Pirate Times Introduces Paywall to Fund Further Reporting | PirateTimes

Posted: April 1, 2016/Under: Creator, Inside Pirate Times, Josef Ohlsson Collentine, News, Pirate Times/By: Josef Ohlsson Collentine

Pirate Times Introduces Paywall to Fund Further Reporting

April 1, 2016 · by Josef Ohlsson Collentine · in Inside Pirate Times

Edit: April Fool’s. We’d never want to restrict access to information in such a way, completely contrary to pirate principles.

What are online readers willing to pay for digital content? Pirate Times has been publishing articles for free since August 2012. During this time we published 687 articles, where we made some of these more accessible (43 Spanish, 26 French and 11 Greek translations). We have had some backing from people through flattr and bitcoin to cover basic costs. (thanks a lot to those who have backed us!!)

However, we reached a stage where we need to pursue further funding in order to take Pirate Times to the next level and report more thoroughly on the Pirate Movement. We considered advertisement but would rather stay as independent as possible in our reporting. Thus our choice fell on setting up a system with a paywall. We believe our loyal readers would be willing to support our reporting on a monthly basis if they have a good incentive.

A paywall is a technical solution that prevents accessing full articles without having a paid subscription. “Hard paywalls” allow no access to non-paying subscribers. A “soft paywall” would provide selective free content (or limit the number of articles one can read each month) without being a paying subscriber. Pirate Times is still trying to decide whether to install a hard or soft paywall. We appreciate your thoughts on this to make our decision.

pirate times will set up a paywall to get more financing to cover their articles
Paid Digital Content: The Journey Begins, a report by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers

About Josef Ohlsson Collentine

I’m a dual citizen (American/Swede) and try to integrate my reflections from a more global perspective if possible. I’m the organizational leader for Pirate Times and work actively to strengthen the pirate movement through this work as well as being the international contact for Piratpartiet (PPSE). Elected board member of PPSE for 2015-2018.
If you would like to ask me something I speak English, Swedish and Spanish. Find me on the links below

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Tags: Bitcoin, free content, funding, paid content, paywall

- Hauke
  
  Hi Josef,
  
  I have the PT in my RSS feeds to get the occasional glimpse of the global Pirate movement. To be honest, I would not pay for that glimpse. Do your viewer numbers justify the paywall? I suspect that most people are like me so you would probably reduce your reader numbers by at least an order of magnitude .
  
  Also, what is your goal in publishing in the first place? Is it to build a sustainable business (if just to cover the costs) or is it to get the word out as much as possible? I always thought it was the latter. If you are running out of funds, I would much rather go for the Wikipedia approach with a massive donation call that ends as soon as the (realistic) goal is achieved.
  
  Lastly, you have my great applause for your work regardless.
  
  Just my thoughts,
  
  Hauke