A Copyright Question

I’ve had a pub pitched at me (happens all the time) in which all news stories on a topic are compiled in one EZ-to-read format. So the pub would contain a small amount of original information (analysis and such) and the rest would be text of stories from various newspapers. This would be sold to the general public.

I’m thinking it’s not kosher, copyright-wise but wouldn’t mind having the Teeming Millions weigh in.

The issue here is that there are certainly firms that do this for private companies and governments. The ‘clip service’ concept is well established and a decent industry.

But I think offering such to the market as a whole takes us outside the bounds.

What say ye?

You would have to get permissions for the news stories to offer them. I don’t think it would be commercially viable.

There already is a magazine that does this, to an extent, called The Week. I was getting it for a while before they started charging for subscriptions. They do a nice job of being a Time/Newsweek in about 24 pages. They put a huge amount of development money into crafting and marketing it, though, so they would make tough competition. I can’t remember whether they are all original or partially reprint, thought.

However, World Press Review definitely reprints stories from a variety of international publications (or used to when I subscribed). You might try to contact them to see what arrangements they needed to make.