It'll take a while, but read this statment by David Simon at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing last week. Then mentally substutite 'radio' for 'newspapers.'

http://commerce.senate.gov/public/_files/DavidSimonTestimonyFutureofJournalism.p df

Amen, Rich.

And if you do read it, be open to the thought that there is plenty of blame to share - even for ourselves.

future= dustbin of history!!!!

What future. I haven't bought more than a handful of newspapers in over 20 years.

I skimmed the statement, and Simon makes some very good points. The ones that I thought were the most important were:

1) The Internet makes it easy to find news stories, but it doesn't do anything to improve the quality of news reporting.

2) Quality news reporting requires a news gathering organization with some amount of clout (that can hold governmental and business institutions accountable) and trained, experienced reporters who know where to get the information that they need.

3) Funding of news reporting organizations is always a tricky issue because of the inherent conflicts of interest that exist. Public funding of newspapers could lead to bias (or suspected bias) in coverage of issues related to the government.

4) The economic woes of newspapers started years before they started losing ad revenue to Internet classifieds and readership to Internet news sites.

Makes you wonder how Watergate would have ended without CBS News and The Washington Post.

A strong press is such an important part of democracy.

What future. I haven't bought more than a handful of newspapers in over 20 years

You're a non-newspaper reader. Your opinions on newspapers don't count.

"Reading" the news on the net is tedious. Click. Wait. Read. Oh, its only a summary. Click again. Wait. Read. Click for page two. Wait. "Click on the "X" to close the ad. Wait. Read.

You can't consume the news fast enough on the net. This will absolutely have to be fixed.

Currently foremost on my mind is the question of whether the article I'm considering reading is worth the wait.

Reading things "in passing" isn't possible on the net and one gets a less rounded look at the news this way.

When was the last time you saw a newspaper promoting the benefits of their own medium? Seems like the only ads I see for the Oregonian is based on how in-expensive it is, or all the money saving coupons in Sunday's edition. Maybe if they looked at ways to sell people on reading their paper based on news content, i.e. in depth reporting you don't get from TV or the internet, they could sell more papers. It seems that the journalistic content of most media has disappeared over the years, only to be replaced with the adventures of Paris Hilton over real news. Much cheaper to go the paparazzi route, rather than train true journalists.

Skep--The reason I haven't got hardley any newspapers in twenty years is. A long time ago. Newspapers used to have news in them that mattered. Like the guy told congress. Now it's not worth reading. It is almost to where the term Newspaper is a oxymoron, as far as revelent news is concerened.

Steve's comment reminds me of the differences I first noticed in junior high between friends like me who were in families that got the paper and watched the evening news... and those that didn't. I was shocked that my friends had no idea who Mike Mansfield and Everett Dirckson were, or even who Terry Shrunk was. News cluelessness was well underway long before the PC.

Another major case FOR newspapers was expressed some 13 years ago during the dawn of the Web. Sure, you can aggregate every new bit of news about the subjects you care about, but you'll lose perspective. You'll never appreciate the context of that subject within the rest of society. Newspapers (and other media) let us know how important 'the people' (insert heated debate here) believe any given subject is at any given time.

Another argument that's lost a bit of its vaility (but just a bit): the surprise factor. How many times do you find something in the paper that you otherwise would never have known? Astute Web surfers still get surprised. But on the Web, it takes that extra step of clicking the link. For many, that's too much to ask. It's tougher to avoid a big headline and the subsequent text on the papger in front of your face.

Skeptical must use a different Internet than I use.

I can be caught up on news in Portland, Seattle, LA, and New York in 10 minutes on the Internet.

I more or less disagree on the points made about not being able to read in passing on the net, having to wait, etc...

We've got RSS, Search, and lots of other tools.

There is absolutely no contest here.

Paper is inferior in terms of search, rapid access to information, depth and latency.

Where it is strong is that it endures. Electronic information comes and goes and changes. Not always good. It's also highly portable. Nobody takes their computer to the John, right. (right??)

Because of the latency issues, and our now very rapid news cycle, news papers need to refocus.

