Neil Young's 'Living With War' Shows He Doesn't Like It - New York Times

Neil Young's 'Living With War' Shows He Doesn't Like It - New York Times

More evidence that the Internet is the new folk tradition.

Social Design Notes: Citizen Designer: Perspectives on Design Responsibility

Social Design Notes: Citizen Designer: Perspectives on Design Responsibility

review of the book Citizen Designer with reference to many issues of appropriation and cooption.
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=62-1581152655-0

Kaavya Viswanathan, plagarism and young adult novel

Novel by Harvard Author Pulled From Stores
Apr 27 8:17 PM US/Eastern
By HILLEL ITALIE
AP National Writer
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/04/27/D8H8LUJ00.html


Novelist Says She Read Copied Books Several Times
By DINITIA SMITH
Published: April 27, 2006 New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/27/books/27author.html



First, Plot and Character. Then, Find an Author.
By MOTOKO RICH and DINITIA SMITH
Published: April 27, 2006 New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/27/books/27pack.html

New York Times collection of stories
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/v/kaavya_viswanathan/index.html?inline=nyt-per

Kaavya Syndrome by Jonathon April 27 2006 Slate

http://www.slate.com/id/2140685/?nav=tap3

High Tech War Against Plagiarism Is Coming to New York Schools - March 2, 2006 - The New York Sun - NY News

High Tech War Against Plagiarism Is Coming to New York Schools - March 2, 2006 - The New York Sun - NY News

In India, it's IKEA without the assembly | csmonitor.com

In India, it's IKEA without the assembly | csmonitor.com

LexisNexis Media Relations - August 22, 2005 News Release

I'm wondering if I can get in "meta-trouble" for quoting their release on this blog.
LexisNexis Media Relations - August 22, 2005 News Release
Press Releases — July-September, 2005

New LexisNexis CopyGuard Combats Growing Problem of Unauthorized Use of Copyrighted Material
LexisNexis and iParadigms Empower Businesses with the Most Extensive Anti-Plagiarism Solution
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LexisNexis:
Jennifer Aleknavage
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DAYTON, OH, August 22, 2005 - LexisNexis U.S, a leading provider of news, business and legal information services, today announced the launch of the revolutionary new LexisNexis® CopyGuard™ solution to help detect plagiarism and copyright infringement and protect intellectual property. The LexisNexis CopyGuard product was co-developed with iParadigms, a leader in developing new technologies for intellectual property theft detection and for vetting intellectual property originality.

This innovative solution (www.lexisnexis.com/copyguard) enables users to verify content originality quickly and easily. Within minutes users can search efficiently across billions of documents. There are more than 6.1 billion searchable documents that are continuously updated through the LexisNexis® service, including deep archives, and four to five years of archived Web pages from iParadigms, which together create a vast collection of content in one place.

Once a document is submitted to the service, the LexisNexis CopyGuard solution uses advanced pattern-matching technology to identify suspect passages. It then produces a customized originality report that provides underlined excerpts of any relevant text matches and a "similarity index," which provides the exact percentage of text originating from elsewhere. It’s an easy and simple way to perform due diligence to detect plagiarism.

"We have a vested interest in this growing problem because of our long-standing relationships with media companies that go back 25 years or more," said Elizabeth Rector, senior vice president of Corporate and Federal Markets for LexisNexis. "By teaming up with the leading provider of plagiarism detection solutions, we can help our customers protect themselves against this growing threat."

Dr. John Barrie, President and CEO of iParadigms, says this alliance with LexisNexis creates a cutting-edge product for the corporate market.

"By bringing together a new search interface, the unparalleled depth and breadth of the LexisNexis database, our constantly growing archived copy of the Internet, and our advanced pattern-matching technology designed for searching whole documents, we have created a cutting-edge product that will benefit the media and business community," said Dr. Barrie. "There is a real need in the corporate market for an advanced solution like this."

