Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ask Slashdot: How To Deliver a Print Magazine Online, While Avoiding Piracy?

Posted by samzenpus on from the please-don't-steal-this-magazine dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I work for a technical magazine that has been available in print for over 40 years. Moving to providing an alternative subscription available online has been hard; the electronic version is quickly pirated and easily available around the world each month. We are a small company, and our survival depends not only on advertising but on the subscription fees. Do any slashdotters have experience of delivering electronic magazines via a subscription service in a way that is cost effective and secure?"

27 of 298 comments (clear)

  1. Fingerprint it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The best approach for dealing with piracy is making it easy to go after those that do it, without making it harder for everyone else. There are a number of good fingerprinting / watermarking schemes around. Try that as first approach with a readable "This copy has been bought by XXX" marker on the first or second page to make it obvious that it is a personalized copy.

    1. Re:Fingerprint it! by murdocj · · Score: 5, Interesting

      How about if you know who posted the last copy online, he doesn't get any more issues? Assuming that most people are honest (and I believe they are) makes it easy to weed out the jerks.

    2. Re:Fingerprint it! by TemperedAlchemist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Nah.

      The best approach for dealing with piracy is making your content easily accessible, hassle-free (i.e., no DRM), and offered at a fair price.

    3. Re:Fingerprint it! by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Not only that there are plenty of PDF password strippers out there that if you have a quad or better (and considering you can get AMD quads for like $70 its kinda nuts not to have at least a quad) can go through entire rainbow tables in no time at all, just set it to use dual cores and you can keep doing other stuff while it runs in the background.

      I'd say the best bet is the watermarks but they'll have to be well hidden as its too easy to strip a watermark out if its obvious, maybe have an obvious personalization watermark and a second hidden one with a code that can be traced back to the purchaser, that way you go after the source without punishing your readers.

      And I'd like to say how proud I am of this community right now, here is a legitimate small business trying to stay alive and instead of the usual "Just accept getting ripped off, information wants to be free!" bullshit instead there is actual discussion on how best to protect his content while still giving the customers a good experience. If everyone would work together and find compromises like this maybe we could actually show its possible to sell digitally without nasty DRM schemas like SecuROM, we've had Steam show us the way for games but there is still a lot of work that needs doing for e-books and other works and its just nice to see it being discussed like rational adults instead of breaking down into dogmas and bullshit.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    4. Re:Fingerprint it! by Scarletdown · · Score: 4, Interesting

      And if the one who that copy is "registered" to was finished with it, and passed it on to someone else without keeping any copies for himself wasn't the one who uploaded it?

      Typically, with magazines or any other media, when you are finished with it, you are well within your rights to give it away, resell it (if you can find a buyer), or do whatever you want with it, as long as you don't keep any copies for yourself. Just because said media is distributed electronically instead of printed on paper should in no way give the publisher any additional special privileges than what copyright already grants.

      --
      This space unintentionally left blank.
    5. Re:Fingerprint it! by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This is the digital age... the best method is to re-tool the publication process. As part of the subscription service, have a questionnaire to fill out that personalizes the ads. As part of the publication process, include information about the subscriber in the ad holes -- you can even customize the content to some degree (in an automated manner) based on the subscriber.

      This results in an excellent watermark, as each subscriber will have slightly different content. Just do rolling MD5 hashes, and you'll quickly figure out who's leaking the content. Then stop their subscription.

      It comes back to the old "give them something to make it worth it" model -- if you make the subscription for more than "get a dead tree magazine in digital form" and add in the ability to provide online feedback for ads and content, do things to make the customer feel connected to what you're sharing with them, and as a side benefit get excellent demographics information for your advertisers, then even if the magazine itself is pirated all over the place, people will still subscribe, as you're providing them a service that goes beyond that.

      One idea off the top of my head: have an online forum where subscribers can discuss the content -- close it off to everyone else. When you print the digital copy for the individual for the month, include the "top 5 posts in customer's chosen category" as part of the Letters sections, and maybe even a roll-up of all comments the customer left on the website since the last publication, plus responses to those by other customers. Costs virtually nothing, but would be an excellent hook and security mechanism.

