Content Protection: Copyright Laws & Pay Walls TownNews.com Webinar Thursday, Feb. 18.

Content Protection:

Copyright Laws & Pay Walls

TownNews.com Webinar

Thursday, Feb. 18

Webinar Series: Content Protection: Copyright Laws & Pay Walls

Starting: 10:30 Central

Presenter: • Marc Wilson – CEO & General Manager

Format of webinar:• 30 minutes of presentation

– Ask questions using the Go2Webinar tools during the presentation.

– We will attempt to answer questions individually throughout the presentation.

• 30 minutes of Question & Answer- Previous questions answered

individually reviewed with group.- Additional questions answered as asked

Ad Shares

Year Newspapers Mags. Radio TV Other

• 1935 45.2 8.3 6.5 -- 40• 1940 39.2 9.6 10.5 -- 40.7• 1945 32.0 12.5 14.6 -- 40.9• 1950 36.5 9.0 10.7 3.0 40.8• 1955 34.0 8.0 6.1 11.2 40.7• 1960 31.0 7.9 5.8 13.3 42.0• 1965 30.2 7.7 5.9 13.9 42.3• 1995 22 5 7 23 43• 2000 20 5 8 24 43• 2004 17 4.6 7.4 25.6 45.4

– Advertising in mass media as a percentage of total advertising expenditures; source’ McCann-Erickson– 95-2004 data from NAA

Year Adult Population Weekday readership

Sunday readership

1964 117 million 80.8 % 75.3 %

1970 126 million 77.6 72.3

1975 140 million 72.3 67.5

1980 158 million 66.9 67.4

1985 169 million 64.2 65.1

1990 181 million 62.4 67.1

1995 190 million 59.4 68.7

1996 192 million 58.4 67.0

1999 Top 50 56.9 66.9

2000 Top 50 55.1 65.1

2001 Top 50 54.3 63.7

2002 To 50 55.4 63.6

2004 Top 50 52.8 61.2

2005 Top 50 51.6 59.6

Broadband disrupts

» Dial-up Broadband

• TV 3.03 hrs 2.45• Radio 2.43 2.23• Internet 1.16 2• Newspapers .40 .11

» Source: Arbitron, 2003

• (Now we have Mobile and “Internet-everywhere” effects)

“Your news source”

• 19 percent use Google/Yahoo/MSN etc. as first source of news in 2009

• Up from 10 percent in 2006

• 19 percent went first to newspapers in 2009

• Down from 23 percent in 2006

• 6 percent went to newspapers Web sites first for news

• Up from 3 percent in 2006

» Research by Outsell Research

Google

• 44 percent accessing news through Google do NOT access the newspaper (or other) source

– For many users “Headlines are enough”

» Outsell Research’s News Users 2009

More and More ‘Bots”

• Jan. 2009 – 520 million page views– 296 million were from “bots” or spiders

• 57 percent• Google and Yahoo 39 million – 7.5 percent

• Jan. 2010 – 876 million page views– 586 million were from “bots” or spiders

• 67 percent• Google and Yahoo 61 million – 7 percent

Local News

• 17 percent go to local newspaper Web sites for local news

• Up from 8 percent in 2006

• 4 percent go to aggregators for local news

• Up from 1 percent in 2006

Fallacy of the Link Economy

• “The vast majority of the value gets captured by aggregators linking and scraping rather than by the news organizations that get linked and scraped.”

– Arnon Mishkin, Mitchell Madison Group

Free vs. paid

Fwix is a local news site designed to show you the most recent and relevant information in your area. Our mission is to provide people with the best possible news and the tools necessary to spread this news to the people they care about.

Currently, Fwix is active in nearly 114 US cities with plans to expand internationally in late 2009. The company believes that future of local media will be in distribution of independently-created local content over a technology platform.

• Frequently Asked Questions• Are you scraping content?• We do not scrape content, we only

provide and analyze content that has been deemed "fair use" by US Copyright Law. We do not intend to scrape content and if you feel as though there is content on Fwix that has been scraped without providing proper credit to the content producer, please notify us immedately at: [email protected].

Another competitor – possibly using YOUR content

Topix

• The answer seemed simple in 2004: aggregate news from thousands of sources, create thousands of topically driven news web pages and populate each of those pages with only news about that particular topic.

• … We created artificial intelligence algorithms that continuously monitor breaking news from over 50,000 sources, 24 hours a day.

• But even with 50,000 news sources, there just wasn't enough local news - and what news there was, couldn't be tuned finely enough with algorithms alone.

• So, in April 2007, we decided to open up our site, and give anyone the power to discuss, edit and share the news that matters to them.

• Topix is source for AmericanTowns.com, Ourtown.com, Agreattown.com, grapevinecommunities.com

Local advertising in every city

OurTown.com

• OurTown.com is … a branded, hyper-local platform of more than 70,000 sites covering every populated ZIP Code in the U.S. OurTown delivers Local News, Local Views, Local Search and Local Commerce to each viewer.

Copyright laws

• Some linking is permissible without permission– Fair comment– No harm– Increases traffic/distribution

• Some linking is not permissible• New York Times vs. Gatehouse Media

Encourages creativity

• “Copyright law in general recognizes rights in authors in order to motivate them to create, disseminate and in other ways develop their work.”

» Prof. Douglas Lichtman of UCLA Law School

Copyright

“The issue is whether unauthorized borrowing deprives original author of substantial income stream or opportunity. If it threatens to reduce authors’ motivation to produce…the linking practice … is inconsistent with copyright law’s fundamental goals…”

» Lichtman

You have options

1.Copyright laws created to protect creators

2.Technology can help1.Pay Walls2.Block most bots3.E-editions

3.Control what/when you publish4.Understand the Internet

Mishkin: Solutions

1. Seek “equitable economic relationship” with aggregators

1. AP, Murdoch and others seeking deals

2. Creators build their own aggregation sites

3. Develop new ways of sharing content with other sites

Pay walls, etc.

• News Corp. (Murdoch)• Arkansas Democrat-Gazette• New York Times• The Associated Press• Many smaller newspapers

– TownNews.com offers many options

Pay Wall downside

• 79 percent of users say they will stop using the site if they have to pay.

• If they have to pay, 71 percent say the content needs to be better

• 78 percent believe that if they pay for a print subscriptions, online should be free

• 64 percent say if paid content – there should be no ads.

» Nielsen Survey Jan. 2010

Other options

• Avoid shovel-ware• Don’t just move print to Web

• Web-Only content• Video, audio• Extra photos• Stories that don’t fit in print (anymore)• All things local

– Church sermons– Community sports– Longer wedding/engagement stories– Longer obits– Social Marketplaces

Thanks for your time!

• Questions?• Comments?

Contact Marc Filby:[email protected](309) 743-0859

For additional information:

Next week: Web Analytics: Understanding site statistics with Murlin Stats

See the complete webinar schedule at support.townnews.com/webinars