New York Times Forces Apple to Pull Popular ‘Pulse’ iPad Newsreader

If the NY times hates people using their RSS feed why don't they just cut it off?<p>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.<p>They brought it upon themselves by failing to innovate.

"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."<p>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 <i>exactly</i> what happened in this case, so NYT's reaction is perfectly natural.

Their 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.<p>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.

This 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:<p>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.<p>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?

The 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?

They'll probably be even less happy with Apple's new Safari 5 reader:<p><a href="http://experimentgarden.com/safari-5-reader-why-it-wont-work-for-long" rel="nofollow">http://experimentgarden.com/safari-5-reader-why-it-wont-work...</a>

What 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 <i>whatever</i>.<p>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.<p>Regardless of whether he decides the app can stay or go it is <i>utterly wrong</i> 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.

<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1413335" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1413335</a><p>Similar story from AllThingsD, and HNs discussion

Good 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.

Does 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.

I know I should get outraged and amused by this incompetence, but this is just sad.<p>The NYT company invested in Auttomatic (Wordpress makers; see <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/business/media/23nytimes.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/business/media/23nytimes.h...</a> ) 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.

Just noticed that it is back in the app store. <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pulse-news-reader/id371088673?mt=8" rel="nofollow">http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pulse-news-reader/id371088673...</a>

Another great example of how lawyers ruin everything.

I think, NYT and other publishers think Ipad as a possible revenue source for them. Quite different from PC ecosystem.<p>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.<p>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.

Its back in the store<p><a href="http://twitter.com/pulsepad/status/15725974258" rel="nofollow">http://twitter.com/pulsepad/status/15725974258</a>

This is yet another mind-boggling case of people <i>punishing their own fans</i>; 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.<p>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.<p>Also, The Barbra Streisand Effect for reference-dropping measure.

What 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.<p>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.<p>Just a ploy to gain market share.

It appears as though the Pulse app is back in the App Store <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=371088673&#38;mt=8&#38;ign-mpt=uo%3D6" rel="nofollow">http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftwa...</a>

Good 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.

From danh "Pulse mysteriously appears again in App store, without explanation. <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/08/pulse-ipad-2/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/08/pulse-ipad-2/</a> "

Isn'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.

So does that mean if you add the RSS to your google reader, google is then breaking their tos because google display ads?

Perhaps NYT wants Pulse to come to a license agreement. Its just business.

1. Pulse includes NYT as a preset in the feed reader<p>2. Apple shows off Pulse at WWDC<p>3. Pulse gets download 35,000 times, delivering the (limited) NYT feed to 35,000 eyeballs who might not otherwise check it out regularly<p>4. NYT forces Apple to take down Pulse.<p>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.<p>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.<p>Say it with me, HNers... s-t-u-p-i-d.

If a paid for RSS reader violates their TOS, then wouldn't a paid for browser (html reader) do the same?<p>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?<p>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.

if you couldn't see the fnords before, perhaps you can now

At first glance, I thought 'pulse' meant it took your pulse. Not sure how that'd work.

Bwahahahaha. "Lip my stocking!" [1] with NYT playing the part of the escort.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2dtAi5Za-s" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2dtAi5Za-s</a>