PR, Marketing and the Business of CAD

NYT removes subscription fees for online access

In an interesting move, New York Times today removed its online access fee to all of its editorial.

The newspaper had been charging $49.95 a year for access for the last two years. It has now dropped that in favor of open access, and has included its archives from 1855 to 1922, and 1987 to present. there is a fee for some material from 1923 to 1986.

What has caused this? It seems that the publication is finally starting to monetize its site, which apparently gets 13 million unique readers a month.

"What changed, The Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYTimes.com. These indirect readers, unable to get access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue."

This affects us how? Access to more historical data, and current articles. Which is always good from such a prestigious source. But what about subscription-only industry publications that rely on subsciber money...my very own CADCAMnet (of which I am a part owner) relates to this.

CADCAMNet has maintained an absolute ad-free environment. One which we continue to believe has value for readers. NYT has not. I believe that even with a paid subscription, advertising banners were still served...and even more so now. But is there a value to adverising-free space? And if so, what value can be put on it?

I am curious what people think

rach

Autodesk lawsuit by eBay Seller takes website hits to new levels

So last week, on September 10, 2007, Randall Newton reports on an eBay seller that has had the temerity to sue Autodesk citing illegal use of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

For full disclosure, please note that I am a co-owner of AECnews with Randall Newton.

But the results of the story are amazing: we posted the story to Digg, Technorati and Stumbleupon. In addition, an old friend of Randall's posted it to Boing, Boing.

The end result was that someone then Shash/dotted it. As a result, we saw web page hits at AECnews rise by an incredible 500%, and the story currently has 68 comments on it.

While Autodesk are in the spotlight for being the apparent bad guys in this, this is a cornerstone lawsuit to the whole idea of shrink-wrapped software and the licenses contatined within. Autodesk may be the target of this lawsuit, but they are not the only validators of this practise. Is Autodesk being made a victim in this case? Possibly.

Tim Vernor, who launched the lawsuit, states as follows on his press release. "US courts have not held a "shrink wrap " contract to be valid. Furthermore the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is only intended to enforce copyright violations, not breach of contract."

The comments at AECnews are wide, varied and, some of them propose illegal actions. That being said, this potentially has an effective impact on the software industry as a whole. I see the two points as significant:

1) Autodesk has followed the conventions of other software companies to prevent its software from being sold. Whether it is legal or illegal (or the contract unenforceable) remains to be seen.

2) By having a story that uses major 'impact words', those we think being "eBAY", "Lawsuit", "autodesk" and DMCA", Randall has seen a huge increase in blog activity, and a massive (for our industry) 68 responses to the story.

From an industry point of view, this could be incredible guidance on the legality of Shrink-wrapped licenses and their legal standing. From a marketing point of view, if you want attention, having keywords like this is incredibly effective.

Tim Vernor, the plaintiff in the case, is expecting a settlement at some point. His advocates on AECnews.com are suggesting a fund for him to follow through on the lawsuit. Bluntly, I would prefer to see clarity on the case itself rather than a settlement.

There is an exclusive interview on video with Vernor at www.cadcamnet.tv in this week's CCNtv report. Go through to about the 8 minute point to see what he has to say.

r

The Man Who Dared to Sell AutoCAD R14 on eBay

A nice, balanced article on the lawsuit filed by an eBay seller against the world's biggest CAD software company. Does it have merit? Who's at fault here? Is Autodesk really mis-using the Digital Millennium Copyright act? (DMCA) Could be an interesting case.

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