  2. You can't avoid piracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So just make it cheap and easy for real subscribers. If it's not worth someone's time to pirate something, they won't. Also, add something that can't be pirated, like an expert's forum, with article authors participating.

    1. Re:You can't avoid piracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Your problem is ill conceived, you are grudgingly moving to the web because that's what everybody's doing, but you aren't really willing to change the business model and ask for a way to keep things working like before. I have some bad news for you: the web is a completely new medium and you need to adapt or disappear - technical journals will survive for some time but they will eventually die just like the rest of the print media.

      To elaborate the parent's post: give it away for free, with a limit of free articles per device, a.k.a porous paywall. The heavy users will buy a subscription while the casual users willing to pirate but not subscribe will get the articles free contributing to your advertising revenue, which generally pays little for repeat visitors.

    2. Re:You can't avoid piracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The expert's forum is an excellent idea. I often read the article comments for valuable insights beyond the article.

      This makes me think the best way is to deliver the "magazine" in a continuous flow instead of as a "monthly". On the web, monthly magazines make no sense. Publish an article every few days and link between articles such as part 1 and part 2.

      Who wants to pirate one day at a time? Who wants to have to sort and organize multi-part articles? This increases the labor for the pirates and actually gives you some labor flexibility on producing content.

    3. Re:You can't avoid piracy by houstonbofh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I agree that you are looking at the wrong numbers. Who cares how many people are reading (pirating) it? You should only care about how many people are paying for it, and work to increase that number. One thing that comes to mind is special deals with advertisers that are keyed off the individual user name. Don't have a paid account? Don't get 15% off a widget... This could also be more advertising revenue.

    4. Re:You can't avoid piracy by RelaxedTension · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This increases the labor for the pirates and actually gives you some labor flexibility on producing content.

      You clearly have not seen the tenacity that pirates are capable of. For most, it isn't about ripping someone off, it's about sharing something. Add to that a lot of people with with a lot of time on their hands, and they will work tirelessly to put those articles together, day after day, month after month.

      The other posters suggesting the value-adds mixed with free are bang on. Forums, article archives, lots of "free" stuff, and a reasonable price will potentially get you far more revenue on the net than your print editions would. Embed short videos or effects that help get the article's point across. That's tougher to include in pirated versions, and generally won't be, so you have one up one the pirated version. Use the medium to it's potential, and they will come.

      Most important, work on eyeballs for advertising revenue, not necessarily subscriptions. You have the potential ,make so much more money on the web if you have good content.

  3. If the content can be accessed... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    then it can be pirated.

  4. Re:Flexpaper, CloudCrowd, or other third party too by Grishnakh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Won't work. You can't prevent people from making screenshots. Yes, that's more work, but it only takes one person to subscribe and go to the trouble of taking screenshots of every page and compiling a PDF from them, and then uploading it on BitTorrent.

    Not only that, who the fuck wants to read PDFs online using some shitty in-browser viewer? Not me; I'd never subscribe to something that made me jump through hoops like that. If I can't download the PDFs and be able to read them offline (like when I'm on a plane), then I don't want it.

  5. DRM Free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    There are two types of people. Type 1 will pirate. Type 2 won't. DRM doesn't stop Type 1. DRM does stop Type 2 from enjoying your product. Type 1 will discover your product and then look for a pirated copy. Type 2 will stumble across a pirated copy and then subscribe to your product.

    Your basic question is whether there are enough Type 2 people to make it worth your while to offer an electronic version. My answer is: I have no idea. I only know that as a Type 2 person myself, if I am interested in your product, it is much more valuable to me without DRM, because then I can view it in a way I like and introduce other Type 2 people to it who may also subscribe.

    1. Re:DRM Free by Ragzouken · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The simplicity is appealing, but you're just wrong. Some people will buy if they can't pirate. Some people will buy if pirating is difficult. Some people will buy if buying is easy. There are all kinds of people out there.

    2. Re:DRM Free by runeghost · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Also, Type 1 (pirates) can easily turn into Type 2 (paying customers) when their circumstances change. Often pirates are people who literally cannot become customers. Many college students have abundant time but little money, inclining them to pirate readily while making purchasing an unattractive option. After graduating and (hopefully) acquiring a somewhat lucerative job and a busier schedule they'll happily pay a reasonable price to save themselves some now-precious time.

