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"Full subscribers pay £199 per year" is $285 USD at current market rates, a bit higher based on last year's rates. The Financial Times is huge - that whole fina

"Full subscribers pay £199 per year" is $285 USD at current market rates, a bit higher based on last year's rates. The Financial Times is huge - that whole finance thing has never been my cup of tea, but this is England's Wall Street Journal. Very prestigious, and probably a bit more recession-proof than papers for the masses. So I'm scratching my head, thinking why they're suing for relative peanuts. Certainly a couple phone calls and Blackstone cuts them a check, no? So I can only come up with two ideas on why they'd sue: Deterrence or publicity. Probably both. I suppose you're not likely to have the sort of backlash that anti-piracy measures generate from consumers, and the kind of institutions that subscribe to the FT are unlikely to leave in protest. I guess it's a good business play, though it did surprise me and seem a bit strange at first.

jacquesm 18y ago
I wonder if the FT will sue me because I gave their paper to a friend... Scarcity of information is not a good business model in a time when transporting and copying information has a cost approaching 0.
- electromagnetic 18y ago
  "... when transporting and copying information has a cost approaching 0." The cost is relatively approaching 0. The true cost of copying and transporting information is phenomenal, I mean I want to copy a VHS it used to cost me $400 max if I bought everything new! If I do similar for a DVD it's running me at least past $1000. However that's the actual cost, the relative cost is in fact near zero. We all have computers/laptops now because we need them, which means the extra cost to rip a DVD now is all of about $2.99 for the rental fee from Blockbuster with an additional like $0.50 to burn copies for people. It's also the value of the object you're ripping. It'd still be considered cost-effective if you bought a $1000 computer to use once to rip the full Adobe suite rather than actually buy the Adobe suite! The FT shouldn't be suing a single user, it's absurd and will cost them money. They should be using a business model that forces institutions to pay. Adobe doesn't expect me to pay $2000 for CS3, they do however expect a design firm to pay probably a hell of a lot more than $2000 to kit out all of their computers.

jacquesm 18y ago

I wonder if the FT will sue me because I gave their paper to a friend... Scarcity of information is not a good business model in a time when transporting and copying information has a cost approaching 0.

electromagnetic 18y ago
"... when transporting and copying information has a cost approaching 0." The cost is relatively approaching 0. The true cost of copying and transporting information is phenomenal, I mean I want to copy a VHS it used to cost me $400 max if I bought everything new! If I do similar for a DVD it's running me at least past $1000. However that's the actual cost, the relative cost is in fact near zero. We all have computers/laptops now because we need them, which means the extra cost to rip a DVD now is all of about $2.99 for the rental fee from Blockbuster with an additional like $0.50 to burn copies for people. It's also the value of the object you're ripping. It'd still be considered cost-effective if you bought a $1000 computer to use once to rip the full Adobe suite rather than actually buy the Adobe suite! The FT shouldn't be suing a single user, it's absurd and will cost them money. They should be using a business model that forces institutions to pay. Adobe doesn't expect me to pay $2000 for CS3, they do however expect a design firm to pay probably a hell of a lot more than $2000 to kit out all of their computers.