Ethiopia’s Diaspora media and copyright violation
By Abera Hailu
April 6, 2009 — As Ethiopian journalists who have had to endure a lot to overcome and produce for the public, it is our responsibility to also keep the profession respectable and transparent. While there are many other obstacles facing Ethiopian journalist, one of the least talked about is the protection of our work from being stolen, taken or copied by unauthorized individuals, groups and other media outlets.
The most exposed to this problem have been our newspapers in Addis Ababa who have established an online presense. The most affected newspapers from the free press in Addis Ababa include Capital Ethiopia, Addis Fortune, Abbi Weekly, Addis Admass, Reporter and The Daily Monitor. As most newspapers around the world adopt to the new internet age by gaining revenue from their online presense, Ethiopian private newspapers have been going the opposite way: losing revenue. All causing pain and loses to journalists in Addis Ababa. In few cases, some Ethiopians visit the newspaper websites while they are online to check e-mail or for other endevours, instead of paying money to buy the paper. This causes another loss. In other cases, potential buyers are lost as people are not even aware who produced a content since news articles are copied and pasted or distributed without the owner’s permission.
The biggest causes of such violations occur as Diaspora Ethiopian media outlets take away content from the above Addis Ababa based newspapers. For these reasons, some newspapers in Ethiopia are hesitating to establish an online presense. Many people who used to buy the newspapers have informed several papers that random websites have taken content illegally. Diaspora websites like Ethiopolitics.com and www.tadias.com often illegally take articles from our newspapers and articles. Though the Diaspora Nazret.com website is perhaps the most famous for such violation since it has been stealing Ethiopian articles illegally and extensively for many years. Unlike other websites who take articles from Ethiopia, the Nazret.com website depends on news articles taken from Addis Ababa based newspapers. Such and other violations by numerous Diaspora websites cause massive loses to journalists, publishers, investors, freelancers etc inside Ethiopia. All Diaspora Ethiopian websites need to respect the owners of the content, from the journalists who sacrifice their life and time to the publishers and owners who lose.
Some of these websites who steal content have become the most visited websites at the expense of Addis Ababa based newspapers and they take the revenue that poor Ethiopian journalists should have had. The last few months, several challenges have caused some newspapers to close inside Ethiopia, most of all financial challenges. In Europe and America, the financially weak newspapers are making big efforts to make money from their online newspapers. Here, it is important to note that many international media outlets are facing similar challenges to keep costs low and diversify sources of revenue. But Ethiopian journalists face two-headed challenges as the reputation of our country itself has also been tainted as being harsh for journalists. Meanwhile, journalists/publishers can not monetize their content due to copyright violations.
In most cases, contents from private newspapers like Capital, Reporter and Addis Fortune are completely stolen.. While in other cases, contents are partially stolen. In addition to the direct loss and expenses, Addis Ababa based newspapers also face indirect losses. This includes the loss of power to attract readers and the loss of “media trademarks.” It is important to note that labels by themselves sell and the Diaspora market is the second biggest market after Addis Ababa for our newspapers in Ethiopia. At this point, Addis Ababa newspaper labels have become unknown despite hundreds of Ethiopian journalists in private papers working hard to gain recognition while government repression against them persists. Another indirect problem is the relatively smaller loss of expenses of purchasing, registering and administering expensive websites, which are not visited because other Diaspora websites completely steal their articles and content.
In general, Addis Ababa newspapers can organize to protect their content and to stop copyright violations from being left unpunished. Establishing a group to protect our rights as journalists is important. In addition to protecting future content, we have to find a way to lawfully regain the losses we suffered the last few years due to copyright violations. Most of all, websites who steal and illegally distribute content from Addis Ababa based newspapers need to become considerate and respect laws.
The author is Addis Ababa based Freelance Journalist with contributions to Guardian newspaper Addis/ Abbi Weekly.