NewsRight on Right Track, Board Members Say, Though Others Are Skeptical
The NewsRight online content licensing venture will be a success, despite the skepticism that some in the industry continue to express over such business models, executives said in interviews. Two skeptics said no venture, -- whether this one or other ongoing initiatives to license online video, news articles and other content to websites -- appears to be encountering much success. NewsRight’s head and another board member said venture’s model is going to work -- both for members of the venture, which include media companies seeking to license their content, and for websites.
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"Success for us is currently measured by the fact that we are able to serve content publishers,” interim CEO Srinadan Kasi said. “It’s coming along well, and I expect that as we get our business models where we're able to serve a set of needs, I do think that we will be financially successful.” Kasi was promoted this summer to replace CEO David Westin (CD July 24 p26).
But the venture is less about licensing and “more of a police operation,” said Bob Papper, a Hofstra University journalism professor. “It’s about scouring the Web to see who is using copyright material and not paying for it.” Papper said NewsRight is off to a rocky start, pointing out that Westin, former president of ABC News, left when the venture was just getting started.
Papper compared NewsRight to Righthaven, a venture started in cooperation with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, to police copyright infringement of online content (CD Jan 10 p2). Righthaven sued about 200 blogs and other websites for reposting content. It was shut down last year after refusing to pay court fees when a Nevada federal judge ruled against it in a copyright case. “I don’t know how much of a business model there is in tracking down people who violate copyright of publishers,” Papper said: “The people using the content won’t pay money -- they will just stop” using the content altogether. Before Westin left NewsRight, he told a Washington luncheon of media executives and lobbyists that the venture hoped to strike deals with websites and not sue them for infringing on its members’ copyright by using their content without permission. In February, 29 media companies were part of NewsRight. There are at least that number now, said Robert Nutting, vice chairman of the Newspaper Association of America and NewsRight chairman.
Everyone in the news industry is trying to find a way to make online content profitable, but no one seems to have found the solution, said Society of Professional Journalists President John Ensslin. “I have not seen [a model] that really stands out, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.” Another startup is Press+, a software platform that counts page views, allowing online news providers to offer subscriptions to those who view their website often. More than 350 websites have launched Press+, a spokeswoman said by email. “The sites that have launched Press+ have created new subscription revenue streams without losing a penny of online ad revenue or page views. We also handle print-digital bundling and ‘all-access’ passes like ipad and e-editions in our system."
But NewsRight is a new and unique model, Nutting said: “Newsright is an important industry collaboration designed to protect the rights and values of publishers of original content. We will provide an efficient mechanism to license that content.” The companies involved “believe that the goal is critically important,” he said.
Online content producers are “still looking for that ’silver bullet’ that will replace all that lost advertising, and there is no silver bullet,” Papper said. NewsRight “may represent the continued search for that silver bullet,” but is not the right solution, he said. “There’s just not a replacement. There is no viable online news model, unless you can convince lots of people to write for you for nothing.”