It’s a rocky road, and perhaps the mygazines site is another push down the road (like Napster was before it) towards a model that will work for everyone.

I’m not sure the brand suffers directly from second-rate scanned images. At least people want to share them! They will suffer, however, if there’s a proven market and they aren’t exploiting it themselves.

The comment that Texterity “abandonded our subscription model” is perhaps an over-simplification. There are many people who subscribe to paid, “digital only” delivery of publications. However, we have found that in the consumer magazine area, many more are interested in a digital version as a companion to print.

Publisher’s rights need to be maintained for any model to work. As important, the quality of the publication (and its reflecton on the brand) needs to be protected from end users uploading second-rate scanned pages.

P.S. It would be helpful if “John Smith” identified himself with a real mailing address, phone number, and email. It’s helpful that he’s blogging, but his motives and story will be questionable without some legitimate identification. He shares some interesting offshore company at his P.O. Box in Anguilla, but somehow I doubt he lives in that idyllic spot!