Wednesday, June 8, 2016

We're Not (Quite) There ... Yet

Members of the Moroccan Federation of Newspaper Publishers (FMEJ) said the habit of "leaving newspapers behind in public places" was costing their industry $150m each year in lost revenue.

The habit of sharing newspapers, leaving them lying around and generally trying to avoid paying for them was "bleeding the sector," they claimed in an appeal to the Moroccan government.

As a result, the country's communications minster has agreed to ban providing newspapers for free in cafes, as well as lending them.

Mustapha Khalfi said newspaper editors were "suffering" and that the government needed to try and "limit the damage."

[...]

A spokesman for the communications minister told the Telegraph: "Reading newspapers in public spaces is permitted. What is in question here is lending newspapers to others, or the free reading of newspapers in cafes and restaurants, which is detrimental to the rights of publishers and their intellectual property."

[...]

The communications ministry also said it would work with Facebook and Google to negotiate which it described as the "unfair position" of online news websites in Morocco which have greater access to advertising revenue.

[...]

Mr Khalfi also announced plans to subsidize Morrocco's newspaper industry, as well as the formation of a committee dedicated to persuading his countrymen to buy more newspapers.

  Telegraph
I wonder which of his relatives owns a newspaper business.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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