New magazine-sharing site may violate copyrights
NEW YORK -- The magazine industry, already facing a decline in newsstand sales and falling ad revenue, is being besieged by a new foe: digital piracy.
A fledgling website called Mygazines.com encourages people to copy and upload popular magazines that are currently on newsstands. Visitors can read high-quality digital copies of dozens of current titles, including People, Men's Health and The Economist, in their entirety.
The site, with some 16,000 registered users as of Friday, is a "flagrant" violation of copyright laws, according to legal experts — but it is run by an offshore company of specious origin, making it difficult to shut down.
"It's pretty hard to see how it's anything other than a straightforward set of copyright violations," said Jeffrey Cunard, an intellectual property lawyer with Debevoise & Plimpton in Washington. "There are entire magazines with no commentary, no criticism — clearly not a case of classic fair use."
Magazines routinely make some or all of their articles available online for free, but they are in control of how much they release, as well as any advertising they sell. Although visitors to the Mygazines site would presumably see ads run in a magazine's print edition, the publisher is compensated only for authorized, audited circulation.
The Mygazines site said in its launch press release that its copies are no different from magazines shared in a doctor's office or salon.
Cunard rejected that argument 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.
Several magazine publishers said they are aware of the site and are considering legal action.
"We take our intellectual property seriously and are considering appropriate action on this matter," The Economist said in an e-mail statement.
Dawn Bridges, a spokeswoman for Time Warner's Time division, said the publisher is investigating its options, including ways to have the site shut down.
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