We still need people doing reporting, and that stuff still ends up out on the net. It always will. No putting the genie back in the bottle. If the majors quit funding it, others will fund it, or people will just do it.

It's too easy not to.

So then that brings me to perhaps the greatest strength of the news paper. Analysis.

That's right! Instead of reprinting a bunch of stuff easily found elsewhere, and paying for it too, while people largely get it from whoever they feel like, publish analysis and commentary that ISN'T AVAILABLE elsewhere easily, and that HAS LOCAL RELEVANCE.

There you go.

Oh, and here's your business model. Everybody wants to be published right away. That's the free gig. You get your money from ads. Want to make more? Then really get after it, do the research, give it consideration and publish it in YOUR PAPER and let them pay for an exclusive. They pay you, they get paid from those people who want that EDGE in the morning NON-SUBSCRIBERS won't get, and then release it on a time delay, so that the NON-SUBSCRIBERS get to see what they are missing, by not stepping up and supporting their local brain trust.

Thank me later. Just do it, so I have a reason to subscribe.

Being the newspaper of record means publishing opinion and analysis of record, and doing it in a way that connects to the region of record.

Do that, and papers will sell, be talked about, blogged on, read and considered.

Don't do that, and watch as new content forms and models simply erase them one by one.

And the parallel to radio should be obvious. Been posting it here for years.

Facts are getting very close to free. Some will take digging, always will. Most won't. And that trend will continue because anybody can publish and it's easy to do so.

Analysis has not changed. In fact, it's growing in terms of our need for it. Why?

Because assembling those facts into some context and giving that meaning, telling the story takes talent, dedication and work that a whole lot of casual publishers are not going to do.

The very best bloggers and the very best journalists both excel at this. Both can make money, not by locking down the content, but by structuring access to this so that those that need it get it before the rest get it.

And I would team up too. There is absolutely no reason why both parties can't work together on this stuff. The passion is there, talent is there, the dollars can be there.

One more thing:

Printing may be old school, but it does endure, and it carries a weight that Internet does not. Words rendered to paper and distributed by people costs money.

Better damn well make sure those words are worth it, if you expect to sell the paper.

I've a quick follow on.

This really is about a transition to a greater focus on where the value add is. Simple distribution of information doesn't have a lot of value now. Obtaining it still does, as does the analysis of it.

In most traditional media, I sense that angst at the traditional entitlement shifting is a big part of the problem. It's not an exclusive gig anymore.

What that means is the normal "keep the lights on" moderate value adds no longer perform that function. Nothing has changed for the real value adds; namely, the work product of people.

The danger here is that the reduced yield of rather ordinary moderate value things is seen as overhead pressure. The MBA reaction is to lop off heads and consolidate operations.

Really, the alternative is to EXPAND those higher value things, so that more yield comes from them.

This is what I believe most traditional media needs to do.

Just thought I would put it in basic business terms, for those so inclined to think that way.

That was a great read. Thanks for posting it Rich.

> Sure, you can aggregate every new bit of news about the subjects you care about, but you'll lose
> perspective. You'll never appreciate the context of that subject within the rest of society.

I had never thought much of this aspect before, but the above statement is certainly true. Newspaper editors put the stories that they believe to be most important on the front page. In broadcast news reporting, it used to be that the most important stories appeared at the opening of the newscast and sometimes, more time would be devoted to them. I remember that the day that the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded, NBC Nightly News devoted the entire newscast to the explosion, even though, in my recollection, they didn't have that many facts to report that soon after the accident.

What's the difference between that and a blogger or news aggregator doing the same thing?

Frankly, "the most important" often gets biased by corporate concerns more than anything else.

Pick a few non-corporate funded sources, and "most important" often clashes with what we see traditional "one topic per day" myopic publishing.

Newspapers are better than TV in this regard. I like that. What I don't like are all the AP retreads, very little hard analysis and commentary, and it's all got more latency. The latency more or less marginalizes the AP stuff, meaning that's a wash. The analysis and commentary could easily go a day or two and still be just great.

So, publish more of that and add value to the paper where it is strong, instead of bitching about where it has become weak.

I can be caught up on news in Portland, Seattle, LA, and New York in 10 minutes on the Internet.

