Mygazines, A "Knock Out Punch" For Magazine Industry?

Internet have been awarded as humanity's triumph against communication barricade. Now everyone on earth (with computer or internet connected gadget) can interact, talking, and sharing digital files to others. Thanks to internet, our mankind has leaped pretty good in recent years. But there's still a controversy in internet world : copyright protected content piracy.

Few minutes ago, I read a interesting news in Yahoo. A internet site named Mygazines has encouraged people to copy and upload magazines, even the recent edition which still being sale. Members can read high quality digital copy of their favorite magazines, and it's all for free.

Printed mass media publishers (specially in developed countries) have been struggling with decline of sale revenue and advertisement revenue, due to uprising of internet world. Some expert has predicted that one day printed mass media will end up their business, and merged to internet world. But Mygazines has already launched their "knock out punch", many years faster than expert's prediction.

So, what's the Mygazines excuse for this? On their press release launched in 29 July they said that copies are no different from magazines shared in a doctor's office or salon. Quite interesting argument, isn't it?

And what about the publisher's reaction? Printed magazine publishers rejected this argument, some even considering legal action against Mygazines. "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," said Jeffrey Cunard, an intellectual property lawyer in Washington.

Well, copyright protected content piracy has been a "bad habit" from early years of internet history. we have been accustomed with free file sharing and download, even put sharing links in our site/blog. Music industry has already "give up" with condition, and let the mp3 formatted file shared legally by their official site. But it seems that software, movie and printed media industry are still struggling to protect their property against free file sharing site.

The battle is still going on.