Mygazines - read magazines online for free until?

by Dolores Parker Aug 19th 2008

Mygazines.com is a Flash based site where you can read most of your favorite magazines online for free. The big question is for how long, since this is copyrighted material after all, and as Folio reports, the magazine trade association MPA has already threatened legal action against the site.

Content on the site is uploaded by users and then displayed in a neat Flipbook reader with lots of tools like zoom, search, keyboard shortcuts, article directory, etc. You can also create your own magazine with content you supposedly own, upload it and share with others.

Since the site was registered in the Caribbean island of Anguilla, and is hosted by PRQ of Sweden, the same web host of Pirate Bay infamy, does the piracy theme apply? Although there are arguments aplenty for why publishers should be happy about their content being shared online - increased readership, more ad views, ability to go viral, etc., there is still that pesky copyright infringement argument that just won't go away.

[via popacular]

Tags: copyright infringement, copyright violation, CopyrightInfringement, CopyrightViolation, magazine sharing, MagazineSharing, mymagazines, p2p

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

wykedengel said 4:08PM on 8-19-2008

Looks like the site is down...

Dolores Parker said 4:24PM on 8-19-2008

Nope, not yet at least.

lawrence.n.lu said 4:09PM on 8-19-2008

Compared to Zinio magazine, it is just...... The only good thing about it is FREE (as you state don't know for how long). Maybe few days later it will offline then...the problem with mygazines.com is the flash-based technology. It doesn't work that well...the front is blur...constantly stuck...slow turning pages......

Dolores Parker said 4:11PM on 8-19-2008

It's working just great in Safari. I did have problems with it in Firefox earlier though.

Darren Evans said 4:36PM on 8-19-2008

Seems dog slow. Be interesting to see how long it survives. There's a similar, but legal, site at www.digi-zines.com

Darren Evans said 4:37PM on 8-19-2008

Oops spoke too soon - it seems to be up and running fine now!

Adrian said 8:33PM on 8-19-2008

It's a problem with firefox's way of dealing with links. http://mygazines.com won't work if you click but it'll if you just copy the url in the url bar. You can click www.mygazines.com instead and it'll work just fine.

Max said 8:42PM on 8-19-2008

Don't patronize this site. I work for a magazine publisher. Times are tough already in publishing, and stealing our copyrighted work hurts us and our families. It is not FREE it is STOLEN.

Adrian said 8:33PM on 8-19-2008

Free culture! and it's not stolen , it's shared, something totally different.

Amadeus Excello said 9:54AM on 8-20-2008

Max, get over it.

I too work in media production/publishing and, despite a close affiliation with the aforementioned industry, have no problem with articles I've written appearing elsewhere on the 'net.

"Times are tough" largely because publishing houses keep chugging on with hoary business models.

ADD2 said 3:19PM on 8-28-2008

Yo're sounding like the MPAA. I can't wait to see Wured's response. They wrote article after articla about how the music industry did the piracy thing wrong. Let's see what they come up with.

ezuk said 3:40AM on 8-20-2008

I just don't like the piracy aspect of the thing... I dunno. I prefer Zinio just because it's legal and cheap. And it does work better.

Not if they only had Popular Science and Wired...

Max said 6:45PM on 8-20-2008

Sorry, guys, rationalize it all you want, but it's stealing. Someone is illegally copying something and putting it out there for free. No different than copying music or movies.

Think about whatever it is you do for a living. Then imagine someone takes whatever your company makes and gives away free copies of it. How long will your company stay in business? How long will you be able to afford that computer and nice internet connection?

Our company also works with other business models. But in the only way you make money is having a good or service that someone is willing to pay for. Either the readers, or advertisers on our web sites. Plus we pay photographers, writers, etc. And they license their photos only for use in the magazine. They would be entitled to more money if it was used on the internet.

Our company lawyers, like most publishing companies, are all over this.

Just treat this the same way as you would pirating software, music or video. Just because it's an article doesn't make it free.

Man said 3:46PM on 8-21-2008

First they stole music then
software
movies
TV shows
books
now magazines.

There is no moral grey area this is stealing, just because it's easy doesn't make it right. Like those grapes people "sample" at supermarkets.

Hey when a group of illegals or criminals steal your identity all over the internet will you just say "No they are sharing my identity in this free culture."
Let's share some of his gas right out of his car.
Let's share is a house while he is out working.

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