Who will kill online newspapers first? Their subjects, or the lawmakers?

It could be a great time to run a newspaper soon, if Judge Richard Posner has his way.

He has suggested that linking to copyright material should be outlawed,

‘Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent . . .’

You can read his blog post, or the appropriate level of disbelief in Erik Schonfeld’s coverage, as he rightly points out this idea would outlaw public discourse, freedom of speech and fair use rights.

Jeff Jarvis mentions a column by Connie Schultz which proposes content would be available only on the originators website for the first 24 hours.

If either law ever came into existence, I have the perfect way to create a hugely successful news source.

Licence it all under Creative Commons.

While the rest of the newspaper sites are struggling to understand that they can’t coerce people into only linking to them in the correct, legal, or desired way, a Creative Commons site would clean up in inbound links and traffic until it was the only one standing!

What about when the subjects we cover start to control the news?

An interesting series of articles is just starting over on Nieman Journalism Lab, discussing what happens when Sports Leagues are able to become media moguls and control the news.

In the U.S., Major League Baseball has launched it’s own cable TV channel MLB Network, which is the focus of the first of the four part series.

But it isn’t just leagues that can afford TV which offer a threat.

It’s every organisation or business which is now able to reach consumers/fans directly via Facebook, Twitter, Email etc. All enabling them to reach an ever-increasing audience to distribute their beliefs, opinions and news.

Whether or not that content is well-received is another matter, but the simple fact is that it’s out there, and increasing daily. And will only increase for every bit of evidence that can indicate it’s more effective in driving transactional revenue than straight advertising.

Every media business needs to be planning for what happens if and when the subjects of your stories (and advertisers) start telling them for themselves.