For more information about the LexisNexis CopyGuard plagiarism deterrent solution, contact your LexisNexis account representative or call (800) 227-4908.

For more information about iParadigms, LLC, contact Malik AboRashid, director of Business Development & Sales, at (510) 287-9720, ext. 237, or mar@iparadigms.com.

About LexisNexis

LexisNexis® (www.lexisnexis.com) is a leader in comprehensive and authoritative legal, news and business information and tailored applications. A member of Reed Elsevier Group plc [NYSE: ENL; NYSE: RUK] (www.reedelsevier.com), the company does business in 100 countries with 13,000 employees worldwide. In addition to its flagship Web-based Lexis® and Nexis® research services, the company includes some of the world’s most respected legal publishers such as Martindale-Hubbell, Matthew Bender, Butterworths, JurisClasseur, Abeledo-Perrot and Orac.

LexisNexis works closely with its customers to address job-specific and organization-wide information needs, driving productivity and confident decision-making. With breaking news, legislation and regulations, business intelligence, intellectual property and public opinion, LexisNexis provides access to the interpretive data and the facts and figures that impact peoples’ business decisions across the globe.

About iParadigms, LLC

iParadigms, LLC (www.iparadigms.com) is the leading provider of Web-based solutions to check documents for originality and for misappropriation. The company’s products include iThenticate, used in the commercial world by publishers, news agencies, corporations, law firms, and governmental organizations for protection from piracy and detection of intellectual property misuse, due diligence fact checking for media, data comparison and originality, advanced specialized indexing of the Internet, database information and other content searches from publishers to e-government to non-profit organizations. The company also developed Turnitin®, an Internet-based service used by millions of students and faculty in over 80 countries to vet academic work for originality, to enable Web-based student collaboration, and to provide cutting-edge tools for digital assessment of academic work. iParadigms is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay area.

High Tech War Against Plagiarism Is Coming to New York Schools - March 2, 2006 - The New York Sun - NY News

High Tech War Against Plagiarism Is Coming to New York Schools - March 2, 2006 - The New York Sun - NY News

LawMeme

LawMeme

unmediated- decentralized media tools

A blog about tools that decentralize the media.

unmediated

Downloads 'not main reason' for drop in CD sales - Breaking - Technology

Downloads 'not main reason' for drop in CD sales - Breaking - Technology

second life

My Virtual Life

Tsubi does an about face on it's copyright attitude.

In 2002 the Australian fashion label Tsubi accused Sass & Bide of infringing on the copyright of one of their designs. The matter was settled out-of-court. Now, an American footwear brand Tsubo is pursuing a trademark infringment case against Tsubi. Is this about face of their attitude towards intellectual property or just a case of being sticklers when it suits them?

Cool run-ins: what a difference a vowel makes - Business - Business - smh.com.au

Cool run-ins: what a difference a vowel makes

By Patty Huntington
April 18, 2006

FROM rats on the runway to models overboard, the maverick Sydney jeans label Tsubi made its name from a series of much talked about fashion show jokes.

Although dubbed Australia's hottest brand in this month's issue of the US fashion glossy W, the joke now seems to be on Tsubi's directors, Dan Single and George Gorrow.

The pair, busy plotting their latest Fashion Week stunt for April 28, now find themselves embroiled in a trademark dispute with a Californian footwear brand,

Tsubo, that could force them to change their name.

Tsubo's founders, Patrick McNulty and Nicholas O'Rorke, say the name Tsubi is too similar to their own brand name, established in 1998 and registered in Australia in March 2000.

Tsubi registered its company in November 2000 and its first trademark here in 2002.

After several years of informal requests for Tsubi to change the name, Tsubo had started legal proceedings against them in the Federal Court in New York, said a lawyer for Tsubo, Jack Douglas.

"Tsubi is too confusing, similar to Tsubo, too close - we have priority," said Douglas, adding that a court date had been set.