Lets do a quiz then shall we to see how well rounded your news reading was?

I can consume the entire edition of The Oregonian in 10 minutes and do quite well on a quiz. It is not physically possible to read the entire Oregonian on oregonlive.com in ten minutes.

If somebody happens to leave USAToday out, I'll consume that in a few minutes as well. I couldn't possibly get a good balance of national news in the same frame time on the net anywhere.

The click-wait thing is counter-intutive for consuming a lot of news.

Heck I even hate it when folks here post a link to somewhere without taking the time to post a short summary of what I will read when I get there. You want me to Click-Wait? No, thank you.

Wow! You gotta check this out!

http://hometownsource.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9162&Itemid= 1

So, don't visit the stupid ones!

Next.

I grew up in a household that got the newspaper every day, and watched both local and national evening news. To this day, I could not do without my Oregonian every evening, nor could I do without my news, which I get from both the paper, web, and TV.

Rich--I used to watch the evening news and OPB Statehouse on t.v. As well as read the O.J. Back when news had substance. The t.v. news now and the newspapers are crap. And not worth my time. By the way how are you doing these days. Regards, Steve.

One person's 'substance' is another person's 'long, ponderous, boring' news. I remember the O as one boring paper back as a kid, but it certainly had substance. I loved the OJ for its lively columns (Doug Baker, George Pasero) and quick takes. But look who's still publishing.
I'm doing well. Bought a house, so I guess I'm finally at peace with the idea that I'll be a Washingtonian for a while longer.
On the other hand, the partisan strife that bombards me from all sides in this gig occasionally makes me long for traffic and weather on the 8's.

Rich- I sold my duplex in oregon last sept. Then with leftover cash bought a fixer here in Vegas for cash. fixing it up now. regards steve

This is a great discussion.

My family has always subscribed to a local daily paper, and so have I. Even during the days when I was heavily involved with creating a strong local Radio news department, beating the newspaper and TV guys was fundamental. They were where people went for the complete story....whatever it was.

We would beat them regularly. We made a big deal out of it. Ane, we built an audience that told us they liked our news, but I don't think we ever caused someone to cancel their newspaper subscription or not watch the TV news because we were that much better.

From all the way back in college and broadcasting school we were told that Radio could do great spot news, but the newspaper could flesh out all the detail we didn't have the time for.

The huge newspaper reporting staffs made that happen. It blows my mind when I hear that a newspaper has fired 90 reporters. 90 REPORTERS! Good God what I could do with a Radio newsroom with 90 reporters.

So, as we analyze what is killing these guys, I would submit that they are so hung up in the way they've always done it that they can't change. They are like the record companies in that they have also lost control of their product, giving it away on the internet.

This week we had a very heated discussion in our staff meeting about putting a charge on our website of $ 5 a month. Hardly anything huge, but thos of us in favor thought that it would establish a value for what we work hard to do. Those against said people would just go somewhere else since so much is free. Any comments here about that?

I think the newspapers must discover what they can do exclusively that is not time dependent.
Then they have their own niche. Finding that niche will, I believe, require someone who is highly creative and very in touch with the public.

I'll pay, but it's got to be a really good value proposition.

Another problem is the dollar amounts. Back to the old micropayment problem. If everybody wants $10-50 per subscription period, it ends up being a lot of money!

Given the overall diversity of information available via Internet, it's damn tough to commit to a few sources.

On the other hand, if everybody wants a nickle or something per view, then you can't process the bucks.

Finally, when you lock it up, you don't get linked! That's double ugly, because then somebody sees your vault and decides to compete with free and you lose mindshare, or can't grow well, or get marginalized over time.

IMHO, the best deal is tiered access. Want it right at release? Pay for it. Pay for it with ADs on a modest, but still useful time delay and capture those all important links, finally freebies are promos then. Use those to grow mind share, or push off competitors.

A secondary thing is being able to buy some access, then use it over time. I really like this! There are times when I'm really into it, then I might go months when I'm not, or I want to measure what I use.

