Your Responses to Our Intellectual Property & Email Forwarding Conundrum

Last week we asked readers to send in their advice and comments
on the subject of intellectual property and email forwarding. To
recap the topic:

Like many Web publishers, we encourage readers to forward our
newsletter issues (and links to articles on our site) to their
colleagues so we can grow through this "viral marketing."

However, we feel the all-too-common practice of "cutting and
passing", whereby readers only forward a bit of our content to
friends, is hurting our company. Why? Because when readers cut
and pass, they usually don't include ads or subscription
information -- and these are the two things that put bread on the
table.

Loads of readers responded to our call for input. We've copied
some (although not all) below with proper attribution. Your
answers generally fell into a four categories:

1. Folks who feel cutting and passing isn't all that bad:

"I don't think you have the right to be pissed. You're not in
the print world.

We're in the process of making changes on this for ePrairie and
eMileHigh right now. We're making it a heck of a lot easier to
email each article around, and also to forward our email
newsletters to friends. Hopefully, we'll make it easy enough for
these folks to use our site, and not copy and paste it on their
own."
Rick Stratton, General Manager, eMileHigh & ePrairie
http://www.eprairie.com


"I don't agree with this. When you are sending an ezine to your
subscribers, your sponsors had already paid for the service based
on the number of your current subscribers. So whether or not a
subscriber is cutting and passing along just an article from your
ezine, he/she is not hurting anyone. Better yet, it's benefiting
you by word of mouth.

I prefer passing on something that I think my receivers would
appreciate rather than a long ezine with all the garbages and
ads. I don't want to upset and spam my friends. If my friends
like the content that I have forwarded, they would come back to
me and ask for more information, then I would forward them the
whole ezine so they could subscribe themselves.

Usually, I don't bother to pass anything along to any of my
friends, family and associates. Just because I don't want to be
accused of stealing your so-called intellectual property. This
would actually hurt you more--why? Because you are gaining
nothing by word of mouth. Why should I bother and waste my time
to spam my friends, family and associates just for your benefits?
Publishers & writers, please loosen-up. "

"Don't hate me, it just my opinion."
JLac
http://www.pariswoman.com
for women living and networking in Paris, France


2. Folks who sympathized with us:

"Ah yes, this has happened to me several times. I do state that
it is okay to pass on the ENTIRE issue, but never cut and paste
to forward to someone else. A few months ago, I published one of
my own humorous pieces on writing and received wonderful feedback
on it. However, one person wrote asking if she could pass it on
to her friends. I explained to her that she could pass the whole
issue on, but not the article alone. "But I would give you
credit," she said in reply. Sure, credit ... great. That is,
until the next person forwards it on and on and on ... and then
one day I receive this really funny joke in my e-mail and low and
behold, it will be mine. No thanks. I again explained that if
she didn't want to pass on the whole issue, she could pass the
URL on instead. Never heard back. I frequently search for this
one piece just because I fear if she thought it was okay, I'm
sure others did, too. After all, all these forwards and urban
legends started somewhere with a REAL author before someone
forwarded it on.

How to protect yourself? I am still trying to figure that one
out."

Angela Giles Klocke, Publisher
http://www.klockepresents.com


3. Folks with practical suggestions to help us allow forwarding
(but didn't address the cutting problem):

"When I published a free print newsletter, I once replaced the
usual "Send us your news!" on the back page with this warning:
"We are updating our mailing list. Please mail in this page with
your current name and address if you wish to continue receiving
this newsletter."

My circulation tripled. People had evidently been passing the
newsletter around in their offices, or photocopying it. I got
back lots of photocopied pages with names I'd never seen before.

So perhaps you could put in a note such as "Know anybody else
who'd like to receive these articles? If you send us their email
address, we'll offer them a free subscription." Or ask people to
forward the whole newsletter. If you already have such notices
but readers are missing them, the publication may be too
cluttered or too long."

Stephanie Siegel
http://www.CONTENTagogo.com


"The ability to cut, paste and e-mail our content -- to multiple
recipients at once -- is the equivalent of a Xerox machine on
steroids.