"Our goal here simply is to have what we should have as the rightful trademark owner of Tsubo, with some space around the edges of our mark. I feel quite confident that we, Tsubo, will win. Either they'll be forced to [change] as the result of a court proceeding or they'll do so voluntarily … At the end of the day they're going to have to change. It's just a matter of when they do it."

However, the trademark dispute, begun early last year, appeared to be news to Gorrow when the Herald spoke to him in New York on Sunday.

"I haven't heard that," he said.

"I don't even know these guys. I don't even know who they are. Have you ever seen one of their shoes? Maybe I've been drunk for the past 12 months."

Although the heart of the case is the Tsubi name, it is understood Tsubo is also unhappy with what it regards as two other uncomfortable similarities between the brands.

One of those is the typeface used in a version of the Tsubi logo, which Tsubo says is similar to its own.

Tsubo uses a circle-in-square logo. Tsubi has so far only registered one logo in Australia, a cross-in-square logo registered last year for use on sunglasses.

Tsubi made its name from a series of Fashion Week jokes. In 2001 it sent 169 rats down the runway. In 2003 it made its models dive from the runway into Sydney Harbour.

The dispute comes at an awkward time for Gorrow and Single, with at least one of their local suppliers accusing them of owing them money. The supplier told the Herald that Tsubi owed their company several hundred thousand dollars and that they had refused to supply further work until the account was settled. That debt was cleared just after Christmas, but the same supplier said Tsubi had run up new debts, and debts with numerous other companies.

In late October Single denied owing any money to suppliers.

Yesterday Gorrow referred the Herald to his Australian spokeswoman, Maria Farmer, but she was unavailable.

Designers gear up to sue copycats
By Rachel Wells
July 20 2002

A plagiarism war has erupted within the Australian fashion industry, the latest involving two top Sydney denim labels.

Sass & Bide designers, Heidi Middleton and Sarah-Jane Clarke, famous for dressing celebrity clothes horse Sarah Jessica Parker of Sex and the City fame, have agreed to discontinue their 'Rabbit Boy' jeans after claims of copyright infringement by fellow label, Tsubi.

The companies came to an agreement before Tsubi were forced to take legal action.

"We had a problem with one of their wide-legged styles. We spoke to them about that and they agreed to discontinue that particular style," Tsubi designer, George Gorrow, said.

The sand-blasted, wide-legged 'Rabbit Boy' jean was so similar to the Tsubi design, one Melbourne clothing retailer refused to stock them. "I couldn't believe it when I saw them," the retailer, who did not want to be named, said.

Sass & Bide's Middleton confirmed they had discontinued production of that particular jean. She said she had a list of "15 to 18" differences between the two styles which included differences in leg-width, waist band, stitching, belt loops, and cut - particularly across the hips.

But she said Sass & Bide were sympathetic to Tsubi's concerns.

"The denim we used was exactly the same as Tsubi's and on that front I can see why they had concerns. I totally understand. It was a fair call on their behalf and an innocent oversight on ours."

Sass & Bide will make available the same style of jean in a different fabric from next month.

In coming weeks, Middleton and Clarke will seek legal advice over plagiarism of their trademark low-slung jeans. "There are about three labels out there copying our jeans stitch for stitch.

"If Tsubi want to see real plagiarism they should take a look at some of these. I can't even tell which ones are ours," she said.

Plagiarism has been rife in the Australian fashion industry for years. Recently, though, designers are taking measures to stamp out the practice.

In the past six months, Melbourne law firm, Middletons Lawyers, has handled 12 cases of copyright infringement.

"Designers are fed up with companies ripping off their original ideas. They put so much work into producing an original design.

"To see someone selling a copy up the road for half price is just heartbreaking," Middletons solicitor, Tony Watson, said.

For years, designers were told there was nothing they could do to stop the practice. But in 1999, Melbourne designer, Bettina Liano, won a Federal Court injunction barring Satch Clothing from stocking a range of jeans and T-shirts which had breached the designer's copyright.

Represented by Middletons Lawyers Liano won subsequent settlements against Maestro stores, who were selling a version of her denim skirts, and Dotti.