Per page bundles then make a whole lot of sense. Buy a 1K pack for $25 or something. Register, swipe the card, or key in the payment info, and you are set. Make it easy to see what's left, and give a grace period, where access is delayed but still possible so the transition away isn't abrupt enough to cause somebody to just reconsider.

(if anybody does this, don't pull a Vonage or AOL and make it difficult. Just buy the pages, let somebody gift them if they want to, and let them get consumed.)

Edit: By the way, that means just granting, say 100 pages of access, carries a significant value perception. It's all in how you position things as to whether or not people react to the value of it.

I think you've got it spot on where they being unable to adapt is concerned. It is exactly what the record companies are going through. Witness the AP going bat shit nuts over their stuff being cited.

That cycle will play out too. Somebody somewhere will build a business model that works, then they will pull the brain trust their way, then it's over.

Better to compete now and close that door. At the time of Napster, the record companies had the attention of 40 million Americans and direct peer to peer sharing had not yet been invented. A very healthy majority of the Napster using base would have paid flat monthly fees for the right to share tunes.

Napster offered them something like 2 billion a year to start down that road, and would have made money on top of that!

Record companies went nuts, and the rest is history.

Newspapers are in a similar time. Despite all the bashing people do, the public expectations set about newspapers (and radio for that matter) remains largely intact.

If they reset those to better align with their strengths, they have a shot at keeping near future competitors at bay and maintaining sustainability.

Now is the time too! The door is open, people know they are in trouble, and the mind share is there to get it done. Question is will they get it right?

Finally, I'm not sure they lost control. It's more like control just evolved away from them. When the cost of distribution reaches near zero, the value inherent in just the distribution reaches near zero. This is the problem.

Frankly, the added attention they get is an opportunity more than it is a liability. Always has been.

Problem is they are not leveraging that in a way that makes the most of their strengths, not that they gave the product away.

As soon as we all could publish (and we can), the value inherent in publishing changed. Unless we revoke the ability to self-publish, that ship has sailed and would have sailed whether or not they chose to open the door to the net or not.

That really just meant being marginalized now or later.

Same thing happened to the record companies. Broadband Internet meant being able to e-mail a track to a friend. Game over.

I can mail a news article to a friend. Game over.

It's extremely difficult to e-mail a movie to a friend, so the game is still on for them. And they appear to be embracing things on a level better than paper and radio did. Lessons learned there I think. Anyway, game not over yet. (but it will be)

Time for the new game now.

Coupla ideas:

To address the micro-payment problem, a guild of sorts could be built. All the papers trust this entity to make some money for them, and people either buy a pass or not. Incorporate the reasonable time delay, and that looks extremely viable to me.

Problem there is what to do with bloggers -vs- journalists. The best bloggers are on par with the best journalists. The worst bloggers are absolutely horrible. Messy.

It does have the advantage of limiting commentary and analysis though. I think that could seriously pay off, given the best bloggers want the info, need to link to it, tiers of release could seriously change the game without seriously inhibiting ordinary people from just learning stuff and being informed.

Poor people can pick up a newspaper, so I think the time delay on Internet works the same way. Poor people can wait, right along with people that only have casual interest.

There will continue to be a big ass fight between entities like Google and Publishers of all kinds. They want the attention, but they also want a cut of the action. Not sure how that will resolve. My gut says that's part of what the non-neutral Internet fight is about.

Could get ugly for ordinary people.

Another idea is own your niche totally. The best bloggers do this, and appear to be seeing some nice success. Could be that simply establishing a reporting organization as the one of record for a given niche would attract people, and limit the ability of others to compete there, given they continue to do a good, honest job of it. Internet means not being geographically limited, and it also means not having to send people to places. My gut also says there is a TON of value to be had, if one could organize and structure a process to capture the savings in those two things.

Maybe there is no news-room? Maybe the future is a distributed kind of thing where organizations can tap talented and passionate people where the news happens, instead of chasing down the news? Sure seems an obvious way to go just looking at the sheer business side of it. Expenses would drop to a fraction. That's a lot of room to innovate with.

I thought I would add there is the "fremium" model too.

Games people are always at the cutting edge of this stuff. Same for pornographers and artists. That's where you look for the new models. I have been following that stuff since damn near the beginning. Been a hell of a ride. Lots of stuff tried, most failed. There are some successes though, and the model below is one of the up and coming ones.

