Digital Piracy Moves To Magazines
Digital piracy is moving into a new arena with the emergence of a nascent Web site called Mygazines.com, which encourages users to copy and upload popular magazine titles currently selling on newsstands.
It couldn’t come at a worse time for the magazine industry, which is facing declining sales and ad revenue.
With some 16,000 registered users as of last week, the new Web site allows visitors to peruse high-quality, full digital copies of many current publications, including The Economist, People, Men’s Health and others.
Legal experts call the site a "flagrant" violation of copyright laws, but since it is run by an offshore company it will be difficult to shut down.
"It’s pretty hard to see how it’s anything other than a straightforward set of copyright violations," Jeffrey Cunard, an intellectual property lawyer with Debevoise & Plimpton LLP in Washington, told the AP.
"There are entire magazines with no commentary, no criticism – clearly not a case of classic fair use."
Magazines typically make some or all of their articles available online for viewing at no charge, but remain in control of how much content they release and any advertising that is sold. And while Mygazines viewers would presumably see ads in a magazine’s print edition, the publisher would not be compensated for this.
In a July 29 press release announcing the launch of the new site, Mygazines said its copies are no different from magazines shared in a salon or doctor’s office, a claim Cunard rejects because the site makes available copies of paid-for content, not the actual product.
"The first-sale doctrine says that once I buy a physical copy of something, I can do whatever I want with it – except copy it," he said.
Many publishers said they are aware of the site and are contemplating legal action.
"We take our intellectual property seriously and are considering appropriate action on this matter," wrote The Economist in an e-mail statement.
Time Warner Inc.’s Time division spokeswoman Dawn Bridges told the AP the publisher of People, Sports Illustrated and other titles is considering its options, including investigating ways to shut the site down.
Industry trade group Magazine Publishers of America said it would support the efforts of its members, although the group itself has no legal recourse because it doesn’t own the copyrights.
The obstacle for publishers is that Mygazines’s domain name is registered in the Caribbean island nation of Anguilla, a British overseas territory outside of the jurisdiction of U.S. copyright law. Had Mygazine chosen servers physically located within the U.S., publishers would have some recourse. Under the current circumstances, publishers can sue in U.S. courts because content is available to Americans, but could not mandate any Mygazines representatives to show up in court or collect any damages for rulings made in their absence.
According to an Associated Press report, records indicate Mygazine’s domain name is owned by "John Smith" of Salveo Ltd., with a post office box address in Anguilla.  However, a representative at a London-based company called Salveo Ltd. said the company did not own or operate the site. Â
Registration companies typically require that domain buyers use their actual names and contact information, although submitted information is rarely verified.
It’s not clear how Mygazines will generate revenue, since the site includes no advertisements and allows users to register at no charge. Nevertheless, that doesn’t change the site’s liability for its copyright infringement. Publishers can claim damage at least some damage since people could view their content online instead of purchasing a magazine..
Current U.S. federal copyright laws provide some protection to sites such as Google’s YouTube for the actions of their users, provided they at least attempt to remove content that potentially violates copyright laws.
But such protections may not apply to Mygazines, Cunard said, since the site actively encourages people to "to upload copyrighted material."  Indeed, the company’s tag line is "upload. share. archive." As of last Friday, the Mygazine home page included substantial copyright-protected content.
The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that file-sharing site Grokster was liable for intentionally inducing its viewers to engage in copyright infringement.
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