New magazine-sharing site escapes copyright laws abroad

With its tagline, "upload. share. archive.", it may have been inevitable that the magazine-sharing Web site Mygazines.com would face allegations of copyright infringement.

Mygazines, which announced its launch in late July, allows users to upload and share magazines. Digital copies of the magazines on the site are easy to read, and users can comment on them, leave ratings, and use articles to create their own "custom" magazines.

The site is free to join, and there are no advertisements, but that hasn't allayed concerns of magazine publishers.

Dawn Bridges, a spokeswoman for Time Warner's Time division, told the AP that the publisher is looking into ways to have the site shut down.

Usually, a company encouraging its users to share copyrighted material could be held accountable for infringement. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the file-sharing site Grokster could be held liable for the copyright violations of its users, since the site took "affirmative steps to foster infringement."

There is a hitch in the case against Mygazines, however. Mygazines is registered in the Caribbean island of Anguilla and hosted in Sweden, by the notorious PRQ. The Stockholm-based PRQ is owned by the founders of BitTorrent tracker site Pirate Bay and is known for hosting other dubious sites.

With its domain name registered abroad and its servers beyond U.S. borders as well, Mygazines seems to have slipped around the jurisdiction of U.S. copyright law. Even though publishers could pursue legal action against the site for material available in the U.S., there'd be no way to get representatives for the company to court or to collect damages.

So if Time and other publishers are looking to thwart Mygazines and its more than 16,000 users, it may have to go after VeriSign, which maintains the master .com database.

Or, it could look across the Atlantic. It's not an impossible task: in February 2008, a Swedish prosecutor charged four men connected to Pirate Bay with conspiracy to violate copyright law; a week later, a Danish ISP was ordered to block Pirate Bay.

[magicmaster]

Bush Administration conventional response: "If you do not prosecute those offenders, we will declare war on you."

[William Crow]

What a stupid statement.

[humanssssss]

Interesting development. The idea of copyright is now challenged and changed with ever changing technological advances.

[mcugaedu]

I think the key point is that they are redistributing the advertisements along with the magazines. Magazine publishers should think long and hard about whether they really want to block this. More people are viewing the ads, thus increasing the magazines' profit potential. Magazines make their money off advertising, not off ink and paper. In fact, if I were running a magazine and somebody wanted to distribute it for me free, I'd let them!

It's like cable TV, which does the TV stations a favor.

Publishers: Insist that they include the original ads, and on that condition, let them do it.

[skillingssucks]

Great site. Eff U, Time Warner!

[mrbonaparte]

I can read these magazines for free in a doctors office or in the library for free. Big deal.

[Inconnux]

thanks! i just bookmarked the site :)

[Pete Bardo]

Anyone experienced in publishing and magazine circulation knows that magazines are driven by advertising, not subscription or newsstand sales. Circulation departments are lucky to break even on promotion costs compared to revenue. Sometimes, not often, renewal subscriptions will make up for the loss, but in all cases new subscription prospecting is a net loss. So, in reality, the magazines can make more money by distributing magazines online for free-but only if the circulation numbers can be audited and verified. Advertisers are not likely to pay for the circulation through web sites like this unless the extra expense produces extra revenue that can be quantified and proven.

Maybe if the ads were clickable and led to the advertisers' web sites the response could be measured and turn out to be advantageous to the advertisers. That would lead to more revenue for the magazines. But this type of distribution will not increase the magazines' revenue until some of this nature takes place.

Hey, those magazines you read in the library and in doctors' offices are free-but only one person at a time can read the print copy--unless I'm sitting next to you reading over your shoulder (which I freely admit I do).

[helroth]

Magazines make their money off advertising, yes, but they are not making any money off the pirated copies of the magazines on this site. The advertisers may make some money, but the magazine publishers can't really charge them more just because pirated versions are online.

In fact, people could cancel their subscriptions and just read the pirated versions, giving the magazines less paid ("official") circulation. That means they will get less money from advertisers, not more.

[expatincebu]

Thanks Wired for letting me in on this site. It is terrific.

[skillingssucks]

Ummm, this is Cnet.

[Astinsan]

I don't see a problem with this since you can do the same thing with most public libraries online systems. Can someone tell me what the difference is? Also ... magazines aren't fun to read on a screen...

There was a comment about magazines not making money on the sale of the magazines itself... this is untrue. Not all magazines have ads in them or at least it isn't subsidized all with ads. Time, wall street journal and a lot of the tech magazines (hackin9,linux+ come to mind 100$ a year for like 6 mags). There is advertising ... not nearly enough to cover all of the expenses needed to publish.

[2008TB]

There are plenty of free web magazines already that make their money from advertising alone. See http://www.digi-zines.com for a whole load of them.

Not all print titles make back their cost from advertising though. A lot require newsstand sales to survive.

[alektraunic]

I feel bad for the illustrators, photographers, and writers that will see no benefit from this at all. their commissions got paid based on that single print run, now their efforts go on to benefit others forever in digital form while they are left to pinch their pennies.