"Bettina Liano was a real pioneer in the fight against plagiarism. She had the courage and determination to protect her intellectual property and the whole industry is benefiting as a result. Designers just won't put up with it anymore," Watson said.

Middletons are currently acting on behalf of clothing retailer, Review, against a competitor who they believe has copied several garments from their current collection. In recent months Ellin Ambe, Dangerfield, Gatherings Design and Supre have also won out of court settlements for breach of copyright.

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/19/1026898913815.html

Eric Wilson wrote about fashion knock-offs in the New York Times on March 30, 2006. (subscription required)

OK, Knockoffs, This is War

Tsubi does an about face on it's copyright attitude.

In 2002 the Australian fashion label Tsubi accused Sass & Bide of infringing on the copyright of one of their designs. The matter was settled out-of-court. Now, an American footwear brand Tsubo is pursuing a trademark infringment case against Tsubi. Is this about face of their attitude towards intellectual property or just a case of being sticklers when it suits them?


Cool run-ins: what a difference a vowel makes - Business - Business - smh.com.au

Cool run-ins: what a difference a vowel makes

By Patty Huntington
April 18, 2006

FROM rats on the runway to models overboard, the maverick Sydney jeans label Tsubi made its name from a series of much talked about fashion show jokes.

Although dubbed Australia's hottest brand in this month's issue of the US fashion glossy W, the joke now seems to be on Tsubi's directors, Dan Single and George Gorrow.

The pair, busy plotting their latest Fashion Week stunt for April 28, now find themselves embroiled in a trademark dispute with a Californian footwear brand,

Tsubo, that could force them to change their name.

Tsubo's founders, Patrick McNulty and Nicholas O'Rorke, say the name Tsubi is too similar to their own brand name, established in 1998 and registered in Australia in March 2000.

Tsubi registered its company in November 2000 and its first trademark here in 2002.

After several years of informal requests for Tsubi to change the name, Tsubo had started legal proceedings against them in the Federal Court in New York, said a lawyer for Tsubo, Jack Douglas.

"Tsubi is too confusing, similar to Tsubo, too close - we have priority," said Douglas, adding that a court date had been set.

"Our goal here simply is to have what we should have as the rightful trademark owner of Tsubo, with some space around the edges of our mark. I feel quite confident that we, Tsubo, will win. Either they'll be forced to [change] as the result of a court proceeding or they'll do so voluntarily … At the end of the day they're going to have to change. It's just a matter of when they do it."

However, the trademark dispute, begun early last year, appeared to be news to Gorrow when the Herald spoke to him in New York on Sunday.

"I haven't heard that," he said.

"I don't even know these guys. I don't even know who they are. Have you ever seen one of their shoes? Maybe I've been drunk for the past 12 months."

Although the heart of the case is the Tsubi name, it is understood Tsubo is also unhappy with what it regards as two other uncomfortable similarities between the brands.

One of those is the typeface used in a version of the Tsubi logo, which Tsubo says is similar to its own.

Tsubo uses a circle-in-square logo. Tsubi has so far only registered one logo in Australia, a cross-in-square logo registered last year for use on sunglasses.

Tsubi made its name from a series of Fashion Week jokes. In 2001 it sent 169 rats down the runway. In 2003 it made its models dive from the runway into Sydney Harbour.

The dispute comes at an awkward time for Gorrow and Single, with at least one of their local suppliers accusing them of owing them money. The supplier told the Herald that Tsubi owed their company several hundred thousand dollars and that they had refused to supply further work until the account was settled. That debt was cleared just after Christmas, but the same supplier said Tsubi had run up new debts, and debts with numerous other companies.

In late October Single denied owing any money to suppliers.

Yesterday Gorrow referred the Herald to his Australian spokeswoman, Maria Farmer, but she was unavailable.

Designers gear up to sue copycats
By Rachel Wells
July 20 2002

A plagiarism war has erupted within the Australian fashion industry, the latest involving two top Sydney denim labels.

