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I don’t typically blog about the launching and closing of magazines or magazine-related online ventures. However, when it involves a once grand, but now abused, magazine brand, I make exceptions. So, here’s a brief timeline of this topic on RexBlog:
September 22, 2004: I blogged about the hype oozing from the Time Inc. press release announcing the “Largest Magazine Rollout in Time Inc. History” — a plan to use the Life brand on a magazine that would be delivered on Fridays as a newspaper insert. A few days later, I wrote another post following up on the same theme.
March 26, 2007: Time Inc. issued a press release announcing it was shuttering the newspaper-delivered Life but was working on “a plan to launch a major portal to put its entire collection of 10 million images online.”
September 23, 2008: (I wonder if they know it’s four years, almost to the day of the 2004 announcement.) While not using that 10 million number anymore, today Time Inc. announced a new joint-venture with Getty Images for a new Life.com that will will “provide access to the most comprehensive iconic and professional photography collections available anywhere online.”
Quotes from the 2004 Press Release:
Bill Shapiro (Life managing editor): “We wanted to create a magazine that people would feel as well as read. LIFE is designed to help people connect: from the images that capture a world of emotions, to tips and ideas to help people make the time they spend with friends and family more special.”
Andy Blau (Life President): “We are thrilled with the debut issue of LIFE. From the iconic photography to ideas for weekend activities, LIFE helps people get the most of out the two most important days of the week.”
Quotes from the 2008 Press Release:
Bill Shapiro (Life.com editor): “Only three percent of the LIFE archive has been seen by the public. This site will put everything on display. You’ll be able to look at the biggest events of yesterday and the stories making news today with just a couple of clicks.”
Andy Blau (Life President): “Image search is the fastest-growing type of online search, and LIFE.com will satisfy the public’s desire for quality and relevant imagery through a visually pleasing and easy-to-browse website.”
Read the comments in a long-ago post I made last January concerning the “freeness” of WSJ.Com and you’ll see I wagered a bottle of Rex Goliath wine on a bet with my fellow Brand-Rex blogger, Rex Sorgatz (fimoculous.com), that when the post-Murdoch WSJ.com rolled out, a significant portion of it would come out from behind the pay-wall. I said it would be free, he said it wouldn’t.
Today, a new look appears and still, WSJ.com is still officially (according to reports) for subscribers only — with some freebee stuff thrown in. For that reason, I’m happy to concede our bet to Rex S. I recommend the merlot. (Sidenote: Rex Sorgatz describes the new designs at WSJ.com and Time.com as “a race to boring.”)
The only problem is, while the site is officially for subscribers only, I can’t find an article on the front page that isn’t free. Maybe they’re offering some new twist on the “freemium” model where they say it is for subscribers only, but allow anyone to use it free. I discovered that because I was clicking around looking for a subscriber only article so that I could show how appending any WSJ.com URL with this string of Google News code will make it “free”: ?mod=googlenews_wsj . Of course, then there’s the way you can click on free WSJ.com articles from MySpace or Facebook or Digg.
Folio: is reporting that business-to-business (or “trade”) magazine circulation remained mostly flat during the first half of 2008, according to numbers released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Earlier this month, the same audit bureau reported newsstand sales of magazines was down 6.3% in the same period. If you weren’t living under a rock, you probably read the widespread coverage when those newsstand numbers were released. Beyond Folio, a few B-to-B bloggers and the website of American Business Media, you’ll probably not be reading much about today’s reports. That’s because to most general business reporters, “the magazine industry” is that part of the industry that pertains to consumer magazines. As I’ve noted before, that misunderstanding often leads to comparisons between magazines and other media that make little sense, i.e., comparisons of consumer advertising in magazines with all advertising on the Internet.