      But if you make it too hard to access your content, you're going to end up shooting yoursefl in the foot. Bury your content behind a secure and obnoxious paywall and sure, Type 1's won't ever see a pirated copy, but neither will they potentially become future customers, because they never developed a taste for your content. And many Type 2's will decline to spend their precious time (even 5 or 10 minutes may end up being too much if there are other options available to them) dealing with your DRM. And that's assuming you don't manage to kill your own word of mouth (or even search engine presence) by locking up your content.

      Obviously the precise impact of your DRM will vary depending on the nature of your content, but in many cases (I personally think it's the vast majority of cases) pirates don't represent any loss in current sales, but do represent potential future sales.

  6. Don't worry by Alomex · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't worry about it. A regular paper magazine can be "pirated" by loaning the issue to friends. You actually want that, because the more people are familiar with your magazine and the more they read it, the likelier they are to subscribe.

    1. Re:Don't worry by brit74 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, but there's only one copy of the magazine and the owner generally wants it back. Plus if the borrower is borrowing a copy every month, it gets onerous and makes him look like a cheap freeloader to his friend. Conversely, when people pirate on the internet, one upload means that a million people can get a copy, they get a permanent copy, they never worry about giving it back, and they don't look like an onerous freeloader to his friends.

      My point is that there are more limitations and disincentives to borrowing a physical magazine than there is to digital piracy. This produces stronger incentives for a physical borrower to buy his own subscription than digital piracy does. As a result, creators see digital piracy as much more threatening than physical piracy. (This is the same reason creators see libraries as less problematic than digital piracy.)

  7. An Idea (dumb?, good? you decide) by raftpeople · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Make the advertisements and credits for your web site part of your content in a way that it's too much work to remove so the copied versions retain this stuff. Like watermarks in images, maybe an article delivered as an image with advertising and credits, etc. Then embed tracking links so you can demonstrate to advertisers the total "viewage".

  8. Value by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 4, Informative

    In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. For example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the U.S. release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable. Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customers use or by creating uncertainty.

    - Gabe Newell

  9. Re:Flexpaper, CloudCrowd, or other third party too by ttucker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The only people punished by DRM are the ones paying money....

  10. Watermark, and get over it by jameshofo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Put a watermark on the page and hand out a few small warnings to those that are distributing to please stop, and slowly step up enforcement. Make it cheap enough that people wont want to pirate it, make it valuable enough that people will respect you enough not to. And build a community around your product, you can always go the DRM route but its ruling with an iron fist, and makes the content inaccessible and hostile to port to other devices, at that point your customers will put in the effort to pirate it because they have no respect for your company.

    Modern companies are getting worse at "customer service" and going the DRM route will make you just another one of the companies people love to hate.

    --
    Good leaders run toward problems, bad leaders hide from them.
  11. Newstand.com does this by quietwalker · · Score: 4, Informative

    My wife used to work for a company called 'newsstand.com' that does this exact sort of thing.

    I can't say that they treated their employees well, and they really embraced the whole 'outsource jobs' thing, but, yeah. They have some sort of secured reader, they manage your subscriptions, etc. You actually get an electronic version of the print version, reflowed and reformatted to properly fit a pdf reader, as opposed to a separate digital copy with less features or ads or whatever.

    They're also used to dealing with publishers who can't spell IBM, though I don't know if they actually can help in those cases, at least it won't be a shock to them. So, if you or your IT staff are somehow mentally incapable, they can still handle you.

    I have no idea of the pricing or anything, however.