Fremium means everybody can step up and enjoy some AD powered content. No big deal. Pay though, and you get extras. The beauty of this is the value perception of those extras is directly related to how hard you want to work for it!

That's got as much potential as the other models do, with the downside of the extras not getting linked to the greater body of available info. So long as that's watched closely to see impact on mind share and relevance, no biggie. I'll pay for that too actually, but it's got to be a good value add, not some ego stroke.

(see Lars, O'reilly, et al. for the non-value added ego stroke deal Not picking on them either. They are just the first two that come to mind. No political statement intended.)

We have, to a certain extent, captured a niche with our print product....It looks like a newspaper and we print 3,500 every business day and distribute them free to just under 300 locations in our small town. The content is 100% local. All written by us and all about just the community. Other than the other newspaper in town, you can't get that content anywhere else. You can't find a copy anywhere in town after 10 am. It is normally about 90% sold out with local advertising.....typically 100 advertisers per issue. Yes, it makes money.

We use a lot of the content on our website which has just under 100,000 page views per month.

How do I convert the print version completely to the internet, maintaining the ad revenue and eliminating the biggest expense, which is printing.

You can't find a copy anywhere in town after 10 am.

You might want to bump up the print run. If the rack is always empty when the customer goes to it specifically to get your paper, they'll pretty soon stop making the effort.

Ok, I was thinking about a far bigger scene.

That's a lot tougher nut to crack.

I would start by blending the two for sure. Use the print edition to lead into, or encourage locals to check out something on the site. For bonus points, don't link it anywhere else. Just see if they type it in, or use a keyword, or something graphical, where they would know to click, if they sourced it from the print edition.

Offer them a cookie for doing this. When I say "cookie", I mean some incentive to convert their page view to something you can use.

Have you run stats on your site? Google analytics would be a good start. 100K views is a nice bit of traffic. That's a good thing, IMHO.

There is traffic, entries, exits, visit times, hops, and conversions. The conversion is the goal. You funnel attention through the site, hoping to convert some of it into a revenue generating activity.

Such activity could be, ad impressions, ad clicks, demographic info, sign up for the mailing list, buy the goodie, enter the contest, you name it.

A mailing list wouldn't be a bad idea. Have the print edition mailed out to people who sign up. Offer them a referral cookie for signing up a friend, etc... You want at least as many names as you have print editions disappearing regularly.

If you can focus those efforts into a respectable list that looks a lot like your distribution, then you've got something you can use.

Run ad campaigns on the mailing list with promos, tracking images and other technologies designed to see whether or not the leads and conversions generated actually originate from the list. Mix this with "bonus" content that augments the printed work they have now.

Once you've got your list running, then you can start asking them stuff with polls, and offer them things like a digital edition in parallel with the print one, etc...

At all times, leave yourself an out, should the non-print material suffer variance you don't see in the printed stuff. A slow phase out might then be practical.

Maybe it's not wise to completely quit printing. It could be that far less printing would do the same job though. Don't know. You probably don't either

Here's an interesting perspective:

http://current.com/items/90049647_sony-pictures-ceo-im-a-guy-who-doesnt-see-anyt hing-good-having-come-from-the-internet-period.htm

In some way he's correct. The current problems with stolen intellectual property could result in a bland future -- if there's no money to be made in creating intellectual property, its going to drop the average contents quality even further below "crap" than it is now.

Free isn't always a very good price.

You do mean the problem with infringement on copyrighted material, right?

I don't see any theft here. That's a different crime.

And there is a LOT of money being made. Happens every single day.

Where I look at a media producer bitching about the Internet, I see that same media producer perfectly willing to continue to extend copyright, thus INFRINGING on our public domain, which happens to limit NEW works, NEW competition, etc...

I'll gladly support them in helping to curb piracy, or to help them make money from it (which is the better way to go, unless we want draconian laws and hobbled devices), if they would step up and let copyright terms expire over a more reasonable time.

In other words, just like the KSKD bumper sticker says, "FREE THE MOUSE". It's long past time.