By now, regular readers of this blog know that I dismiss any statistics-dependent article written by a reporter. Even reporters who should know better feel compelled to quickly post any report that involves percentage signs. I’ve given up on trying to educate readers or writers about stories involving numbers*. I’ll merely remind those who are not in the magazine industry, there are distinct types of magazines. It’s impossible to say “the magazine industry” and mean something beyond the type of print format content is distributed on:
1. Consumer magazines: The kind you see on the newsstand. The ones that had a 6.3% decline in newsstand sales.
2. Business to business (or trade) magazines: The kind you receive at work, like Plumbers Weekly. The circulation of these magazines was flat during the past six months.
3. Other (which can be divided into endless sub-categories): All the magazines you get from associations, universities, non-profits, your grocery store, the company you bought your car from, the kind you pull out of the seat back pocket on an airplane, etc.
Business-to-business magazines are, like other segments of the magazine world, being transformed by the Internet. However, most companies that publish B2B media have diversified their businesses into events, information services and a wide-array of digital and online products.
Bottomline: The magazine industry is bigger than those magazines you see on the newsstand. That said, it’s an industry that must adapt to challenges and embrace a wide array of changes. Of course, you can say that about any industry, I’m sure.
*For following the way in which numbers are used and misused, I recommend the New York Times’ Freakonomics blog.
Technorati Tags: advertising, magazines
 “The magazine industry is being besieged by a new foe: digital piracy,” screams the lede of an AP story yesterday.
If you read this blog, you can guess from earlier this month that the story is about Mygazines.com, a site that is reportedly on servers in Anquilla that enables users to share scans of articles from magazines. As I suggested when I first ran across the site on July 22, it was only a matter of time until the site became a take-down notice magnet.
The AP story rounds up all of the potential legal actions magazine publishers can take — and the walls they could run into. It also quotes a July 29 press release on the Mygazines.com website where “John Smith” (its creator) claims, “its copies are no different from magazines shared in doctor’s office or salon.”
As I noted in my August 5 post, magazine publishers love the “pass-along” sharing of print versions of magazines as it is part of the circulation they report to advertisers. What I didn’t mention was that a new media niche of what the auditing organization ABC calls e-publications or e-periodicals is available that provides magazine publishers with a digital-version distribution alternative that can be audited and, in some cases, DRM-protected. In other words, Mygazines.com is likely perceived more as a threat to the magazine publishers’ own plans for e-magazine distribution rather than as a threat to the printed version. Note, however, that is my interpretation — maybe some magazine publishers actually do think a digital version and paper version of a magazine are the same thing. (Disclosure: Hammock Inc. embraces all media. We produce e-magazine versions and editions and would publish smoke-signals if readers and readers and clients wanted them.)
Another thing: The AP story says they tried to contact “John Smith” but he wouldn’t respond. I’ve found that jsmith@mygazines.com will respond if you blog about him.
Related: An article in the New York Times looks at how some media companies are working with Google to generate revenues from “pirated content” appearing on YouTube.
The New York Tims is asking, “Is Google a Media Company?” That’s a question debated on this blog for at least four years. For fun, I used to argue Google was not a media company. But, of course, they are. So are you. So am I. We’re all media companies now.
If you follow my link blog, you may have caught my comments about the “Anquilla-based” “magazine-sharing” website, Mygazines.com. For the record, technically, what is being shared are PDFs of magazines and magazine articles, not actual magazines.
My comments have basically been, “I wonder when they’ll be shut down.” Last week, Folio: reported that the consumer magazine trade group MPA has threatened legal action against them. Today, the website’s creator who is conveniently named John Smith sent an e-mail to the Press Gazette, suggesting the site is a service to the magazine industry.
Quote:
“We have every intention of working with the industry to provide not only revenue streams that are vast, but also an answer for the publishers in general. Our method will increase current revenue, halt and reverse advertising revenue lost to the internet, and overcome the lack of the ability for magazines to stay current.”
Mr. Doe, I mean, Smith, goes on to say:
“We have ways of drawing revenue from a number of sources, some more obvious than others. Mygazines is hardly a pirate website with the interest of breaking the industry. Rather, we offer a paradigm shift that is far more fiscally comprehensive than meets the eye and yet easily transitionable by even the biggest publishers.”