It is a challenge to all of us as publishers, but we contribute
to it when we disseminate information for free. Where information
is free, its perceived dollar value (as distinct from its
perceived utility) is diminished, and the perception of copyright
violation is reduced. The recipient's mind rationalizes
it: "If you sent it free to me, why shouldn't I send it free to
someone else? I'm doing you a favor."

This behavior is being further encouraged by the Web sites of
publications, even those that are being supported by advertising.
The Washington Post, for example, invites readers to "e-mail this
article to a friend."

I suspect that, as a practical matter, that is the only route
open to you. Accept that people will want to pass along specific
articles, and give them a way to do so that serves your own
purposes as well.

Of course, those people who routinely copy your entire
publication and, in effect, republish it (particularly if they
pass its contents off as their own), may be worth tracking down
and threatening. But individuals who pass along individual
articles will continue to do so, and no amount of hectoring from
us (short of cutting off their access) is going to stop it. After
all -- when you send someone a clip from the Post, or even from
freely distributed pubs like the City Paper, do you make sure to
send along all the advertising, too?

Bill Feldman, Publisher
FCN Publishing http://www.crcpress.com


4. Folks with ideas about how we can stop the "cutting" problem:

"Unfortunately this happens all the time. Instead of explaining
those very valid issues you mentioned, I also have certain
distribution rights with my authors that one permit reprints in a
certain fashion. I could go into how it is against the lay to
photocopy magazine articles then give them to your friends, or
point them to the "Content Use" policy on my website.
http://www.hittpansophism.com/aboutus/copyright.html

Instead I thank them for their complements, recommend they
forward the message in it's entirety and suggest that other
subscribe to get their own copy. I also post "Rights granted
to forward, via electronic medium, this document in whole as
long as the subscription and copyright portions remain intact."
at the end of each newsletter.

It does not guarantee subscribers don't clip the articles, but it
at least gives me some grounds should someone decide to republish
the materials on their own list (or their office list.) Granted
I have a whole file cabinet of articles I have ripped out of a
magazine, leaving the advertisers for the recycle bin. Cut and
paste just doesn't do it unless you get the entire document."

Justin Hitt, Publisher
http://www.hittpansophism.com/newsletter/


"You can't GUARANTEE that nobody will "rip you off" as you call
it. But you could put in a simple message stating what your
expectation of fair use is.

For example: "If you see an article here that you'd like to share
with a friend, please do so by forwarding the ENTIRE MESSAGE"
If I were to forward the whole message, I could put a comment at
the top like "hey Joe, look at the article on Affiliate Marketing
in the message below. It's great stuff."

This is like some software licenses that state that you can
distribute the software freely AS LONG AS you keep the package,
with all copyright info, intact. After all, you want your ideas
to spread, and if people forward the whole message with the ads
and the hyperlink to sign up, then the recipient has gotten a
free sample, at no cost to you. The advertiser gets more
impressions, and maybe you get a subscription. You just don't
want the articles taken out of context, and that's what should be
made clear."
Thomas L. Arnold, Managing Partner
http://www.summitmediapartners.com

"I would suggest running an editor's note (or your own "ad")
letting readers know that you happily encourage them to pass your
newsletters on to their friends, colleagues and co-workers, but
to be respectful of intellectual property rights and to pass it
on in its entirety. As another suggestion, why not add a line
about this when a person is subscribing. You could even add a
check box saying that they have read and will comply with this
statement, along with the check boxes for the different news
letters. I would use the check box/statement as a selling point
to advertisers."

Jenni Collins, Marketing Manager
http://www.erc.org


"I have one suggestion -- provide "email this to a friend" links
in the newsletter which would include the sponsor ads and
whatever else you want to keep intact.

I usually forward the whole email, but a lot of my friends just
delete it rather than looking for the topic I mention. There's a
lot of text there (I'm not complaining, believe me ;+), so I can
see why that woman would cut and paste. Links like that would
save everyone time and you money."

BJ