FACT: ECONOMIST READERS' LEGAL ACTION ?
Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) suggested yesterday that readers of The Economist in Thailand should consider legal action as a result of the non distribution of two recent issues. The story says: "FACT would be happy to work with any regular readers of The Economist print edition to file a lawsuit. Seems to us to violate fair trade, among much else."
I'm not a legal expert but I do feel that subscribers would have a much better chance of victory as opposed to mere regular readers. The latter has no contract whatsoever with the publisher, although it would certainly be an interesting case to monitor if it does happen.
4 comments:
If I were a subscriber I'd certainly expect them to agree to extend my subscription by two issues without any fuss.
If I called them up and they gave me any guff about it, I'd probably try once more higher up the Economist food chain; track down the publisher's personal email or something. Then maybe I might take FACT up on their offer, but I'd try other normal avenues first.
In their email to subscribers apologising for the non delivery this week, The Economist said: "With our compliments, we will be extending your subscription by a further week to cover this missed issue."
I think they could have gone further and given one or two additional weeks on top of the one that's been missed this week. That would have cost them less than 100 baht per subscriber and would have been a worthwhile gesture.
There could be some legal avenues that subscribers can take but causal readers won't stand a chance.
I had a slightly similar situation with Sight & Sound magazine in 2007, subscribing via Distri-Thai. Out of 12 monthly issues, they imported only 9. (This was not for political reasons, presumably they had problems sourcing copies in the UK.) So they extended my subscription by another 3 issues into 2008. Now I subscribe directly via the UK publisher, because even now for some reason Sight & Sound's Thai distribution is always two months late (compared to other magazines which are maybe one month late).
If enough Economist readers and subscribers contact the publisher directly, maybe they will make a difference.
I think the 'two months late' situation is common for most of the imported monthly magazines. It was amusing to see the Christmas covers of some of the food magazines (BBC Good Food, Olive, etc) arrive for the first time earlier this month.
There's no excuse really. UK mags generally publish in the middle of the preceding month so even air-freighting them should get them here for the start of the month. Copies arriving one or even two months late just isn't acceptable.
I feel there is a huge business opportunity here for one of the big, professional overseas distribution companies to make a real killing and shake up the industry in the process.
FACT was actually suggesting some kind of legal action against the publishers by Economist subscribers in Thailand. That will be interesting if it happens.
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