Sass & Bide designers, Heidi Middleton and Sarah-Jane Clarke, famous for dressing celebrity clothes horse Sarah Jessica Parker of Sex and the City fame, have agreed to discontinue their 'Rabbit Boy' jeans after claims of copyright infringement by fellow label, Tsubi.

The companies came to an agreement before Tsubi were forced to take legal action.

"We had a problem with one of their wide-legged styles. We spoke to them about that and they agreed to discontinue that particular style," Tsubi designer, George Gorrow, said.

The sand-blasted, wide-legged 'Rabbit Boy' jean was so similar to the Tsubi design, one Melbourne clothing retailer refused to stock them. "I couldn't believe it when I saw them," the retailer, who did not want to be named, said.

Sass & Bide's Middleton confirmed they had discontinued production of that particular jean. She said she had a list of "15 to 18" differences between the two styles which included differences in leg-width, waist band, stitching, belt loops, and cut - particularly across the hips.

But she said Sass & Bide were sympathetic to Tsubi's concerns.

"The denim we used was exactly the same as Tsubi's and on that front I can see why they had concerns. I totally understand. It was a fair call on their behalf and an innocent oversight on ours."

Sass & Bide will make available the same style of jean in a different fabric from next month.

In coming weeks, Middleton and Clarke will seek legal advice over plagiarism of their trademark low-slung jeans. "There are about three labels out there copying our jeans stitch for stitch.

"If Tsubi want to see real plagiarism they should take a look at some of these. I can't even tell which ones are ours," she said.

Plagiarism has been rife in the Australian fashion industry for years. Recently, though, designers are taking measures to stamp out the practice.

In the past six months, Melbourne law firm, Middletons Lawyers, has handled 12 cases of copyright infringement.

"Designers are fed up with companies ripping off their original ideas. They put so much work into producing an original design.

"To see someone selling a copy up the road for half price is just heartbreaking," Middletons solicitor, Tony Watson, said.

For years, designers were told there was nothing they could do to stop the practice. But in 1999, Melbourne designer, Bettina Liano, won a Federal Court injunction barring Satch Clothing from stocking a range of jeans and T-shirts which had breached the designer's copyright.

Represented by Middletons Lawyers Liano won subsequent settlements against Maestro stores, who were selling a version of her denim skirts, and Dotti.

"Bettina Liano was a real pioneer in the fight against plagiarism. She had the courage and determination to protect her intellectual property and the whole industry is benefiting as a result. Designers just won't put up with it anymore," Watson said.

Middletons are currently acting on behalf of clothing retailer, Review, against a competitor who they believe has copied several garments from their current collection. In recent months Ellin Ambe, Dangerfield, Gatherings Design and Supre have also won out of court settlements for breach of copyright.

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/19/1026898913815.html

Eric Wilson wrote about fashion knock-offs in the New York Times on March 30, 2006. (subscription required)

OK, Knockoffs, This is War

Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | Ignore bloggers at your peril, say researchers

Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | Ignore bloggers at your peril, say researchers

Fibonacci Poems Multiply on the Web After Blog's Invitation - New York Times

Fibonacci Poems Multiply on the Web After Blog's Invitation - New York Times

| Turning file-sharing legitimate

BBC NEWS | Programmes | Click | Turning file-sharing legitimate:

BitTorrent battles over bandwidth

BBC NEWS | Programmes | Click | BitTorrent battles over bandwidth

op-ed on france and the ipod

Taking on the iGoliath - Editorials & Commentary - International Herald Tribune

A Bloggy Boost for Old Media

How will the aggregation of news and facts that exist coexist with the collection and reporting of facts?