Had it not been for that e-mail, I think I could have dreamed up some “information wants to be free” philosophical defense for Mr. Smith. I would have said Mr. Smith is just catching the whole Free wave.
But then he had to write an email using phrases and words like paradigm shift and transitionable. I think anyone who uses the term “fiscally comprehensive” should be sued.
Note of irony: The idea of physical “magazine sharing” is, ironically, not something that magazine publishers discourage. If Mygazines.com were a service that, say, facilitated you sharing a print magazine with your co-workers or friends — for instance, a BookCrossing for magazines — magazine publishers would be applauding the efforts as any sharing of a physical magazine helps increase the “pass-along” readership of the magazine, and thus enables the magazine to tout a huge “readership” number for the magazine, sometimes many times more than its actual circulation. Obviously (at least as it would seem from the MPA’s action), when it comes to a PDF of the magazine, publishers don’t see the value of pass-along readership. I guess it’s because such pass-along can’t be measure scientifically like, say, the way they scientifically audit physical magazine pass-along readership. (Yes, that was also irony.)
I’m interupting my practice of not blogging about the launching and shuttering of magazines because news about 8020 Publishing “suspending” Everywhere Magazine is going to be interpreted in lots of different ways by those in the magazine industry — so I decided to jump in early with my 2¢ worth.
Here’s my take:
1. The suspension does not mean the “genre” of user-created publishing is a bad concept. It means, simply, this title didn’t click with readers the way the publisher’s other title, JPG Magazine has.
2. It indicates that having a parent company backed by someone like CNet founder Halsey Minor means that specific business goals had to be met for the magazine to move forward. Making you hit the breaks is what investors and parent companies get to do.
3. It means that “travel” may be a bit too crowded a niche for 8020 to go it alone. Competitors, including National Geographic, have entered the “user-contributed” photo space. Budget Travel published an entire “user-generated” issue recently.
4. A long time ago on this blog — back in its earliest days — I used to explain that anytime one saw the phrases “suspended publication temporarily” or “is going on hiatus” about a magazine, you can translate that to mean, “will never be published again.” However, that was before Radar kept coming back from the dead. Because of it’s business model — user-created content and print-on-demand — Everywhere is not a high over-head operation (compared to the typical magazine launch). So, who knows? Maybe suspension actually means suspension.
5. If 8020 is going to make it in the travel genre, I think a joint-venture with an established user-contributed travel site would make more sense than trying to go it alone. The 800 lb. gorilla, Trip Advisor (owned by Expedia), maybe? The scrappy WikiTravel, maybe?
Related: “If you’re curious about the future of magazines, HP Lab’s MagCloud may offer a clue”
(via: Folio:)
One might think I’d be all gung-ho about Esquire experimenting with a digital cover using the eInk technology that powers eBook readers like the Kindle. Sorry to disappoint you: I think it is nothing more than a goofy gimmick. In much the same way I believe it is folly to under-utilize new media by attempting to make it replicate old media, I think it is an even greater folly when old-media people think what’s special about new media is the way it blinks.
It’s like when parents think they can better communicate with their kids by resorting to teenage slang. Or, worse, friending them on FaceBook. The result is nothing but embarrassment to all involved.
Rather than displaying how ridiculous it is to suggest “this is the future of paper,” Esquire editors should be displaying how traditional, un-interactive, un-digital, un-batteried, un-gimmicked magazines are a wonderful medium.
Esquire used to know that. Esquire used to celebrate that. Esquire used to be a monument to how great the magazine medium can be. Its editors and publishers should be embarrassed with the notion that the “21st Century starts” because they place some flashing, spam-like message on the cover.
They should spend their money on great photography and great writing. That’s what makes great magazines. That’s what used to make Esquire great. Gimmicks don’t.
