Okay, so we’ve had a zillion posts about the financial viability of the SDMB and the possibility of charging Dopers to post. Here’s one point which I don’t think has been raised. As you know if you read the small print, everything you post becomes the copyright propety of the Chicago Reader. This is going to need looking into.
There are two basic business models for an all-comers info exchange like the SDMB.
1. Participants contribute for free. The Host then owns the contributions, and can re-package them to make money. This is the model used by the British newspaper The Guardian, which has a ‘Notes & Queries’ section - this basically being an ask-any-question forum. From time to time, they print paparback books featuring 100s of the questions and answers.
2. Participants pay to contribute. The Host does not own the contributions, and cannot exploit them for profit. This is the model used by… well, I can’t think of an example, but it could be what the SDMB becomes.
What I think would be totally outrageous would be a situation in which we pay to contribute, and then see the Chicago Reader also make a profit by selling books based on compilations of participant contributions. That would be milking the cow at both ends.
The only organisation I know which gets away with this is the BBC. Everyone in the UK has to pay an annual tax to the BBC, so they have money to make programmes (you have to pay whether or not you like or watch their output). Then when a video of a BBC show is released, we have to pay full retail price for it in the shops, ignoring the fact that we (the public) paid for the damn stuff to be made in the first place!
So… in any future dicussion about pay-to-post or a subscription, let’s clarify who owns our posts and who can exploit them for profit.
I think this is also a good idea. I enjoy reading the posts here, and I would buy the book. I would not mind the SD and the Reader making a profit from my postings.
ianzin, I want a solution to this as much as anyone, but I think you’ve missed one point, here: much of what is posted on the boards is drivel. I’m as guilty of this as anyone else is. The CR would hardly be interested in, much less make any businesslike profit off of, posts that would consist of pointless drive-bys, isolated smilies, associated eeks, and flirt-fests, to name but a few.
Unless there comes a passing bard who decides, on the basis of finance/conscience/whatever that there is no way he/she will pay for the privilege of posting here, but they’ll do it anyway – thereby granting CR a great little money earner, should they care to take the opportunity – I feel your idea is flawed.
Editing wouldn’t help out entirely, kniz. I used the examples above – and in many of the posts, that’s all there is. Including many of your own (I won’t include your post above, because that would be mean of me, and unfitting a “gentleman”) [sub]snortle, guffaw[/sub].
The true classics are the threads from which a revenue stream would come. Others, well — no amount of fancy formatting, smilie patterns, discussions over the greying of pubes etc etc is really going to hit the top ten book sales of the week.
In the case of some posts I’ve seen, I would forswear the editing for wholesale use of blowtorch.
First, let me say I don’t think the CR would/could make money off of publishing these post/threads. This ain’t the BBC. We love this stuff, but I don’t think that the CR would chance that the public at large would.
That said, I gladly donate my post, grudglessly.
I do have a question though…Does anyone know the CR’s responsability to credit each poster that was not edited out [ ] ? I mean, sure, if (and that’s A BIG if) the CR published a book it would list our usernames, presumably, but would there be a index of sorts in the back giving the real names of the posters (who wished it)? Maybe this would ease some folks concern over this. To the ones who think their opinions are actually worth something on the open market, well…
Icewolf - yep, agreed much of the content hereabouts is drivel and could not be recycled profitably. But some of it could. It’s hard to demonstrate this unless you have seen this British near-equivalent I mentioned, the Guardian newspaper’s ‘Notes & Queries’ section. The paper has generated at least half a dozen paperback books from this column, which sold moderately well and made money. It just takes an editor or publisher to pick the more meaty and entertaining parts from the carcass and recycle them at a profit.
Mangetout - yes, I’m referring to the licence fee, which is just another tax, and it does not just apply to everyone who watches TV. It applies to any household containing a tuner or receiver capable of receiving broadcast television signals. Check the law if you don’t believe me. There are some other ins and outs about who has to pay, but let’s not get into that here.
None of which really gets to the crux of my OP. I do think that either the Reader gets copyright over the stuff we post or we pay to post, but I’d baulk at both. And I just don’t see this point being raised or debated anywhere. On the form where one can sign up to express possible interest in pay-per-post, I wanted to say “… provided you rescind the claim to copyright and the right to make a profit from my contirobutions”.
Sorry I missed your point there, ianzin. I think I’ve seen somewhere that the CR copyright is to prevent re-use of the material posted here by all and sundry. If we went to a system, say, where those who paid maintained copyright – wouldn’t that create a legal patchwork of copyright/non-copyright all over the place?
And wouldn’t each paid poster having copyright over his or her own posts have to have their real name on display somewhere, to back the copyright up (I’m not too familiar with international copyright requirements, here, so that’s WAG)?
] ? I mean, sure, if (and that’s A BIG if) the CR published a book it would list our usernames, presumably, but would there be a index of sorts in the back giving the real names of the posters (who wished it)? Maybe this would ease some folks concern over this. To the ones who think their opinions are actually worth something on the open market, well…