Mygazines.com Closes After Copyright Violation Settlement

Mike Riggs | October 17, 2008

One of the cooler aggregators that nobody had ever heard of is dead and done for after settling a big, fat lawsuit with Hearst, Time Inc., Forbes, and some other print giants. 

For those of you who didn't get a chance to visit the site, Mygazines.com allowed users to upload scanned pages of their magazines for other users to check out. Most of the content I saw came from guitar magazines ("swm, d/d free, seeking reliable nsa guitar tabs for Eruption"), but there weren't many titles that you couldn't also peruse (free of charge) in your local grocery store.

Perhaps when reality hits the glossies as hard as it's hitting newspapers, they'll rethink the "[un]fairness" of user-generated sites that promote their products (free of charge). And hopefully, the reincarnation of Mygazines.com will incorporate a system of referring links to send eyes back to the magazines' sites.

Or perhaps this is one case where copyright warriors are in the right?

[Courtesy of Romenesko & Folio]

Comments

|10.17.08 @ 2:05PM|#

You'd think Big Media would have learned something from the stupidity practiced by the major record labels, but obviously not.

Here's the message they apparently learned:

Making life difficult for your customers = Great business plan!!

|10.17.08 @ 2:09PM|#

Grumpy Smurf: I hate free advertising!

Another Phil|10.17.08 @ 2:09PM|#

Making life difficult for your customers = Great business plan!!

They're not customers. They're getting the content for free online.

Colonel_Angus|10.17.08 @ 2:23PM|#

Fuck them. I probably would have gone to their site often if I knew about it, I have no problem taking advantage of free stolen shit as long as I won't be the one taking the heat for it. But they got taken down, it was only a matter of time. Why shouldn't intellectual property be a property right?

sds|10.17.08 @ 2:35PM|#

>> Why shouldn't intellectual property be a property right?

because if I give you a cookie, I don't have it anymore, but if I give you a copy of a book, I still have the book.
copyright is a time-limited right conferred by the government because the constitution mandates it _for encouragement of useful arts_. property it is NOT.

|10.17.08 @ 3:10PM|#

"They're not customers. They're getting the content for free online."

You're right. They are potential customers. So let's see how this very important distinction plays out:

>>>Making life difficult for your potential customers = Great business plan!!

Oregon Scott|10.17.08 @ 3:24PM|#

A copyright is a right to copy. If the owner of that right is stupid with it, it's still that owner's property right.

Scott

|10.17.08 @ 3:47PM|#

"A copyright is a right to copy. If the owner of that right is stupid with it, it's still that owner's property right."

And its still our right to laugh hysterically, point our fingers in their faces, and yell, "I told you so you dumb mutherf*ckers". Then we lobby as hard as we can to get Congress's lips off Jack Valenti's long dead cock and restore some sanity to our rights.

Another Phil|10.17.08 @ 5:05PM|#

Making life difficult for your potential customers = Great business plan!!

How are they potential customers? Depriving them of free access to the content of their current issues is a valid business plan. You may not like not being able to get the content for free, but your argument doesn't make any sense.

And its still our right to laugh hysterically, point our fingers in their faces, and yell, "I told you so you dumb mutherf*ckers". Then we lobby as hard as we can to get Congress's lips off Jack Valenti's long dead cock and restore some sanity to our rights.

And what does the time extension of copyright protection have to do with this article? This is about current magazine issues.

TTT|10.17.08 @ 5:36PM|#

You may not like not being able to get the content for free, but your argument doesn't make any sense.

It makes sense for Eric Flint and Jim Baen. Baen's Free Library. The pattern is that sales go up again after it is placed online.

JD|10.17.08 @ 5:59PM|#

I don't think the music analogy is a very good one. As has been pointed out in this august publication, IIRC, most artists, and even some companies, make money BECAUSE of the music, but not WITH the music. That doesn't apply with a magazine, which only has the magazine itself to make money from; they're not selling concert tickets, t-shirts, etc.

Also, as a content creator myself, I get a little ticked off when people decide that they're entitled to copy my stuff without so much as asking. Sure, copyright is over-powered in this country. Sure, a lot of copyright holders do dumb things in an attempt at rent-seeking. That doesn't mean the entire concept should be thrown out, though. Mygazines is basically making money by ripping off other publishers and trying to weasel around it by calling themselves an "aggregator" (i.e., somebody who rips off LOTS of other publishers at once). I don't see exactly what we're supposed to be applauding here.

cunnivore|10.17.08 @ 10:59PM|#

Funny, there's an ad to the right of this thread inviting me to purchase the ability to read the current issue of Reason magazine online. Why don't you guys give it away for free?

Log. Eye. Remove.

ed|10.18.08 @ 10:59AM|#

restore some sanity to our rights


It's always the non-creator who feels abused by copyright protection. Boo hoo.