A Bloggy Boost for Old Media

The Tale of the Tapes - New York Times

Op-ed piece non the hip hop mixtape paradox
The Tale of the Tapes - New York Times

Ego Searches and search engine relevancy

The Thrill & Danger Of Measuring Relevancy Through Ego Searches

This piece also got me thinking about how journalists now use google the way they once used lexis/nexis in stories as some sort of measure of relevancy and popularity. It's really a very lazy kind of journalism but also one that individuals can manipulate to their own advantage. As more and more journalists report from their offices on the phone and on the internet, what's real is only what's online. But anyone that bothers to report firsthand knows there is always a better story to be found on the ground.

Making Headlines: writing for search engines and humans

Not sure that I share the concern that optimising headlines for search engines hampers creativity. Any creator of content on the Internet should be conscious that there are multiple ways into a story and writing headlines has always been a creative act that arises out of constraints. Plus the article makes clear that news organizations now have the luxury of having more than one headline with different target audiences.

But this article also taps into a common fear of the 20th and 21st centuried that our lives will be dictated by machines and not humans. Are we losing something, it seems to ask. Will headless bodies ever again walk into topless bars? But the reality is that indexing is not only being performed by algorithims, they are also being performed by humans as they leave a trail of tags and blogs marking their paths on the web. How we connect information may in fact be our most creative act.

Also intriguing that Times web journalists are trained for search engine optimization given that the Times prevents search engines from indexing their pages, as I learned from this On the Media interview about Google Books with NYU media scholar Siva Vaidhyanathan.

"SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN: Well, they already have, for the basic reason that Google has based its entire business on the fact that it can copy almost the entire Web without any serious copyright implications, because to create an index, it has to make copies. If you don't want someone copying your work online, it's your duty to opt out of the system. There are ways that the New York Times makes sure that its news stories, for instance, don't get copied by Google and then placed in the index. Now, most people producing most webpages opt in or don't opt out...."

Trademark Protection, Copyright and Search Engines by Sara Holoubek reports on the Search Engine Strategies conference, explains how websites can opt out.

When prompted about altered or excerpted content, copyright laws exclude facts, so it is legal to post facts taken from another written account. [Peter D.] Raymond brought up the fact that if a publisher did not want his content available in a search engine's index, he should simply use a robot.txt file to instruct search engine crawlers to avoid the content.

---------------------
This Boring Headline Is Written for Google - New York Times

Ideas & Trends
This Boring Headline Is Written for Google

By STEVE LOHR
Published: April 9, 2006

JOURNALISTS over the years have assumed they were writing their headlines and articles for two audiences — fickle readers and nitpicking editors. Today, there is a third important arbiter of their work: the software programs that scour the Web, analyzing and ranking online news articles on behalf of Internet search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.

The search-engine "bots" that crawl the Web are increasingly influential, delivering 30 percent or more of the traffic on some newspaper, magazine or television news Web sites. And traffic means readers and advertisers, at a time when the mainstream media is desperately trying to make a living on the Web.

So news organizations large and small have begun experimenting with tweaking their Web sites for better search engine results. But software bots are not your ordinary readers: They are blazingly fast yet numbingly literal-minded. There are no algorithms for wit, irony, humor or stylish writing. The software is a logical, sequential, left-brain reader, while humans are often right brain.

In newspapers and magazines, for example, section titles and headlines are distilled nuggets of human brainwork, tapping context and culture. "Part of the craft of journalism for more than a century has been to think up clever titles and headlines, and Google comes along and says, 'The heck with that,' " observed Ed Canale, vice president for strategy and new media at The Sacramento Bee.

Moves to accommodate the technology are tricky. How far can a news organization go without undercutting its editorial judgment concerning the presentation, tone and content of news?

So far, the news media are gingerly stepping into the field of "search engine optimization." It is a booming business, estimated at $1.25 billion in revenue worldwide last year, and projected to more than double this year.

Much of this revenue comes from e-commerce businesses, whose sole purpose is to sell goods and services online. For these sites, search engine optimization has become a constant battle of one-upmanship, pitting the search engine technologists against the marketing experts and computer scientists working for the Web sites.