I sense that last week’s story on FolioMag.com about Time Inc.’s planned MagHound magazine aggregation subscription service (not to be confused with the new print-on-demand-magazine service from HP called MagCloud) had to be one of Folio:’s most linked-to articles in recent memory. (I did my part when the article appeared.)
I think it’s the “Netflix for magazines” analogy that makes the MagHound concept fascinaitng to bloggers and reporters. While at first I didn’t understand the “Netflix” comparison — Would I need to send magazine copies back to MagHound after reading them? — I now get that the reference is to the monthly fee (think, “membership dues”) one pays to receive a given number of magazines. Like Netflix, the higher fee-per-month you pay, the more magazines you receive. And you can constantly change what titles you want to receive so if you’d rather change from Time to Newsweek mid-year, it’s just a click of the button. (That’s assuming Newsweek participates.)
However, rather than “Netflix,” the service sounds to me like “EBSCO” — a service you likely have never heard of (unless you work in magazine circulation or a library, listen to NPR or live in Birmingham, Ala.). I’ll explain below.
Today, Steven Dubner, writes about MagHound (using once more, the Netflix analogy) on the New York Time’s Freakonomics blog.
Quote:
“To me, one of the biggest advantages of something like Maghound is far more prosaic: having one channel through which to handle all your magazine subscriptions, rather than having to hassle with that constant flood of mail from every magazine, reminding you 4 or 6 times that your subscription will be expiring in a mere 12 months.”
I agree with Dubner. That’s the most appealing aspect of the service to me. And it’s a service that has long existed — if you’re a large library or institution. Libraries don’t purchase one-off magazine subscriptions — they use services like the very large Birmingham-based company EBSCO Subscription Service. (A Nashville note: When it comes to books and other media, Ingram Library Services competes also in this market.)
I’ve long wondered why there isn’t a consumer version of EBSCO’s library services. However, without the Internet, the marketing and servicing of consumers maintaining a subscription to just a few titles is likely not a sustainable business model. (But then, again, magazine publishers — without the efficiency of the Internet — market to and service consumers who maintain just one subscription now — an even less-likely to sustain model.) I couldn’t agree with Dubner more — managing all your magazine subscriptions in one account would be great for consumers — and businesses. I hope MagHound works. (I also wonder if EBSCO is: 1. involved in this some way; 2. viewing it as potential competition for carving off some of its smaller customers. — This is very outside my little corner of the magazine world, so I’ll let others figure those out.)
Sidenote: Bonus quote by Steven Dubner on why magazines are holding up in circulation and revenue what newspapers are collapsing:
“This disparity probably makes sense when you consider that a lot of magazine content is more appealing on glossy paper than newspaper content is on newsprint, which means that a computer screen is a worse substitute for magazines than for newspapers. Also, newspapers are far more dependent than magazines on classified ad money, and that’s one form of revenue that’s been making a fast and furious migration to the internet.
ABOVE: This morning, the New York Times devoted an entire page to a news article suggesting the possibility of Estee Lauder’s influence on editorial decisions at Harper’s Bazaar Magazine. The news article was preceded by Estee Lauder interstitial “pre-roll” advertising and two Estee Lauder ads appear adjacent to the article.
Today the New York Times Style section includes an article (sheepish clarification: it showed up on my RSS feed of “magazine-related” news) that, in a tone of righteous indignation, reported that Harper’s Bazzar was devoting 40 pages of an issue to glamorous fashion photos modeled by four super-models/actresses who regularly appear in and on the cover of the magazine. Except this time, they will be identified as the “stars” of a new fragrance from Estee Lauder instead of, say, the stars of a re-make of Charlie’s Angels.
In the San Francisco Chronicle today, a story appears about the possibility of the FCC tightening the “product placement” rules related to, say, a Coca-cola cup appearing on the table in front of the judges of American Idol.*
As I’ve written before — many, many time — I’m a advocate for transparency in the relationships marketers have with media. I think marketers and media companies should disclose the relationships they have with one another and let the audience decide what is, and is not, ethical. Indeed, I think they should be proud of the relationships.