That all cuts both ways.

Additionally, every tool they've been given to help with piracy has been abused to prevent legit innovation, reverse engineering, authorship of new works, new business models, etc...

As far as I am concerned, they've got their heads in the sand and are paying more for it each year they leave them there.

And that comes from somebody who gladly invested in well over 500 movie titles, including many from SONY. That same somebody wants to know if we are sold a license, or a copy.

If it's a copy, then I get to insure it, or archive it, or transcode it for use on my devices right? I get to reproduce fair use clips from it for commentary, satire, education, right?

...or, if it's a license, then having a license means no particular attachment to the physical media I have right? I then could go and download that which I own license to view to, right?

My point here is that there is a lot to this deal. We've got a distribution medium that makes the cost of distribution near zero for most works. That changes the game.

I'm all for playing that new game, and for those that produce works to make lots of money, but they have to play too and that means some of the old established things of value have far less value now, and other things rise to have lots of value.

Business models need to change, just like they changed with the printing press, car -vs- horse and buggy, etc...

A counter point:

One reason piracy is so ubiquitious today is simple lack of legit availability of works! Why can't a person just go buy any tune they want, from the catalog and get it unencumbered and get it easily and just play it on their device of choice?

Why do we have to deal with hobbled devices?

Why is it my friends Vista machine won't render high-resolution video when playing my video work, but will render that with something from SONY studios?

Why can't I play those works I purchased from some "life time" music service that chose to go out of business, leaving me with nothing?

It goes on and on.

IMHO, a big part of the reason we've got crap is the pool of works to draw from has been tapped dry. The public domain sees almost no expansion despite basically exponential expansion of creative works published!

Anyway, it's infringement, not theft. Those that authored their works still have them, still have their rights, and so on. When we STEAL, that's THEFT, and it's a state where the owner of property no longer has possession of said property.

Infringement means nothing is lost, only rights were infringed on. Everything else still exists!

I totally agree that free isn't always a good price. No question. What I don't get is why we don't actually ask some hard questions about value today, where it comes from, what materials we use to build it, and so on.

Some of those answers have changed, yet the people making the biggest noise about it basically haven't. Until that occurs, I really don't feel for them.

Because of this mess, we live in very interesting times! Society, the law and technology are colliding big time. Lots of new and interesting law will get settled before we go. I follow this stuff regularly because I find it very interesting.

Granted, some people have gone overboard in dealing with the protection of intellectual property, the RIAA, for one, but on the other hand, I've personally experienced a potential thief by a torrent site somewhere in eastern Europe for intellectual property that I haven't even released yet and there's next to nothing I can do about it without spending big bucks.

You're right, things are colliding big time.

Yeah, that's a bummer

So, make a similar looking torrent, with a nice message and seed it!

If it's not released, how did they get it into a damn torrent?

how did they get it into a damn torrent?

Festival submission copies. Maybe even review copies. But I've particularly careful about that. Not even cast/crew members have copies at this time.

Obviously this has been subject to a lot of discussion in filmmaker circles, but these sites pop up as often as the get shut down. One site did get shut down after apparently a filmmaker went after them according to a recent discussion, but a google search shows my work (and likely, hundreds of other low budget filmmakers without legal departments) has popped up elsewhere under "free movie downloads".

Damn, you need to encode those.

That way, you can find out who leaked you. Somebody did, and they are a complete ass for doing it. Outing them might do some others some good. There are a lot of options for watermarking, without disturbing the overall intent of the work. I sure as hell would go down that road. I wouldn't say a word about it either. Just do it, and nail them.

It's whack a mole time, but you might get a few good solid whacks in!

Ever thought about how you might be able to spin that torrent in your favor? Post up a site page and then start commenting the hell outta the usual places. On that page you can do something. Maybe set people up for a pre-order, chance at advocacy, contest?

Maybe some brainstorming might yield you some options.

A author I know dealt with this by making his site the definitive source for the work. Invited donations, permitted a clean download, with some promo content added, sign up for the mailing list, etc...

