The CBC is paid for by taxpayers' money. But, the broadcaster doesn't seem satisfied with just taking our money once. It would like to take it again if you'd like to use CBC content on your website. See Facebook Privacy Complaint [2] as an example. If you're a nonprofit, it will cost $125 a month to post a CBC story (twice that if you're a regular corporation) and the fees go up from there, based on the number of months you want to host the story.
This is crazy talk for several reasons:
First, anyone and everyone can just link to CBC stories, that's the way the web works, and until the CBC puts itself behind a paywall, that's the way it will work. It's called the link economy, and handshake deal all around that makes the web as powerful as it is.
Second, Web content can, and should be, forever. Charging for content by the month is like renting children.
Third, the CBC has RSS feeds for its news, which deliver, for free the same stories, to folks widgets, gadgets and websites.
Fourth, it must be costing the CBC more in IT costs to set up the icopyright system [3] than they'll make from licensing its stories. Really, you'd have to be a sap to pay for a story you can just link to.
Somewhere an MBA who still uses a Selectric and the Yellow Pages must have thought this was a dandy idea. Good luck with it CBC.
Links:
[1] http://rabble.ca/taxonomy/term/6670
[2] http://license.icopyright.net/rights/postServiceGroup.act?tag=3.8471%3ficx_id=/2010/01/27/facebook-privacy-complaint.html
[3] http://info.icopyright.com/vision_for_copyright.htm
[4] http://rabble.ca/print/blogs/bloggers/rabble-staff/2010/01/cbc-so-good-its-worth-paying-twice#comment-1106002
[5] http://rabble.ca/user
[6] http://rabble.ca/user/register
I can see the argument that a news organization paid for by tax payers should allow tax payers to use its content for free in certain contexts. However, as a general rule, I don't see why a person/organization that wants to publish a full article for some reason - as opposed to just a link and teaser text - shouldn't have to pay the creator - although I agree that buyout is a much better business model for the web. If the Ceeb can earn a few extra bucks this way, I say good for them. They need all the funding they can get, because it's not like Harper is helping them out any.