Think of it as an endless chess game. The optimizer wizards devise some technical trick to outwit the search-engine algorithms that rank the results of a search. The search engines periodically change their algorithms to thwart such self-interested manipulation, and the game starts again.

News organizations, by contrast, have moved cautiously. Mostly, they are making titles and headlines easier for search engines to find and fathom. About a year ago, The Sacramento Bee changed online section titles. "Real Estate" became "Homes," "Scene" turned into "Lifestyle," and dining information found in newsprint under "Taste," is online under "Taste/Food."

Some news sites offer two headlines. One headline, often on the first Web page, is clever, meant to attract human readers. Then, one click to a second Web page, a more quotidian, factual headline appears with the article itself. The popular BBC News Web site does this routinely on longer articles.

Nic Newman, head of product development and technology at BBC News Interactive, pointed to a few examples from last Wednesday. The first headline a human reader sees: "Unsafe sex: Has Jacob Zuma's rape trial hit South Africa's war on AIDS?" One click down: "Zuma testimony sparks HIV fear." Another headline meant to lure the human reader: "Tulsa star: The life and career of much-loved 1960's singer." One click down: "Obituary: Gene Pitney."

"The search engine has to get a straightforward, factual headline, so it can understand it," Mr. Newman said. With a little programming sleight-of-hand, the search engine can be steered first to the straightforward, somewhat duller headline, according to some search optimizers.

On the Web, space limitations can coincide with search-engine preferences. In the print version of The New York Times, an article last Tuesday on Florida beating U.C.L.A. for the men's college basketball championship carried a longish headline, with allusions to sports history: "It's Chemistry Over Pedigree as Gators Roll to First Title." On the Times Web site, whose staff has undergone some search-engine optimization training, the headline of the article was, "Gators Cap Run With First Title."

The Associated Press, which feeds articles to 11,000 newspapers, radio and television stations, limits its online headlines to less than 40 characters, a concession to small screens. And on the Web, there is added emphasis on speed and constant updates.

"You put those demands, and that you know you're also writing for search engines, and you tend to write headlines that are more straightforward," said Lou Ferrara, online editor of The Associated Press. "My worry is that some creativity is lost."

Whether search engines will influence journalism below the headline is uncertain. The natural-language processing algorithms, search experts say, scan the title, headline and at least the first hundred words or so of news articles.

Journalists, they say, would be wise to do a little keyword research to determine the two or three most-searched words that relate to their subject — and then include them in the first few sentences. "That's not something they teach in journalism schools," said Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch, an online newsletter. "But in the future, they should."

Such suggestions stir mixed sentiments. "My first thought is that reporters and editors have a job to do and they shouldn't worry about what Google's or Yahoo's software thinks of their work," said Michael Schudson, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, who is a visiting faculty member at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

"But my second thought is that newspaper headlines and the presentation of stories in print are in a sense marketing devices to bring readers to your story," Mr. Schudson added. "Why not use a new marketing device appropriate to the age of the Internet and the search engine?"

In journalism, as in other fields, the tradition of today was once an innovation. The so-called inverted pyramid structure of a news article — placing the most important information at the top — was shaped in part by a new technology of the 19th century, the telegraph, the Internet of its day. Putting words on telegraph wires was costly, so reporters made sure the most significant points were made at the start.

Yet it wasn't all technological determinism by any means. The inverted pyramid style of journalism, according to Mr. Schudson, became standard practice only in 1900, four decades or more after telegraph networks came into use. It awaited the rise of journalists as "an avowedly independent, self-conscious, professionalizing group," confident of their judgments about what information was most important, he said.

The new technology shaped practice, but people determined how the technology was used — and it took a while. Something similar is the likely path of the Internet.

"We're all struggling and experimenting with how news is presented in the future," said Larry Kramer, president of CBS Digital Media. "And there's nothing wrong with search engine optimization as long as it doesn't interfere with news judgment. It shouldn't, and it's up to us to make sure it doesn't. But it is a tool that is part of being effective in this medium."