That site now features almost everything he's ever written, free. On that site, you can buy signed paper copies, offer translations and transcodings for others to use, do reviews, view the ads, etc... As an author, he's not all that well known. Overall, he's sold a lot and is far more well known now.

I'm a fan because his works were interesting, and somebody had formatted them for the iPod. I plopped a couple in for that long flight, read them and just got hooked. Have bought several titles now. Wanted to support somebody trying to get after it.

I can even sign up and get the latest e-mailed to me, along with interesting news bits, commentary and other goodies. I totally signed up!

Books are small, movies aren't. Bummer there. Still, maybe some hard core consideration of what you actually CAN do might bring something your way.

What have you got to lose?

You were infringed and that's the downside. The upside is people are watching the film. Do you know how many have been pulled off the net? Is the torrent well seeded?

Is the topic of the film something that can play off of this stuff? Advocacy film? Drama?

Maybe something along those lines could play out for you?

The author supposed that the free copies were not likely to be sales. This was due to his popularity status. Opportunity cost was zero, essentially.

Perhaps this is a parallel to where you are.

By becoming the source of the copies, he gets to focus the mind share and leverage that, where some boob with a torrent is just some boob with a torrent.

Now there is very little need for a torrent. Lots of people know where the work is.

One difference is that books tend to do better as actual physical books. That's changing with e-book readers that are rapidly improving. Still, a book is a book and nothing beats just having the book.

The freebies end up being samplers then. Not the perfect solution, but a solution that works for some.

So then, a torrent of the film equates to the DVD how?

Have you downloaded the thing? What is the quality like?

The DVD is gonna look great obviously. It's got liner notes and other goodies too.

Ever think of a pack in? Something to seriously differentiate the real copy from the infringed one? I'm thinking that's kind of a nice option. Think that one over, but whatever you do, don't threaten those who actually did buy in. Figure out how to get them to help get the word out about your film, or donate to the cause, or something.

Heck, I would tell the story of the torrent now. You've not yet sold the real deal. There is time.

For anyone that buys the thing, include something that tells about the torrent, and maybe incorporate some web site where you can focus that attention and do something with it.

There are things you can do, which was the point of my post. Unorthodox, I admit, but I'm seeing them done, and I'm seeing interesting things happen. Maybe you can go a ways down that road.

..or maybe they are just asses, and that's that.

Despite what I may say about infringement and the push back I do regarding the draconian things being tried to deal with it, I absolutely support anybody making stuff, period.

I hope newspapers don't all go away. I have worked in small ones and was a correspondant for The Oregonian for awhile. I still like to buy the newsrack version of the O every morning and get our local paper twice a week, even though much of their content is also on their website.

I can't beleive the FCC was having such a problem pondering whether newspapers and TV stations could have the same local ownership...many of the country's TV stations got their start as a subsidized subsidiary of the local paper...and now that the ad revenue stream in reversed, and newspapers need some help to keep from going under, it could present a problem?

The revision of the communication act has done in local radio in many places due to all of the corporate ownership of former competitors.

Many former small businesses that used to buy local advertising on both radio and newspapers are no more. The big box stores that have replaced them prefer to use the papers for their own inserts, which don't pay anywhere near what local ad insertions do.

KSKD, trying to market a film (or book or CD for that matter) is about as time consuming as the making of the actual product. Playing cop or FBI agent isn't something I've extra time to do (although sounds somewhat fun), further more making one-off DVD copies each time is costly. I have a local guy just burn em off in batches for me. I could save even more money by having a glass master made, but I like to fix stuff as I go along.

Having said that, you're quite right there are things that I can do to turn it into an advantage for me, and down the road I'd be stupid not to consider them however, right now specifically filmmakers are harmed when a festival checks the net for a film's status (for instance, they'll check to see if it has previously played in their areas or city) and find its "available for downloading" and will assume the film is old and pass on it.

More and more festivals are becoming aware of it, but at the same time the major ones are insulted when a filmmaker burns a "brand" on the screening copies, no matter how small.

The site that was offering at least several stolen films, including mine "disappeared" before I thought to download. Several others are in the process being shut down, however I wasn't able to check if mine was on them. A new one with supposedly with mine on it listed it as available, but some hackers who specifically went there to find it weren't able to get it to download (yet). I know I didn't want to click on that link lest a invite myself to a virus.

