had been thinking about changing its guidelines for some time, but that the criticism from Web surfers sped up its actions.
"The blogger community brought it to our attention that this (permission form) was sitting out there," she said, "so thanks to our friends in that group for that." Also, NPR realized that having people ask for permission "was not really in step with reality."
Under these new guidelines, "99.9 percent of the linking that goes on we're acknowledging is OK," Lawhorn said.
But she added that NPR still believes that there can be "inappropriate links" to its site, and that "if our legal department found an incident of linking that was inappropriate to the point of being harmful," NPR would ask them to remove the links.
Examples of such "inappropriate" links include "certain kinds of commercial linking," she said.
"For example, if Salon.com writes a story about NPR and links to us, that would be fine," because the online magazine wouldn't be using the NPR link for its commercial benefit. "But what wouldn't be fine is if someone sets up a business to link to us and profit from that" -- for example, if someone sets up an online "radio station" whose main content was NPR's programs.
The new policy wasn't greeted with very much enthusiasm from the bloggers who originally publicized the matter.
"Boy, this is stupid," said Cory Doctorow, who has been criticizing the link policy on his blog. "The problem I had with this policy all along was that they implied that there was a need to request permission, and they're continuing to promulgate this idea. This is the worst lie you can tell about the Web."
Doctorow noted that Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited with creating the Web, has written that hypertext links carry no liability, that "the intention in the design of the Web was that normal links should simply be references, with no implied meaning."
NPR, said Doctorow, is pretending otherwise -- that links mean something, an endorsement or possibly a breach of copyright, and "that they have the right or ability to withhold permission because of that."
He added: "They don't have the right to grant permission for any link, and they in fact don't have the right to withdraw the right. The real problem is that NPR, a credible news agency, promulgates something that is utterly untrue. And that this chills speech. NPR owes the Internet an apology, not a minor revision to its policy."
Doctorow said that the concerns that NPR says it has with linking -- "inappropriate" commercial use or a misrepresentation of NPR -- can be addressed through current laws.
"First," Doctorow said, "the idea that there are 'inappropriate' commercial purposes as opposed to unlawful ones is silly. Their opinion of what is appropriate or not doesn't enter into what is unlawful or not. Under the terms of the dreadful DMCA, if NPR is hosting material that is infringing and I link to it, then there may be some problem. And if someone is misrepresenting NPR in some way, then that's fraud, and the link doesn't even enter into it."
David Rothman, who runs TeleRead -- a blog that calls for "well-stocked national digital libraries in the U.S. and elsewhere" -- said that although he thinks "NPR has made an immense amount of progress for which they can be thanked," he still has many concerns with the new policy.
"Just what is an inappropriate commercial purpose?" he asked. "I'm actually collaborating on a book, on the autobiography of an accused child abuser who has a consulting business that helps put together teams of lawyers and psychologists to defend people who he thinks are falsely accused of child molesting. What if this guy, in the interest of his consulting business, links to NPR? And what if NPR says maybe you've been exonerated but we don't like your cause. Shouldn't that person be able to link?"
Rothman also suggested that NPR's policies could hurt its journalism: "What if NPR is doing a series on a corporation, and what if that corporation has some Web pages that reveal it's really a wicked uncaring polluter? You can see that if NPR has a policy toward links, then you can see why it could be a problem for them to link to that site if that site says that they, too, have a policy against links."
NPR insists that it won't use its policy in a way that goes against the spirit of free expression, and that only rarely does it enforce its linking rules. Lawhorn said that in the past two or three years, during which the old policy was in effect, "our legal department has sent out letters saying please stop doing this" if the lawyers found that links went against the policy. "That's worked incredibly well," she said.
That shows that "this policy has been an effective means of chilling speech," Doctorow said. "I'm not sure why they would want to boast about the fact that they have managed to do that."
"Most people don't have access to an attorney, and most people will get a letter from NPR and say that NPR clearly has in-house counsel that's done its due diligence," and they'll take down their link because they'll figure it's better than going to jail, Doctorow said. "And in this case NPR hasn't done it's due diligence, and their argument is clearly specious."
But Lawhorn said that there's a gray area to linking law, and NPR's lawyers do believe that some links aren't legal.
Asked if he thought that people on the Web would be OK with this new policy, Doctorow said: "Well, I'm about to blog it now. I guess we'll see."
