TOKYO
The largest newspaper company in Japan, Nikkei, has just followed the trend of charging viewers to access their online website. Not only do people have to pay for viewing articles, but linking to their articles from outside their website is restricted. This new policy may or may be beneficial to the company.
In order to even be allowed to link someone to their article, you have to apply with serious reasons. They have disabled to "right-click" on the website so that even the customers who do pay to view their articles are not allowed to copy the text or even the url. Doing so is not just prohibited, but will result in "seeking damages" from the newspaper.
This pay-per-view policy has set off the online community in Japan. While some people agree with the policy and believe that is the only way that the newspaper company will survive, others strongly disagree with it. Even the customers that pay do not get full access to the articles; to get the most information, you still have to buy their print newspaper for full details.
Especially with the attempt to get younger readers as customers, Nikkei should find a compromising medium so they can get more readers online. One person in the article said hat there should be a good mix between free content and fee content. They also said that with Japan's reputation for being number one in electronics, Japan's online tactics should be on top of the game, not following behind.
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