Last week MBS hosted a public seminar on “Who Owns the News?” exploring the impact of the internet on the news industry. The event was organized by IPRIA, CMCL and MBS CITE. It serves to clarify the key issues and lays the groundwork for a discussion of these issues. I had fun and hope that the 110+ people who attended it did too.
Sam Ricketson, Professor at Melbourne Law School, chaired the event and did a great job orchestrating the Q&A session. Mark Davison from Monash spoke about changes in copyright law and expressed concerns over the “Hot News” doctrine, an approach currently being proposed by news organizations in the US to prevent others from copying their content. Stephen King outlined the economic issues and has posted his very thoughtful comments at https://economics.com.au/?p=5909.
As the discussant, I described what I had learnt from Mark and Stephen and also tried to consider various options faced by a CEO in this industry. My pdf slides are at http://works.bepress.com/kwanghui/18. While my comments might have been perceived as pessimistic by Stephen and others, I am actually quite optimistic about the future of the industry, but mainly for individuals and firms trying out innovative ways of gathering and delivering the news. I am however pessimistic about existing firms: if history has taught us anything, it is that many of them will struggle to adapt with these drastic changes.
The video recordings for “Who Owns the News?” are now available. I have posted them at http://vimeo.com/album/253549. Portions were removed to protect the identity of audience members. We thank the speakers for permission to share their insights online. Enjoy the show ?
Core Economics 
Your slide “Endowments as another option?” doesn’t mention The Guardian’s model, ownership by The Scott Trust, an entity which is effectively a non-profit trust.
There are also the examples of BBC, ABC, National Public Radio in the US, funded in a variety of ways but not structured to return dividends nor capital gains to shareholders.
Perhaps you spoke of these even though they are not mentioned in the presentation.
The Guardian last year announced a move to make it easier than ever for other web sites to access its content, with the proviso that Guardian ads come along with the content. This is an interesting model and well worth watching.
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HI MikeM, Yes they are not in my presentation slides. We did chat about NPR and BBC in the audience Q&A segment, and those are indeed interesting possibilities, though not without their own set of problems. Thanks for sharing your thoughts
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