websites

Mygazines, the site for sharing magazines, just needed a few days to start attracting legal problems from the major players in the publishing industry.

Magazine Publishers of America has sued Salveo Ltd, the owner of Mygazines, and the Periodical Publishers Association, in the UK, is suggesting its members to do the same.

Mygazines is a new service that allows sharing magazines (scanned versions with a nice resolution) and read them using a simple but practical Flash viewer.

According to the press release this is similar to what you dentist does when he puts a few magazines on his waiting room. If you say it that way it sounds quite natural and legal, isn't it?

Is Mygazines testing the waters to see which problems attracts? There are many copyrighted magazines on the site, PC Magazine, The New Yorker, Cosmopolitan, to name just a few, and I think it's illegal to share those, to reproduce them actually.

We all know that the big money for many magazines is in advertising and Mygazines is helping them to reach a bigger audience; however, I wonder what will publishers like Marvel, who offer their Digital Comics service, do if a few issues of Ultimate X-Men appear on Mygazines.

What about Zinio?

Is Mygazines part of the next revolution in digital content or just a new idea about to fail?

I was subscribed to Star Wars Hyperspace for one year, I didn't use it too much, maybe because the site was too crowded and slow but I'm still a big Star Wars fan and receive all their newsletters weekly.

Today I got one telling me about the World of Star Wars at Yahoo. A new site with photos, videos, a forum and many other things related to Star Wars. I like it so far and looks easier to use and enjoy.

Real geeks, or simply guys over 30, should take a look.