Just a little nit-pick here: the BBC is not tax-funded. You only have to pay the TV licence fee if you own (or hire) equipment that can receive and decode broadcast TV signals.

2) That’s the big question. I’m a bit more optimistic than most about the potential for news gathering by “bloggers” – just look at Talking Points Memo – and bear in mind that blogging is in its infancy. I doubt there was much quality original reporting five years after the first newspaper-like thing emerged. That said, I do think we need something like newspapers in the new era. I don’t see why online newspapers shouldn’t be as successful as print ones in the long run – indeed, given the advantages of online distribution and technology, they should be more profitable. In the medium term, I think the way forward is for newspaper sites to provide plenty of ancillary services. In the UK, many (most?) local newspapers have websites with classifieds, entertainment listings, weather, dating and so on. There’s a bigger picture debate about whether we need to do something to preserve public service journalism in the face of market pressures, but I think it’s too early to panic.

In addition to the issues you outlined, two others concern about the future of newspapers here in the U.S.:

1. How many people who have never habitually purchased a printed newspaper will have an interest in reading a newspaper’s web site?

2. Much (most?) of the fodder that fuels much (most?) of the new media is original reporting from newspapers and the news agencies that sell to them. Few bloggers, for example, have the inclination, skills or resources to do sustained original reporting. If and when they do acquire those attributes, they’re no longer blogging. We already have a generation of TV watchers who think “news” is screenful of pundits with agendas yapping at each other. Each newspaper lost means that much less original news production.

As for whether online revenues are making up for lost print revenues, it’s very hard to say (you’d probably have to look through the financials of those papers that are publicly listed), but I doubt they are yet. Still, in some cases it’s got to be close. The Graun, for instance, sells only 400k copies but has 19m online readers. The big battle, if you ask me, is convincing the advertising industry that online readers are worth as much as print readers. There are lots of good reasons why that should be so, but it may well take a generational change before that happens and a shift away from brand advertising to more niche or product driven ads.

Another issue is that during the last 20 years or so Wall Street has come to see 20%-25% profit margins as their divine and eternal right when it comes to newspaper companies, which seems insane to me. If owners just scaled back their expectations to, say, 10%, then the “crisis” would seem much more like a smooth transition. Even if we weren’t in a period of massive change and increased competition in the media landscape, 25% profit margins for what are effectively public service companies just don’t make sense.

This is OT, but the problem facing U.S. newspapers is declining revenue and rising costs. Is that the case for the major London dailies? My local daily has done a fine job of using the web — one of the first in the nation, actually — but, like many other papers, has not yet been able to draw enough revenue from its web side to compensate for the lost revenue on its traditional side. Hence, downsizing and offshoring of some noneditorial functions.

In any case, when I lived in the UK, I could never figure out how the London broadsheets made their money. They carried precious few ads. Do they make it on sales and subscriptions only? I can’t believe their production costs are significantly lower than here.

Some dumb lawyers got a little full of himself.

I can’t agree, at least not in general terms. You might be right when it comes to IP, but as a journalist I see the divide the whole time. It’s not quite so bad in the UK, where papers like the Guardian, the Telegraph and the FT have embraced online wholeheartedly, but in the US they’ve had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the internet era.

I agree with your assessment of the BBC as one of the smartest, perhaps smartest, media organizations in terms of using the web.

I’m cynical enough to think that much of the ballyhoo surrounding “new media vs. old media” is just so much noise. People go to court to protect their assets. Nothing inherent in using a website as a publication medium rather than a printing press makes anyone less inclined to do that. Yes, given the nature of the web, people may come to different decisions about when to go to court and when to look the other way. The fact remains, though, that the single largest difference between an amateur web site and, say, an amateur publication copied 500 times on a copying machine is that the web site has, potentially, a global audience.

I think the biggest difference between new and old media is the difference in value between the two. When new media outlets accumulate financial assets comparable to old media, they will sue with equal readiness.

Disneys whole MO is usually complete and utter control. Everything needs to be just so. If they can help it, every single contact with the public goes through them directly to ensure every dextrose sweet snipplet of ink is just right and presented as they planned it to be presented. It should never cross your mind that things could be different then in the ascribed universe they’ve made.

For Disney, this makes sense because it’s also their selling point. A company I worked for did some type of outside construction on a tall tower at Disney world. Three day job perhaps, but you can’t put up scaffolding during the day. It takes a third of the night to get it up and about the same to get it down. Work during the rest. Don’t dare have a guest see it – they didn’t come here to see a construction yard, it’s to be perfect. That’s what you are paying, quite dearly, for it to be and hence that’s also what you must then provide, without relying on fans to do it differently (better or worse doesn’t matter – it’s not the same).

That said, Trek, Simpsons and Who seem insane to do so because their fan base, where “fan” really still does mean “fanatical”, is a large asset. But, I guess, do what they might with their creations, they do own them and all.