  12. Re:Flexpaper, CloudCrowd, or other third party too by easyTree · · Score: 5, Informative

    Agreed. I just made the mistake of buying an audiobook on audible.co.uk. Never again. They expect you to install a downloader just to get the content; plus the downloader isn't triggered from all browsers so a change of browser might be needed. Once you've actually got the content, there are device-synchronization and audible-drm-compatible-player issues. Who wants to go through all that ? Unfortunately the content wasn't available on bt so I can't resort to that as a means of making it the content accesible in a way that suits me. To add insult to injury, audible 'allow' me as a customer to burn a limited number of books to CD but... drumroll... this process has a dependency on iTunes. WTH? I suppose I should know better as it's now owned by Amazon :S

    What a great future we all have to look forwards to when any remaining audiobook-content creators still in competition with Amazon are no longer :S:S:S:S:S

    --
    Requiem for the American Dream
  13. wrong approach by poetmatt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    the wrong approach for dealing with piracy is going after those who do it.

    the right approach is offering something which doesn't give them a reason to "pirate" it. Not to mention that the term isn't even correct, you can't pirate an ebook/magazine.

    example: having your magazine available worldwide without restrictions.
    example: offering something in the digital version that print doesn't.

    TLDR version: put in effort to make a good magazine instead of doing the lazy step of "we need more control to deal with piracy"

  14. You're creating your own problem. by Xel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have been a reader of WIRED magazine since their first year. (calm down now; its just an example. let's argue the merits of Wired's newsworthiness elsewhere).
    I got an iPad, and when Wired came to the Newsstand app, I thought it would be an excellent thing for me- now I could read the magazine anywhere, anywhen. I didn't even have to pay, being a print subscriber was enough. But the thing is, I had to laboriously download each issue, they took up a lot of room on my iPad, and I just never remembered that there was an issue sitting, waiting for me.
    What did I do all those times i was stuck at an airport, or babysitting a sleeping baby, and had time on my hands? You'd THINK I would open up Newsstand and read an issue of Wired, but what I really did was opened up my RSS reader and skimmed headlines from dozens of blogs, all at once. Gizmodo, Engadget, Techcrunch, boingboing, Ars, Slashdot, and yes, Wired.
    I don't even read Wired any more. is it because of DRM, or watermarking? of course not. it's because: why would I sit down for an hour and read month-old news when i can get the headlines up-to-date every minute of every day, in bite-sized chunks?
    If you want to modernize and get online, that's great. But why are you only thinking of modernizing ONE part of your hundred-year-old delivery service? If you're just going online because that's what everyone is doing, I would say: forget it. Save your money. Keep printing your magazine, and the people who really need it for their jobs and their wellbeing will continue subscribing. But if you want to get with the Now, do it right. Stop thinking in monthly/bimonthly/quarterly/whatever publishing cycles. Publish a steady stream of articles and news, when they're ready, when they're relevant. Give subscribers a way to log in and go thorugh old content whenever they need it. Create a community, get information flowing in both directions. Add value. No one will bother pirating your content because there will be NEW content tomorrow. You can't pirate breaking news, and you cant pirate community feedback.

    --
    "Eagles may soar, but weasels dont get sucked into jet engines."
  15. Reason why fair pricing wins by Camael · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The best approach for dealing with piracy is making your content easily accessible, hassle-free (i.e., no DRM), and offered at a fair price.

    Let me expand on this point. There are broadly 2 kinds of pirates - those who enjoy your product and pirate for personal use (the fans), and those who pirate commercially to make money for themselves (the thieves).

    The fans are normally concerned with easy and cheap access to your product. Give it to them and most fans will not bother to pirate because it is risky (exposure to malware), often time consuming (some obscure products can be really hard to find), inconvenient (usually need to assemble from multiple sources) or require technical expertise (eg. applying cracks, rooting). A good example would be Steam which provides cheap and convenient access to games. A counter example would be Game of Thrones - If you live in Oz, you can't get it (no access) and it is expensive (requires cable subscription).

    As for the thieves, normally an obscure small technical magazine would not be of interest to them. The exception is if your product is so expensive that even your fans are willing to buy copies from pirates, making it financially worthwhile. Again, reducing your product to a fair price (by market standards) will largely solve this problem. One example is AutoCAD, which has a captive market, ridiculous monopoly pricing and a huge piracy problem.

    Since you mentioned "secure", I assume you are contemplating some form of DRM. Just be aware of its disadvantages -its usually expensive (you need to buy/licence the DRM, maintain some way of policing it, maintain customer service to handle irate buyers, have some sort of refund sceheme for customers who cannot run the DRM), it can negatively impact sales (see Sony rootkits), and if badly implemented, can actually cause lawsuits e.g. SecureROM.