(Title, with apologies, from the Church of the SubGenius). The New York Times is going to try its hand at charging for content. They are welcome to try, and they may even succeed. But, I have my doubts.
Historically, intellectual property was not seen as something subject to protection and much in the way of profit. Ideas, once discovered and unveiled by their creator, spread without compensation. Works of art might have been commissioned but, if copies were made, compensation was not anticipated. Anyone willing to undertake the labor of copying a book was free to do so. In the 17th and 18th centuries, copyright started to take off. Initially, it was seen as a tool of censorship by the crown. In the United States, it was seen as a way to induce more creation. Article I, section 8, clause 8 of the United States Constitution says that Congress has the power “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”
It’s an instrumental clause. Intellectual property rights of authors aren’t seen as essential in their own right; but rather as a means to an end – inducing more creation. That’s a different proposition from how you normally see intellectual property discussed — for example, you’ll hear copyright infringement described as “theft.” That implies a deprivation of property and a “malum in se” kind of offense. But copying, as contemplated by the U.S. Constitution anyway, isn’t an evil in itself – it’s only bad because it’s prohibited and to the extent that copying inhibits further creation.
So, what do we lose if a place like the New York Times can’t get paid? We lose a variety of journalism and printed material to some extent. But, I would argue that, to a large extent, we lost a lot of what was valuable to profit-maximizing business practices before the Internet changed the business through ease of copying and distribution. Some content is cheap and easy. Opinion columnists and a lot of crime reporting, for example. There is other content that is expensive: in-depth reporting requiring a lot of travel, analysis of a number of sources, and defending lawsuits against groups who might prefer their activities go unreported, for example.
Profit-maximizing business practices had a lot of the more expensive content on its way out before the Internet changed the game. Media has been trending toward things like opinion columnists, crime reporting, and wire feeds without notably reducing subscription prices. This has left media companies less able to defend against the Internet. A guy like me can and will produce a lot of opinion for free. I can’t and won’t do a lot of hard reporting work. We don’t need copyright protections to induce creation of the easy stuff – look at YouTube and the blogosphere.
So, why pay for the New York Times? To get some Judy Miller stenography on the nuclear threat of aluminum tubes as told to her by White House sources? The wisdom of David Brooks? The Internet abounds in creative works. Until newspapers reverse course and commit to producing content of a type unavailable for free, even if that means less return on their journalist dollar, I don’t think people are going to pay much for them.
I’m not sure I agree.
I’ve been a critic of pay for use news sites in the past, but I really think the Times is going at this right.
20 articles per month is more than enough for me, and most other people outside NYC. That allows me to still read important articles for free. At the same time, if you’re reading more than that, you’re likely someone that is reading online INSTEAD of in print.
Now, the online should always cost less than print, but I do think it is fair and useful to charge over a certain number of articles per month. Maybe that number is more like 50 per month, or maybe there should also be a low price ($0.10) per article option, but I think this is a step in the right direction.
Don’t put everything behind a paywall, but expect those that really depend on your service to help fund it.
Y’know, Jason, for the first 150 of its 160 years the New York Times produced a product which was journalism for 12 hours, and thereafter fishwrap. Now asking me to pay for day-old news, if that’s when I get to it, is “a step in the right direction”?
Did you ask the Times to put its product online? Neither did I. I get bombarded with ads every time I go, some of which take over my screen; this isn’t enough? It’s been enough for television networks for sixty years.
The Times has acted all along as though a gun had been placed to its head by this newfangled internets machine. It’s the same reaction Disney had to home videotape, then DVDs (in case you’re too young to remember, home CD and DVD players in the US did not have a record function for several years because Sony and Disney objected). It’s yet another example of how bloated corporations’ first inclination is to throw up barricades any time their profit picture is even slightly threatened.
I’m not saying the Times isn’t perfectly within its rights to do this. I’m saying it didn’t work last time they tried it, it’s not going to work this time, and maybe all their high-priced business and legal talent should be put to work coming up with a business model that makes sense.
There are two basic revenue streams available to publishers: Advertising and subscriptions.
Their goal is not to maximize the number of viewers; it’s to maximine profits. The publisher will consider every scenario to determine which strategy will be the most profitiable.
Because advertisers know that paid subscribers tend to be more responsive to their offers, they are generally willing to pay a premium to advertise on pay-to-view sites.
Consider:
If a free site with 10-zillion viewers earns $100,000 and a paid site with 100 viewers earns $1 million, the publisher will opt for fewer viewers.
Spot on Doug. I paid for Bransons “Project” magazine on the iPad because it brought me value and had things I wanted to read, and I wanted to explore this new hybrid format. I don’t feel that from the NYT.
To sun up what I think you are saying a different way: NYT hasn’t convinced me that THEIR product is worth buying against competitive free products. This isnt necessarily NYT fault, the world has changed and the need for their product has changed. They need to be spending more time convincing me that THEIR news is what I need.
I don’t buy Bart’s comment about advertising. At least in my own meager uses of advertising ive NEVER seen it priced that way. As far as in concerned unless I have a very specific niche market, eyeballs are eyeballs. I want to narrow my audience to those who might want my product, sure, but technology and ad targeting helps solve that problem regardless of whether I’m on a large site or a closed one. If you have targeting capabilities then you want your ads on the largest sites with the largest populations you can afford…
Certainly, Dobbs & Stang aren’t going to be coming after you for using their intellectual content. Praise “Bob”!
The issue is that the model for newspapers has always been built on getting money from both subscriptions AND advertising. I get “bombarded with ads” when I read a physical newspaper, too. Sometimes, a WHOLE PAGE is taken up with a single ad! FYI, a newspaper page is still bigger than my computer screen.
Now, people have decided that there are enough places to get news that they no longer need to pay for a ad-covered fishwrap. However, some of the newspaper staff are the ones that do real reporting. Looking into things that the general public doesn’t take the time to do. Look how much things in this blog are based either directly or indirectly on a newspaper article.
I don’t want that source of journalism to go away. They have lot of waste and a lot of crap in the paper, so I’ll agree that they have other ways to try to make it on online ads for free. However, I would rather they charge sometime much less than the paper costs for those that read a bunch if the choice is they do that, or go away completely.
In my mind, newspapers went wrong when they tried to up the profit margin by reducing local reporting in favor of content that was less expensive to produce, e.g., wire reports and opinion columns. Those things were more profitable, but the local reporting (in my opinion) is the only thing that can help newspapers weather the storm.
Reminds me of that Man For All Seasons quote (though I’m not sure the analogy is too apt):
In pursuit of larger profits, the papers got rid of their less flashy, less profitable fact checked local reporting. Then the Internet winds started blowing and folks could get their opinion from anywhere, get their wire reports from just about anywhere, and get classified ads anywhere. What they can’t get just anywhere is reliable local reporting.
Completely agree, Doug. If most papers took a look at their sports pages- often the best staffed departments, with the most original content- and applied that structure to other departments, like (get this) Metro/City coverage, they might find themselves with readership.