That said, I must ask: Among the readers of Harper’s Bazaar, are there any who really care where the ads stop and the edit begins? Have you flipped through the September issue of any of fashion magazine? I think most readers would be shocked to learn there is anything in them other than advertising. More than any genre of magazines, fashion magazine advertising is the reason they are purchased.
As for reality programs like American Idol, is the “franchise” of American Idol not a product, itself? Do viewers care that watching the whole show is like watching a commercial for the brand American Idol and all of the performers appearing are also brands?:
When Ryan Seacrest tells viewers they should go download recordings of the evening’s performances on iTunes, are viewers really duped into thinking that was an editorial decision on the part of Ryan rather than a business relationship between the Fox Network and Apple? Do viewers think the Ford music video advertisement is something the contestants do to relax during the week? Do viewers think Coca-Cola is what’s in that cup in front of Paula Abdul?
Are readers and viewers that stupid?
Okay, some are. So perhaps they need some type of explanation or disclaimer below that NYTimes.com advertisement for the product being written about in article next to it. Perhaps they need a big box that includes a warning that, “this article about Estee Lauder’s Senuous is sponsored by Estee Lauder’s Senuous.”
Bottomline: When you attempt to apply the same journalistic and ethical guidelines to entertainment (i.e., fashion magazines and “commercially-sponsored” network reality shows) that you do to news journalism (general or business), you start heading down a slippery slope to school marm silliness that soon makes serious ethical issues seem trite.
*I wrote about American Idol’s creative product placement practices earlier this year.
Four years ago, an article in the Wall Street Journal suggested Internet advertising would match magazine advertising by 2007 and blow past it in 2008. What happened?
 The very short version: During 2007, almost $60 billion was spent on advertising that appeared in print while $11.31 billion was spent on advertising that appeared on the Internet.
The very long version: I don’t expect any readers of this weblog to remember a four-year-old rant I wrote (and here) about a Wall Street Journal article appearing in July, 2004. Screen grabbed on the left, the WSJ story carried the headline “Online Ad Dollars Set to Match, Then Go Ahead of Magazines (sub. required).” The article was based on a Jupiter Research report predicting that in 2007, Internet advertising spending would grow to $13.8 billion which, claimed the Wall Street Journal, “would match magazine advertising.”
My rant, which later became an article appearing in Folio: Magazine, was directed more at the Wall Street Journal reporter’s mis-interpretation of the research than it was at the Jupiter Research report. Their prediction was not really a comparison of Internet advertising to magazine advertising, merely their estimate of online advertising spending through 2007 and beyond. It was the Journal reporter who decided to mashup a comparison of future Internet advertising (based on Jupiter’s numbers) and its magazine number estimate.
However — and this was a major focus of my rant — the reporter (and Jupiter) failed to recognize that the Internet advertising prediction included all online advertising while the magazine advertising prediction excluded all business-to-business magazine advertising.
In my response to the article, I suggested that a better prediction of 2007 magazine ad spending would be the 2004 estimate by Veronis Suhler that $28.3 billion would be spent on magazine advertising (consumer and B-to-B) in 2007.
Fast-forward four years. Today, Advertising Age issued a report that included the actual ad spending (split by media) in 2007. As you can see in the Advertising Age pie chart below, $11.31 billion was spent on Internet advertising and $30.33 billion was spent on magazine advertising. Throw in the $28.22 billion spent on newspaper advertising and there was nearly $60 billion spent on print advertising last year.
Let’s break this down a bit. Let’s look at a comparison of the 2004 predictions vs. actual performance from Jupiter Research and Veronis Suhler regarding Internet and magazine advertising. As you can see on my comparison below, Jupiter over-shot their Internet advertising prediction while Veronis-Suhler undershot their magazine advertising prediction.
