

Copyright troll Righthaven's epic blunder: a lawsuit targeting Ars - timwiseman
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/copyright-troll-righthavens-epic-blunder-a-lawsuit-targeting-ars.ars

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ChuckMcM
Sometimes I find the copyright follies amusing, sometimes not. Its important
to understand that when an organism is dying it has no compunctions about
killing nearby organisms if, for some reason, it feels that its actions my
lead to it not dying. Sort of like when a person loses their balance on a
balcony, and in their panic grabs the person next to them and they both get
pulled over and fall to an untimely end.

As I am fond of telling people, the _news_ business is alive and vital and
healthy, the news _paper_ business is dying like cold blooded reptile in an
ice age. Why the discrepancy?

News is, at its heart, and information business. Data is collected, it's
analyzed and digested, then presented as editorial for consumption. You can
think of this as a value chain where raw data costs _$x_ to acquire, people
(or algorithms in some cases) cost _$y_ to convert that data into news, and it
costs _$z_ to reproduce and distribute that news to consumers. Consumers pay
for the information either directly (via subscription) or indirectly (by
tolerating being marketed to) or doubly indirectly (by giving up demographic
data which will be later used to market to them). Sometimes its a combination
of all three.

Take the revenue (ads and demographics have to be converted to $ first but
they all convert) per reader, multiply by the number of readers, subtract off
the cost and voila, your gross margin. Lop off of that what you will for
recurring costs and presto you're a news business. If the remaining margin is
greater than 0 your a profitable news business, if its less than 0 you are a
dying news business. Newspapers are generally lumped into the latter category.

Newspapers are carrying a lot of costs they don't need to carry (printing,
newsprint, delivery services). There was a perceptive write up about how the
New York times would save money if it sent everyone a Kindle and just stopped
printing the paper [1]. In fact it could send all of its subscribers a free
Kindle, cut the cost of a subscription, and make more per issue than they
currently make. Its not a question of 'making it up in volume' its about 'the
cost of goods has just dropped 42%.'

Papers are an old old institution. As institutions they don't accept wholesale
change to their business model (even if it means survival). They have both a
strong cash base generally and political base. So rather than move past the
Asteroid strike/Ice Age and join the Web 2.0 mammals on the other side, they
are flailing away in their newsprint and india ink tar pits. People walking by
the tar pits have to watch out for them grabbing them in an effort to keep
from dying, to bad they are already dead.

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/1/printing-the-nyt-
costs...](http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/1/printing-the-nyt-costs-twice-
as-much-as-sending-every-subscriber-a-free-kindle)

