Content Protection: Copyright Laws & Pay Walls TownNews.com Webinar Thursday, Feb. 18

Webinar Series: Content Protection: Copyright Laws & Pay Walls Starting: 10:30 Central Presenter: Marc Wilson – CEO & General Manager

Format of webinar: 30 minutes of presentation –Ask questions using the Go2Webinar tools during the presentation. –We will attempt to answer questions individually throughout the presentation. 30 minutes of Question & Answer -Previous questions answered individually reviewed with group. -Additional questions answered as asked

Ad Shares Year Newspapers Mags. Radio TV Other –Advertising in mass media as a percentage of total advertising expenditures; source’ McCann-Erickson – data from NAA

YearAdult PopulationWeekday readershipSunday readership million80.8 %75.3 % million million million million million million million Top Top Top To Top Top

Broadband disrupts » Dial-upBroadband TV3.03 hrs2.45 Radio Internet1.162 Newspapers »Source: Arbitron, 2003 (Now we have Mobile and “Internet-everywhere” effects)

“Your news source” 19 percent use Google/Yahoo/MSN etc. as first source of news in 2009 Up from 10 percent in percent went first to newspapers in 2009 Down from 23 percent in percent went to newspapers Web sites first for news Up from 3 percent in 2006 »Research by Outsell Research

Google 44 percent accessing news through Google do NOT access the newspaper (or other) source –For many users “Headlines are enough” »Outsell Research’s News Users 2009

More and More ‘Bots” Jan – 520 million page views –296 million were from “bots” or spiders 57 percent Google and Yahoo 39 million – 7.5 percent Jan – 876 million page views –586 million were from “bots” or spiders 67 percent Google and Yahoo 61 million – 7 percent

Local News 17 percent go to local newspaper Web sites for local news Up from 8 percent in percent go to aggregators for local news Up from 1 percent in 2006

Fallacy of the Link Economy “The vast majority of the value gets captured by aggregators linking and scraping rather than by the news organizations that get linked and scraped.” –Arnon Mishkin, Mitchell Madison Group

Free vs. paid

Fwix is a local news site designed to show you the most recent and relevant information in your area. Our mission is to provide people with the best possible news and the tools necessary to spread this news to the people they care about. Currently, Fwix is active in nearly 114 US cities with plans to expand internationally in late The company believes that future of local media will be in distribution of independently- created local content over a technology platform.

Frequently Asked Questions Are you scraping content? We do not scrape content, we only provide and analyze content that has been deemed "fair use" by US Copyright Law. We do not intend to scrape content and if you feel as though there is content on Fwix that has been scraped without providing proper credit to the content producer, please notify us immedately at:

Another competitor – possibly using YOUR content

Topix The answer seemed simple in 2004: aggregate news from thousands of sources, create thousands of topically driven news web pages and populate each of those pages with only news about that particular topic. … We created artificial intelligence algorithms that continuously monitor breaking news from over 50,000 sources, 24 hours a day. But even with 50,000 news sources, there just wasn't enough local news - and what news there was, couldn't be tuned finely enough with algorithms alone. So, in April 2007, we decided to open up our site, and give anyone the power to discuss, edit and share the news that matters to them. Topix is source for AmericanTowns.com, Ourtown.com, Agreattown.com, grapevinecommunities.com

Local advertising in every city

OurTown.com OurTown.com is … a branded, hyper-local platform of more than 70,000 sites covering every populated ZIP Code in the U.S. OurTown delivers Local News, Local Views, Local Search and Local Commerce to each viewer.

Copyright laws Some linking is permissible without permission –Fair comment –No harm –Increases traffic/distribution Some linking is not permissible New York Times vs. Gatehouse Media

Encourages creativity “Copyright law in general recognizes rights in authors in order to motivate them to create, disseminate and in other ways develop their work.” »Prof. Douglas Lichtman of UCLA Law School

Copyright “The issue is whether unauthorized borrowing deprives original author of substantial income stream or opportunity. If it threatens to reduce authors’ motivation to produce…the linking practice … is inconsistent with copyright law’s fundamental goals…” » Lichtman

You have options 1.Copyright laws created to protect creators 2.Technology can help 1.Pay Walls 2.Block most bots 3.E-editions 3.Control what/when you publish 4.Understand the Internet

Mishkin: Solutions 1.Seek “equitable economic relationship” with aggregators 1.AP, Murdoch and others seeking deals 2. Creators build their own aggregation sites 3. Develop new ways of sharing content with other sites

Pay walls, etc. News Corp. (Murdoch) Arkansas Democrat-Gazette New York Times The Associated Press Many smaller newspapers –TownNews.com offers many options

Pay Wall downside 79 percent of users say they will stop using the site if they have to pay. If they have to pay, 71 percent say the content needs to be better 78 percent believe that if they pay for a print subscriptions, online should be free 64 percent say if paid content – there should be no ads. »Nielsen Survey Jan. 2010

Other options Avoid shovel-ware Don’t just move print to Web Web-Only content Video, audio Extra photos Stories that don’t fit in print (anymore) All things local –Church sermons –Community sports –Longer wedding/engagement stories –Longer obits –Social Marketplaces

Thanks for your time! Questions? Comments?

Contact Marc Filby: (309) For additional information:

Next week: Web Analytics: Understanding site statistics with Murlin Stats See the complete webinar schedule at support.townnews.com/webinars