Several "mid-tier" festivals that have been caught red-handed either streamed or offering for DL in the recent past explained that it was in the submission agreement "fine print" or other BS.

Man, you can't trust anyone these days, even people supposedly on your side.

Yeah, that sucks Skep. There are invisible marking techniques... and somebody wants that scoop, that's all I'm saying. Would be interesting to see headline:

"Small Film Maker Outs Pirates To Festival Scene."

--Portland, OR. Bob the asshole reviewer is upset because his prospects for future film reviews are diminished due to his name being attached to online torrents. Bob says, "Now they are just out there! What can I do?" Heh... It's possible. And what's your opportunity cost? More than building up a little tech acumen?

Bob, I hope so too. I like newspapers. I like small business, radio and all those other community kinds of things we had before we let the mega corps form to the degree they have.

Here's an interesting take on radio, and media regulation:

http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2009/05/fccs-copps-lets-regulate.ars

Scary and hopeful at the same time.

Well, we could just legislate some money for them, significantly impacting speech rights.

This is always the solution large corporations seek:

Expand copyright to favor their business model, instead of INNOVATING like everybody else does.

Point:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/15/AR2009051503000. html

Counter Point:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/5/17/732381/-Clinging-to-a-dead-biz-model-for -dear-life

It's worth noting that Kos is new media. It is profitable, it does contribute reporting, analysis and a forum for commentary, all while providing content for free, allowing all of us to self-publish and derive value from Kos. --An option I've used multiple times with great results, BTW.

Newspapers HAVE options. There are some good points in the Kos article related to large corporations and their impact on media in general that are worth some consideration.

Whats your opinion of the Huffington Post?

There's been many an article I would have checked out, but its Click-Wait hell.

I like HuffPo. I don't get the click wait deal. When a person is connected to the net, they have some speed level. Whatever that is, they then adapt their load read cycle to that speed.

If it's dialup, fire off a few brower windows and read the one you are in! By the time that reading is done, or if it's interactive, your interaction is done, then move to another window.

I use the net frequently at less than optimal speeds. Sites like PDXRadio work well all the way down to a coupla kilobytes per second. Others, like HuffPo, really need 5 - 10, with is dialup, plus a little.

In your browser, well a Firefox browser, it's possible to kill off style sheets, scripts, image loads and such, and get the text just fine. RSS is a nice option as well, often just being a simple info feed.

I see this as analogous to "using" a newspaper correctly. Knowing the art of the readers fold, working in sections, etc...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/may/17/mediabusiness-internet

Here's an interesting take. It's along the lines of my "We've Got Too Many Radio Stations" thread, and others who have blathered along the same lines!

The market then will weed out the orginazations that can't cut it. Also, news being sustained by some other business appears to be one path taken.

What would go well with a news paper?

A collective of bloggers to start. Take the DailyKos model, issue press credentials from the established news paper (and I've received press credentials before as a blogger, so I know this is doable.), pay for reporter / editor types, who work with the bloggers looking to publish, and who publish themselves.

The print edition has a lot of more original content to pull from, could continue to include a healthy dose of local news and commentary, and gets both online and print AD revenue.

The key there is to add to the available staff count, by incorporating the best of what bloggers & traditional journalists do, with the best of online and offline publishing.

And the online portion could do music, video too. Not music 'n movies, but audio talk and video talk. Some creative branding is needed to identify the unit as something other than just a website, or just a newspaper. "Portlands News Source Of Record", hell I don't know. All I do know is that the distinctive nature of something like that would need a distinct brand to compete well.

My point being, "Innovate or die" has never been more true. A big window was missed early on. The major news papers could have flat out owned the Internet, but were slow. That time has passed.

The core strengths; namely, analysis, commentary, investigative haven't changed, and they are still potent differentiators compared to much of what the Internet offers.

Perhaps a healthy purge is good. That will free up professionals, who are still interested in practicing their trade. That pool of ready and able people are what is needed for the above to happen.

That kind of thing combined with a "fremium" model looks to be potent, IMHO.