That said, I think Phil is being a bit harsh in saying the Beeb is acting like a typical old media company that doesn’t understand the interwebs. When you consider how huge and monolithic the Beeb is, it’s arguably the most online savvy old media company around. Most of their programmes are available for free online for a week after airing, and they’re producing custom versions for mobile phones (you can already get it on the iPhone). They have a ton of podcasts. They’ve poured loads of resources into the website, and while the quality of the news writing is pretty poor compared to the broadcast stuff, its eminently customisable and available in six languages.

What’s interesting is what companies choose to overlook and what they choose to pursue. For example, it was pretty well known that Battlestar Galactica’s producers chose to allow torrents and other P2P exchanges of the show initially in order to get more people watching the program. And they’ve never said a thing that I know of about sites like Battlestar Wiki (http://www.battlestarwiki.org/) which is a very thorough compendium regarding not only the newer but also the original show as well.

Copyrights do not erode. You can turn a blind eye to uses, infringing or otherwise, and retain the copyright in a work. You may be estopped from action within a certain time period of the use that you turn a blind eye to, but it won’t stop you from taking action in respect of other uses that are infringing down the road.

One of the many problems with the practice of IP law is that for a long time copyright was a poor second cousin to trademark and patent law. When it did gain greater prominence in the 1970s and 1980s, it was practiced by lawyers who had cut their teeth on patent law, which is, or should be, practiced very differently from TM law.

“Well, I’m not one to defend megacorps, and I agree 100% with the fact that fan sites are free advertising for the product, but there IS a logical reason that they are doing this: copyright protection.

If their copyright to this material is ever called into question, one argument that can be used against them is that they did not take reasonable steps to protect their copyright. This is what happened in several well-known cases in the past: “linoleum” was a trademarked work, which the owner didn’t defend against general public use for so long that they lost their rights to it, and it’s now used to describe all such products, not just theirs. “Kleenex” is another example.”

These sound like Trademarks to me. They are difference, but because the terms “Doctor Who” and “Ood” would need to be defended. The best way for this to be accomplished would have been to license them at zero cost. This way any old generic beasty with stuff on it’s face carrying around a glowing ball can’t be call an “Ood”–loosing the trademark. That’s very important to protect, and must be constantly defend.

Copyright… due to lack of fidelity(loss>25%) of the k1curl2 compression used to create the offending material, it may dodge the minimum threshold for it to still be considered a derivative work. Failing that, a fair argument could be dodge the matter calling it satire, particularly as it could not be confused accidentally with the original material. Fair use does exist to some extent, and these does not compete with the original material and are not for profit. Additionally, copywriter holders are under no obligation to defend each case. The copyright is valid until it’s expiry, and just because Metalica didn’t sue mean, does not mean they can’t sue you.

DMCA: Bad News, but only applies if the website was American. It could easily be argued that the lack of the existence of a potentially protected IP is a form of security. By giving out instructions to create this IP violates this security, the site was violating the DMCA, and can be subject to billions(uk billions, real billions, not wimpy US milliards) in fines and jail terms.

Design Patent: Only one that really has relevance here. While it is too divergent from the original material to be covered by a copyright, a design patent could easily be submitted to cover “beasty with stuff on it’s face carrying around a glowing ball”, however it would likely run into prior art issues, as any solicitor worth his merit could cite sample works by of HR Geiger or HP Lovecraft.

IP law is frequently described as baroque, though this is normally by people who don’t realize it isn’t a fancy way of spelling broke.

I’m a copyright believer, at least in the sense that I own what I make and all rights to it until I say otherwise. But the law has been used by corporations to acquire rights traditionally meant to be held by individuals.

I’m surprised BBC hasn’t trademarked every character in Who and other shows.

a) As stated above, copyright does not need to be protected to be valid. Trademarks do.

b) The Beeb does indeed have trademarks that cover knitting patterns (trademark class 16, if you’re interested).

c) Those trademarks, however, cover Dr Who logos, not aliens. There are no trademarks registered for Ood or Adipose.

d) If there is any violation of the law, it’s copyright law. So the Beeb do have a choice, and they’re clearly being unreasonable. Obviously (though arguably not justifiably) they want to protect any potential merchandise, but how many sales are they going to lose to home-made, non-profit knitted Ood compared to the bad PR?

I know it’s their material, their intellectual property, but come on. They’re doing you free advertisement.

On a similar line, take some ugly video game phenomenon: sprite comics. They’re “comics” made out of images ripped out of video games. 99,99% of them are a plague and hurt my eyes. And I bet it hurt the eyes of many folks. and it’s illegal, since they have to take illegal copies of the video game to rip the graphics out. But do the video game companies shut down websites that offer sprite comics? No, because it’s… well, fanwork. (Sorta. It’s more like lazy work to me.) It makes advertisement.

I’m pretty sure the Megaman sprite comic Bob and George did more advertisement for Capcom’s Megaman series than Capcom ever did by themselves. And it was almost more popular than the video games themselves. Did Capcom ever try to shut ‘em down? I think not.