During the COVID lock down, many subscribers of news papers have stopped the news paper subscription and there is no doubt that the subscription revenue must have gone down. Though in the past, newspapers relied more on the advertising revenue than the subscription to the extent that the front page of national news papers were often the paid ads themselves, the news papers may be worried about the possibility of a permanent discontinuing of the news paper reading habit by the public, post lifting of the lock down.
In the meantime as a cost cutting measure most news papers have drastically reduced the number of pages in the publication and saving on the print costs.
While the few of us who are still supporting the publications by continuing the subscriptions, understand the economic pressure, the rumour that is floating around about INS (Indian Newspaper Society) intending to take action against WhatsApp admins for forwarding the e-copies of publications to their members under the Copyright Act raises concern.
If the rumour is true, it shows the meanness of INS and deserves to be condemned.
If any WhatsApp admins have been sharing the news papers to their members, it is out of respect for these publications and to ensure that the members keep in touch with the publications so that the relationship between the publication and the subscriber/reader is not completely cut off. This should increase the possibility of the person re-engaging himself with the publication after the lock down is lifted.
If however, the INS takes any action against WhatsApp admins, there could be a boycott of news paper subscriptions and the print publications will be forced to close down.
Today the TV media and the internet media disseminates news faster and better and if INS does not understand the vulnerability of the print publications and ignore the minor aberrations of Copyright that they may be seeing in these news paper shares, it will on its own dig up the grave for print publications.
If the rumour is not true, INS has to come out with a statement showing its magnanimity in accepting the current special conditions in which some WhatsApp admins might have tried to share the news within their private member community (not in public domain) for the benefit of the members of its family and at the same time helping the brand afloat.
If INS wants to protect the member’s rights under Copyright Act, the consumers may demand that with the reduction of print pages, the publications have to reduce their price immediately failing which they should be open to challenge under unfair trade practices.
In the meantime I advise the WhatsApp admins….
- Stop distributing the whole copies of publications. Your service will not be appreciated and could be violating Copyright law.
- Instead you can discuss specific articles with or without link to a context specific articles on the news paper.
- In the past there have been some international publications which have taken objection even to hyperlinking (Deep linking) to articles within the news papers and it is better you avoid confrontation with such money hungry sharks.
- Most of these news papers are any way not committed to the principles of journalism and are paid by some political party or the other or some business group.
- Ideally, pick up news from the social media and blogs, filter them for reliability and distribute it to your member
- Avoid confrontation with the news papers. They have copyright lawyers supporting them.
- Afterall you are not paid for promoting the brand of the news paper and there is no reason why you should take the risk.
My renewal of subscription is due and I will be considering discontinuing one English and One Kannada news paper to which I subscribe now unless I see a satisfactory response from INS.
Looking forward to a suitable press release from INS in this regard. I am copying this through email to the INS.
Naavi
P.S: In the past there used to be an early morning program in which TV channels used to read out main news from print publications. It is time WhatsApp groups distribute responsibilities to members to read out one news paper item so that collectively the information can be shared.
