News Mygazines.com faces legal troubles

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/08/18/mygazines-com-faces-legal-troubles/1

Mygazines.com, a user-driven magazine scanning and sharing site founded back in July, is facing legal threats from magazine publishers who claim copyright infringement.

 

what this shows again is that traditional media providers are not providing what they produce in the ways that consumers want.

 

I personally don't read too many magazines, but I feel that there are too many advertisements in that thing. In fact, almost half of the pages you will see are ads, and the amount of this useless content makes it feel like it really should be free in the place.

From my point of view, magazines would get more attention by readers if it was free (i.e. more people will read it). The advertisements will then be shown to more people. Therefore, the amount of money that magazine companies ask from other companies who want to advertise will naturally increase. This will still cover the costs of production and such.

 

i.e. Free.

 

Print media still has some advantages. It's a bit more difficult to take Mygazines with you on a porcelain cruise.

 

Nice idea but I agree that print media still has a place, although I wasn't thinking of doing so whilst cutting off a length.

 

Proof

Now theres no excuse for magazines in the bathroom

 

if only it had an offline version....

 

I gave this service a test drive by reading an issue of Maximum PC - while the magazine was about as meh as I remember it being, the navigation, and intuitive nature of the software made it enjoyable. Enjoyable enough that I'd rather scroll through digital copies than a print copy.

 

"The service is not available. Please try again later." doh!

 

I would love it if they had New Scientist on there. (had a quick look but couldn't find it) I can't afford the subscription due to studentitis and miss the days when it was delivered to my door.

 

You're missing the point. For Mygazines to produce an online version of someone else's magazine is no different to me hosting a carbon copy of the Bit-Tech site. Were Bit-Tech management bothered when someone actually did this? You betcha!

PC-Pro and a few others have online sites that mirror a large fraction of the magazine content plus extra news - paid for by online advertising. I'd like to see more magazines doing this, but there are established alternatives if I want to read a camera or amplifier review. Market forces will determine who runs the online magazines, but they'll have to produce their own content to survive - there's no long-term future in thieving.

 

The site itself is really nice, easy to use, if a little slow. While obviously the legality does come into it, the print companies should try working with it rather than getting it shut down. Even if they adopted a small subscription fee it'd be worth it; something like £5-10/month coupled with the increased advertising costs. Everyone would be a winner, and if both the site and magazines worked together the content would only improve. Guess that's pointless speculation though, the rampant stupidity pervading todays media would never allow for some sensible negotiation.

 

hehe, love how you call the sh*tter!

 

r4tch3t, you know that you can get it via Athens (if you're a UK student, that is)

 

New Zealand Student unfortunately.
Good to know anyway.

 

Check out The Overclocker, a professional magazine for PC enthusiasts that's being distributed for free online:

http://theoverclocker.com/

 

Mygazines is not closed

"Dear valued members, visitors and publishers,

Due to monetary reasons and the state of the global economy, we unfortunately must close mygazines.com. We simply ran out of funds to support the daily operations.

We thank you for your patronage.

If you are a publisher interested in understanding more about our model and vision for the future of the publishing industry going forward, or to discuss our Business to Business model opportunities, please email us at mygazines@gmail.com.

Sincerely,
The Mygazines Team"