Newspapers can avoid the music industry's llegal filesharing woes

No - newspapers are managing the decline better than the entertainment industry

Newspapers are shedding staff to save money in order to keep producing a skilled craft that is necessary for a functioning society. Despite significant job losses in newsrooms, the majority of newspaper job cuts in the Western world has been felt most in non-news related activities, i.e. paper, printing, and distribution. From this angle, one may consider that publishers are saving as many newsroom jobs as possible. 

On the other hand, the UK filesharing protesters never mention the artists that produce content. To begin, that job losses are directly related to illegal filesharing is a borderline ridiculous claim, especially considering the way in which the UK lobbying effort has worded it: "Job losses will be felt right across the chain, from production to distribution, from technicians to manufacturers and from logistics companies to staff in high street shops." The reality is that technological evolution, not filesharing, is the direct cause of these types of job losses. In the digital world CDs and DVDs need not be produced, distributed or sold in high street shops: everything is downloadable.

This shows that the entertainment industry, particularly the music industry that has relied on CD sales for the past 15 years, is not managing the decline as it should. Conversely, some newspapers to their credit are adopting innovative strategies to save money in order to continue reporting; trimming pages, condensing sections, printing less frequently and even purposefully reducing circulation. By seriously investigating online payment systems and with the advent of promising paid mobile models, newspaper publishers have refocused their strategies to begin managing the decline of their traditional operations and have begun reinforcing their digital operations. Music and film producers seem to be lagging behind in this respects.

Yes - newspapers can adopt logical digital pricing for digital content

Perhaps it is the typical example, but Apple's iTunes store still provides the best comparison between the newspaper and entertainment industries - at least as far as payment goes.

The Guardian shows (see graph at right) that lifestyle changes have caused a decline in the paid consumption of music over the past 12 years in that gaming has exploded. As people's expendable cash has remained stable, gaming has taken off, the Guardian posits, because games provide endless hours of quality entertainment whereas on a £10 CD, all of the tracks may not be up to par.

So has illegal filesharing exploded in popularity because people are spending their money on other things? Or could it be that the paid equivalent of illegal file sharing, ie iTunes, would suck up too much of that expendable cash?

Most songs on iTunes remain at 79p or 99 euro and US dollar cents, while complete downloadable albums remain at the same price as their CD equivalent. See something wrong here? Despite the additional overhead (packaging, distribution, sales staff, etc.), the physical CD still costs the same as the virtually downloadable album or song. Doesn't that sound illogical?

iTunes prices will undoubtedly come down with time as they have already started to do. But that doesn't mean that the newspaper industry can't learn from Apple's online store in the meantime. 

This is a make or break time for the newspaper industry and its online future. As the industry moves towards online payment systems, several models are being discussed. One or two sound promising - those that leave Internet users free to browse whatever publication they choose while paying a flat fee or through micropayments, money that is siphoned off to publishers accordingly. Others, such as those that mirror traditional newspaper-style subscription models, sound harmful and the antithesis of the spirit of the open net. 

iTunes captures that spirit in that it allows consumers to choose from hundreds of thousands of artists, movies, podcasts, etc. But much of the store remains overpriced for what it is, creating a high barrier of entry for consumers with limited cash and many options and a barrier that entices many towards filesharing.

If newspapers are to charge for online content and want to keep the millions of people coming to their sites while avoiding the aggregators and sites they consider "steal" their content, they need to simultaneously keep all news open to all consumers and create a very low price barrier - a monumental task which obliges competing publishers to cooperate. If they don't, consumers will shift even more time to online aggregators and knock-off competitors, a cacophony of dubious quality and accuracy that could be detrimental to society without quality journalism produced by newspaper newsrooms.

Sources: The Guardian (lobbying efforts, gaming, filesharing not the cause) , European Journalism Centre