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RJI PICTURED

THE RJI VISION

“From Blueprint to Building: Making the Market for Digital Information"

An action congress for trust, identity and Internet information commerce serving newspapers and beyond
June 23-25, 2010 / Reynolds Journalism Institute / Columbia, Mo.

What is ANDAC?

The American Newspaper Digital Access Corp. (ANDAC) is a working title. It describes a completed business plan (to be unveiled June 24 at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, in Columbia, Mo.) for creating the first newspaper industry-wide enterprise to deal with and manage the emerging digital evolution in information gatheing, dissemination and archiving.

ANDAC is the brain child of a group of publishers and state press association managers from Iowa, Kansas and Missouri to address the threats, and opportunities, of the digital age. They organized as the Multistate Digital Task Force.

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Read more about the case for action in behalf of newspapers -- SPEECH by Bill Monroe, Feb. 4, 2010

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The Task Force concluded it is imperative that publishers form a new entity that collects, stores, digitizes, protects and markets newspaper content. The mission of this corporation would be to provide news organizations with a means to digitize and archive their content for research, historical and commercial purposes.

WHAT IS PRIMARY FUNCTION?

The new entity will create a central collection point for the receipt of royalties derived from reused content. The technology now exists to allow the tracking of all content posted on a newspaper website but used on a content "pirate’s" website without the permission of the newspaper and without the paying of royalties. The new entity will create a way for anyone wanting to reuse newspaper content to do so legally by paying for it. A system will also track and distribute royalties to all participating newspapers.

The critical operating principles of this corporation or association will include:

• Respect for copyright laws and aggressive pursuit of violators
• Mutually beneficial royalties and profit sharing
• Historic preservation
• Efficient and effective newspaper participation
• Easy customer user access and
• Scalability to be able to help newspapers of all sizes.

It's business focus will be to:

• Protect the intellectual property rights of newspapers and monetize the content use on the Internet.
• Facilitate the collection and dissemination of advertising tear sheets.
• Provide a platform for the posting of Public Notices.
• Provide for archiving services for news content creators and consumers.

A ROLE FOR STATE PRESS ASSOCIATIONS

The Task Force thinks the state press associations are the logical organizations to move this effort forward since almost every newspaper in America belongs to its state association and all state associations are controlled by the newspapers they serve. Integration of content through state press associations could lead to substantial benefits for all involved parties.

The market for the re-sale of newspaper information would include:

• Newspapers-In a day of smaller news staffs and a push to localize all information, an archive of both weekly and daily newspapers would be valuable. The archive should also contain past issues, giving any reporter the ability to quickly research any subject.
• Clipping services
• Advertising tear sheets
• Individual stories by subject
• Genealogist and research historians
• On-line news aggregators

PLAN DETAILS TO BE SHARED JUNE 24

“We expect that as the Internet continues to grow and find new ways to address old problems, we will be there with innovative products and services that will allow our customers to take advantage of technologies, not be threatened by them," the 148-page task force plan says at one point. "Barring any more dramatic changes in the newspaper business environment, we expect that our business will grow modestly, as long as newspapers and press associations continue to operate. Our service may have to change in the future to accommodate new technologies and trends that would change the way our service is delivered."

More details on the proposed enterprise, including a five-year financial forecast, profitability, pricing and marketing, will be presented at the June meeting.

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RELATED LINKS:

• Background on task force behind ANDAC
• The business model for digitizing newspapers

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