On the very day that the Times puts up its paywall, the Guardian goes the complete opposite direction – and unveils a WordPress plugin intended to gets its content out there, on as many other people’s sites as possible, free of charge.
Once you’ve installed the plugin, and signed up for an API key, you get effectively a subeditor’s view of the Guardian’s archives. If you find a story you like, and want to republish, you save it down to your own WordPress installation, then edit and publish it as normal. It even checks stories for updates. Much neater than a DIY solution based on something like the FeedWordPress plugin, and without the potential for licensing headaches… as long as you’re happy enough to leave the credits and adverts in place.
The blogger (or whoever) gets free, simplified access to the Guardian’s content, without licensing worries; the Guardian gets additional attention for its material, a wider spread of advertising impressions, and a PR victory over its Murdoch rivals.
If it sounds like something you’d be interested in, you can download it from WordPress.org.
Update: worth noting Public Strategist’s problems with the plugin: ‘Nowhere in those extensive conditions does it state that the Guardian claims the right to extend that control to the host blog.‘
Responses
I’d be fascinated to see if a rival newspaper adapted the plugin code for their own site and redistributed this, under the terms of GPL. Somehow I don’t think it would be The Times but maybe someone else.
As an update to the update, I should say that two people from the Guardian separately made contact this morning, and it’s very clear from their responses that they see what I described as a bug, not a feature. They think the main problem should have been fixed with version 0.3 of the plugin. It’s not entirely clear to me that it’s quite as straightforward as that, but I won’t have a chance to go back to them in detail on it until this evening. But I am reassured that their intentions are honourable.