May 29
A copyright licensing agency has told a domestic violence charity that it requires a paid licence to link to newspaper articles from its website. In an email sent to Women’s Aid, Newspaper Licensing Ireland said that “a licence is required to link directly to an online article even without uploading any of the content directly …
Feb 04
For a while, I’ve been toying with an column idea. Call it The Raised Eyebrow. Part Flat Earth News, part questioning conventional wisdom. Last week, an editor agreed to a column. Depending on how it worked out, more might follow. One idea came from a throwaway Prime Time line. “Sean Sherlock’s website was hacked”, apparently …
Jan 29
I write. As a freelance, I hold copyright on those words. “Ireland’s SOPA” wants to protect those words. But copyright already protects them. My words have been pirated a few times. The first time, articles were cut and pasted wholesale from a website and re-used. Not by a pirate website, but by an old-established company. …
Jun 13
Imagine you arrive at a foreign airport, only to discover that your luggage has somehow gone missing. Perhaps it’s on a later flight, or it was sent to another airport. So you go to the lost baggage office, only to be told that because the owner of the luggage could not be identified, they gave …
Apr 29
Tucked into the Fine Gael manifesto were a couple of promises which affect journalists: a plan to pioneer US-style “fair use” in EU law, and a review of intellectual property (IP) law. Fair use, Fine Gael says, will “allow internet companies and digital innovators to bring their services to market”. The IP update would give …
Aug 26
A couple of weeks ago, I uploaded my first video to Youtube – a montage of photographs taken at the Glencolmcille Agricultural Show, set to a music soundtrack by Eunan McIntyre, a local musician. Being a journalist, and living with copyright issues, I first checked with everyone that it was okay to use their work. …
Feb 27
Earlier this week, I spent half a day sitting in a district court. The district courts can be worthwhile if you’re a freelance journalist, but they’re a bit of a lottery too. Get in well with some of the staff, and you’ll get a tip off if there’s something interesting coming up. On Monday, I …
Feb 04
Sixteen months ago, I wrote a story. It was a nice little story, with some good quotes from the main player. I sold it to a provincial paper. I posted the story on my website. Thanks to the vagaries of thesub editing process, what appeared on the website was different to what appeared in print. …
May 29
This week, this blog quietly marked it’s first anniversary. The first post here appeared on 27 May last year, two hundred words on an item covering the wearing of the hijab, religious freedom and tolerance. I have no idea how many hits that post garnered, I didn’t bother tracking hits to the blog until a …
May 29
Local election candidate Emma Kiernan broke out of the local media to gain (perhaps fleeting) national fame this week, thanks to the interweb. Kiernan, a Fine Gael candidate running for a spot on Newbridge town council, is young, attractive, and like many of her friends, she has a facebook profile. Like everyone else on Facebook, …
