micropayments and sports journalism

Let me get this straight. NYT, CNN, WaPo, etc. give away 95% of their content (the paid 5% is in newspaper archives). If you have an internet connection, you can access that content. ISPs provide internet connections. So you want a court to make a legal finding that the reason people are able to access that content for free is because the ISPs are doing something wrong. How on earth do you devise a legally viable theory out of that?

 

You sue.

And actually, it would start as a penny per subscriber.

Did you know .50 cents of your cable bill is going toward Lifetime?

 

Sue? On what possible grounds?

Yes, I know exactly how my cable bill works. I'm aware that channels charge subscription fees.

I'm also aware that channels are the only thing on cable, newspaper web sites are small fraction of the web.

 

The ISPs are getting rich disseminating content that isn't theirs.

Newspapers deserve and must demand a cut of your monthly internet bill.

On those grounds.

 

Lets say that you run a soup kitchen on the very outskirts of town. The only way for the people who want to use your soup kitchen to get there is to take the city bus and they pay .50 for the trip (assume no one has a car and walking is unavailable). Only your soup kitchen can't survive by giving away the soup for free and charging for the occasional recipe book. So you sue the bus service for not adding a 10 cent fee to the fare and giving it to you.

That example is just as legally ridiculous as what you are proposing. ISP's aren't stealing anything. If an ISP set up its system to allow every subscriber to get around TimesSelect without paying, then you have a case. But you can't give something away for free, decide that's not working and turn around and sue the businesses that allowed your customers to take advantage of your generosity. There is no valid legal theory for the lawsuit you propose.

 

The fact that someone thinks that suing ISPs is a good, productive idea makes me feel just a little less bad for the industry

 

I hope someday the newspaper chains show some solidarity and agree to charge for content ... across the board.

 

My internet costs $60 a month, and it's going up.

What is that paying for, exactly? The laying of broadband that has already been laid? Maintenance of the broadband? ;D

I used to work for Cablevision, and I know that when all the other divisions were struggling, the internet op was basically printing money.

Somebody take a look at the financials of these ISPs, and look at the profit margins.

Let's take the example of the cable channel ESPN. Would ESPN allow cable systems to carry its channel for free? If a cable system attempted to do that, what would happen?

Actually a long time ago ESPN used to to pay to be on cable systems. Then it got established and it was a free thing. Then it realized folks would get pretty upset if ESPN were pulled from a cable system, so it started charging a nickel per subscriber.

ESPN's fee is now up to what?-- Well over 3 bucks a subscriber? That's where ESPN makes its money, folks. Not from advertising. And certainly not from those who subscribed to ESPN Insider.

You can't nickel-and-dime your way to a solution. You have to go after the big bucks, and you have to do it now.

 

You still haven't explained how you will get the ISP's to agree to charge the fee, other than threatening an absurd lawsuit.

 

*raises hand*

 

Pope,

I think I'd start with CNN, the New York Times, News Corp, NBC Universal and Tribune.

Those would get together and inform all the ISPs that they will be charging one penny per subscriber, per site. If the ISP does not issue the fee to its customers (or absorb the fee), all those sites would be blocked on the ISP systems that refused to pay. That would include nytimes.com, cnn.com, latimes.com, msnbc.com, nypost.com, chicagotribune.com, foxnews.com, wSportsJournalists.com etc. etc.

(As an internet user, if I woke up one morning and couldn't access any of those sites, I'd be pissed and immediately call my ISP to find out what gives.)

If the ISP were able to somehow "pirate" those websites on the grounds of "free internet," fair use, or whatever, those media companies would bring suit. Theft of intellectual property... theft straight up... I don't know-- I'm not a lawyer. What would AP do if a non-subscriber started printing its stuff? Those grounds.

Since the cable TV model is set up this way (and incidentally cable folks are in court all the time), I see a precedent.

I think the content producers would have a great shot at winning. The ISPs fork over the penny per subscriber, then the market eventually determines what the right-proper fee settles at.

But what happens is that the ISPs eventually absorb the fees and take home less profit.

 

The ISPs draw their line in the sand and say "No" because they don't want that precedent. The news sites say that unless you agree to do it, your customers can't access our site. The ISPs say OK and don't pirate. They start ad campaigns slamming the sites for trying to run up your bill. You can't run a campaign on your sites, because no one is reading them. Eventually, people get their news from other sites and adjust to life without NYTimes.com. And newspapers are better off....how?

The cable stations that won wars with the companies held something hostage that only they could uniquely show (like the B10 Network showing live football and basketball; when ESPN held out in the 1980s, it was the ONLY national station that consistenly showed live sports during the week 12 mos/year). Lets not delude ourselves into thinking that everyone finds us indispensible. Even before the internet, people cancelled subscriptions. The news will be reported by someone. The only possible way to make this idea work is to sign exclusivity deals with an ISP in exchange for fees, but that is unfair to people who live in areas of the country where that ISP is unavailable. And I still don't think that will work. The die has been cast: people expect ALL of the internet to be free to them. Even aspects of the internet that people have traditionally been willing to pay for (porn, fantasy sports advice) are struggling to keep customers as people gravitate toward free content. ISPs know this and feel confident that in the end, the customers will support them. And the ISPs are right.