(Granted, Jupiter Research’s prediction during the most recent four-year span was dramatically better than their 1999-2003 prediction. In 1999, they predicted that online advertising in 2003 would total $11.5 billion compared to the $6.6 billion it actually hit.)
What does this mean? First, it means, (to quote a wonderful headline I saw this morning) “90% of all statistics can be made to say anything 50% of the time.” No doubt, the statistics in today’s report can be spun any way you want. I’ve spun them one way. Most bloggers would spin them in a way that suggests they are another nail in the coffin of the print medium. Frankly, the way headlines and intro paragraphs will be written can make most any statistics imply whatever you want — at least 50% of the time.
As for me, personally: I love Internet advertising. Without a doubt, it’s growing faster than any other form of advertising and I, personally, am benefiting from that. In 15 years, it has grown from zero to $11.3 billion, an amazing feat. However, my complaint is with the misuse of numbers by reporters and tech-oriented analysts — and, to be honest, just about everybody I know — to support a narrative that can be summed up in three words: Print is dead. As much as I love the Internet and all things digital, that narrative is probably not going to be true in the lifetime of anyone making that prediction.
Today’s narrative — as it was back in 2004 and 1999 and 1954 when TV was going to kill print and radio and movies — is that the Internet is going to bury all other forms of media one day. Today’s narrative is that Internet advertising is growing at a far larger percentage (which even a middle-schooler should understand is easier to do when you have a lower base on which to grow). Today’s narrative is that newspapers are going to be dead in, what, a year of so? Certainly, they won’t last for an entire decade, goes the narrative. According to Steve Ballmer, “…there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form.” (He later said he could be off on the number of years, claiming, “…If it’s 14 or if it’s 8, it’s immaterial to my fundamental point . . . “
Of course, he also said the iPhone would flop.
Personally, I am doubtful about the longterm viability of the kind of print product the national chains of newspapers produce. Outside the sports section, I find little of value or interest to me in my hometown daily churned out by one of those national chains. And as I’ve said many times on this blog, I think many business-to-business print publications that focus merely on the transactions of their industries will be replaced by online properties that can provide a better, more timely flow of such information.
So, yes, I do think print will constrict while the Internet grows — over time. But die? Not likely.
In a Folio: report about actions of a recent board meeting of the media auditing organization, BPA Worldwide*, Bill Mickey notes BPA has started referring to “digital magazines” as “electronic editions.”
Quote:
“The term ‘digital’ has been ditched, according to the new rules. Instead, ‘electronic’ will now be used when referring to electronic editions of magazines. ‘There are a number of definitions for the word ‘digital’ in a media owner’s portfolio, including: digital magazines, websites and email newsletter products,’ says Hansen. ‘To eliminate this confusion, the BPA Board voted to change ‘digital’ to ‘electronic edition’ throughout the rule book when referring to electronic version of print publications and magazines.’”
Personal observation: Thank you. I’ve never liked the term “digital magazine.” In the past, I’ve used the term “digitial version of a magazine” in an attempt to clarify my belief that once a magazine is converted into an electronic file, it becomes a new form of media that should be treated — and described — as such.
However, I recognize that the names we hang on new media often use metaphors related to previous media. “Moving pictures” was the first term applied to film (and the folks who hand out Oscars still use the term “motion picture”). And radio was first called “wireless telegraphy.” When the market catches up with the concept, a better term comes along.
I’m going to follow the BPA’s lead and start using the term “electronic edition” whenever referring to the versions of magazines and books that have the potential of carrying “moving pictures” and that must be viewed on a computer or other electronic device.
*Disclosure: Hammock Inc. is a “member publisher” of BPA.
Summary: MagCloud is an HP Labs research project evaluating new web services that will provide small independent magazine publishers, online content owners, and small businesses the ability to custom publish digitized magazines and economically print and fulfill on demand.
