Copyright for software, films and music is often in the news but not so often as far as magazines are concerned. People often think that large corporations protecting their copyright are being greedy but the truth is that copyright is a "right". Copyright is owned by the company or person who originally produced or paid for the material and they have every right to be paid for it.

Which brings us to SILICON CHIP. Silicon Chip Publications Pty Ltd, the publisher of this magazine, is not a large corporation but a small Australian family-owned company. Yet it is subject to exactly the same attacks on its copyright every day. Countless thousands of people regularly photocopy articles or scan the magazine rather than buy their own copy from the newsagent. Photocopying is rife in municipal libraries, schools, TAFE colleges, universities and businesses, and virtually every copy made means a lost sale of the magazine.

Yes, we do get an annual payment from the Copyright Agency Limited for photocopying in schools and TAFEs but it is really small – absolutely ludicrous.

Why am I writing this? Because I am constantly confronted by people who think that we should provide all sorts of information for free, especially via the Internet. Some people even think that the magazine should be much cheaper and would be if we printed on recycled paper. How little they know. The fact is that producing a magazine like SILICON CHIP is very labour intensive. "Labour intensive" means that there are lots of wages and contributors’ fees to be paid, on top of printers’ bills, distribution costs and so on. And nor is recycled paper cheaper; it is dearer.

We also frequently see requests on Internet newsgroups for scans of SILICON CHIP articles. It is nice to know that the articles are popular but how do these people think the magazine is supposed to survive in the long run if everything is being done for free? If you get a request from someone for a copy of an article in your SILICON CHIP, please politely refuse. We need their support, as well as yours. Thanks.

While I am constantly aware of all of this, it has been highlighted recently by the closure of "Electronics Australia" after over 70 years of publication. When we started SILICON CHIP, in 1987, there were three other electronics magazines: EA, ETI (Electronics Today International) and AEM (Australian Electronics Monthly) and heaps of imported magazines. Now there is just one Australian electronics magazine and that is SILICON CHIP.

There are probably many reasons why the other three magazines ceased publication but first and foremost must be a gradual loss in their circulation over the years. And a significant part of the loss of circulation is inevitably due to photocopying. It is "death by a thousand cuts".

Fortunately, SILICON CHIP is viable and is here for the long term. Since we are produced by a family company and not by a large corporation, we are not subject to the often arbitrary pruning that occurs in large organisations when times are tougher. But we still need your support to grow and flourish and this means more people buying (yes, paying for) the magazine at the newsagent or via a subscription.

So if you are one of those people who often photocopies articles in other peoples’ magazines or from library copies, please think about your actions. Don’t leave it to other people to pay for the magazine, buy it yourself.

In the overall scheme of things, magazines are cheap; $6.60, the cost of this magazine, does not buy much else, not even a family pizza.

Leo Simpson