Story: Derek Powazek, one the founders of the innovative JPG Magazine, that got its start by first marketing the magazine as a short-run, print-on-demand publication, announced today he’s been working with HP Labs for the past year on today’s launch of a Print-on-Demand (POD) service called MagCloud.
The service will allow a publisher — or anyone who wants to publish a magazine — to upload a high-resolution PDF and then, sit back, and let the money roll in. According to the site, “We’ll take care of the rest: printing, mailing, subscription management and more.” (Note: I’m not sure what the “more” will entail.) The website offers a “store” — a digital newsstand, where readers can browse and, using PayPal, order publications.
According to the site, it will cost nothing to “create the magazine” (don’t tell writers, designers, etc. that) and the publisher will set up a “markup” to earn a profit above production cost. No word yet on what the “production cost” will be.
MagCloud uses HP Indigo technology to custom-print each issue when it’s ordered. According to MagCloud, “Printing on demand means no big print runs, which means no pre-publishing expense. Magazines are full color on 80lb paper with saddle-stitched covers.”
During the beta, publisher accounts are by invitation only.
My Observation: Is there a market for this? Absolutely. If the price-point is low enough, short run magazines can help create one amazing long-tail of magazine publishing.
Several services offer “digital magazine” production and hosting products, which convert print magazines into a digital form. MagCloud is taking things in the opposite direction. In other words, “content” that originates in a digital form — say blogs, for instance — can have the opportunity to see life on paper — perhaps even on a coffee table. While several services offer book POD products, including the Amazon-owned (and currently controversial) BookSurge, this is the first serious major-corporate step into the magazine print-on-demand market (with full-service “backend” services) that I’ve seen.
Even More Background: Longtime readers of this blog know I was an early fan of JPG Magazine and have written about its demonstration of the potential of print-on-demand magazines often. Later, the magazine’s founders broadened their focus with a venture called 8020 Publishing.
Last year, when I read about the split-up of the company’s founders, I lamented that happening, but I included in my post:
“I do know this: they are pioneers. Their work will lead to many great things. Whether or not it is with that specific company and that specific magazine, I have no idea. But I can say this with some degree of certainty: They all have a great deal of opportunity ahead of them. The quicker they move through the current crap, the better off they’ll all be.
Today, I’m thinking that’s one of my better calls.
(Thanks: Hugh Roper)
The question: Can you link to an AP story and include a brief excerpt?
Why it’s news: Late last week, a portion of the blogosphere blew-up when the AP sent a takedown notice to the website Drudge ReTort (a Drudge Report parody site) asking it to remove some links to AP stories that included quotations from 39-79 words. After the near-universal lambast, the NYTimes reports today that the AP has backed down. The paper says AP hopes to come up with something that will accomodate bloggers (it is meeting with the Media Bloggers Association — I’m a member), but Jim Kennedy, vp and strategy director of the AP, told the NYT, “As content creators, we firmly believe that everything we create, from video footabe all the way down to a structured headline, is creative content that has value.”
The answer*: Yes you can link to an AP story. You CAN’T reproduce a story, but you can summarize it. Furthermore, linking to an AP story provides value too AP and the AP member’s site to which you are linking. I’m not a lawyer, but I know enough about this issue to question whether or not a “link” and brief excerpt from a story — especially one that you are, in essence, “enabling,” “reviewing,” or even “recommending” a visit to the article — is fair-use. More importantly, to win a lawsuirt, the AP would have to show your link harmed them or their members. Sending traffic to or providing an SEO-boosting link to their websites is a benefit to AP, not a harm.
What will happen? Jeff Jarvis is calling on bloggers to stop linking to AP. Michael Arrington agrees. It will be hard for me to avoid linking to some of their stories on some of the sites my company helps to manage, but we’ll give it a shot. In the future, perhaps media company lawyers will take time to consider the unintended consequences of rapid-fire take-down notices.
*I am not a lawyer. This is my opinion. Before you follow any advice you pick up on the blogosphere, check with you own lawyer.
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