Adventures with Big Media

So I had this great idea. I’d contact TIME magazine, ask them for a clean PDF version of (and permission to freely reprint) their great article from last week, and then school organizations, leadership associations, bloggers, etc. could point educators to the link or copy the PDF for workshop, conference, and/or training purposes. In other words, we all could leverage the prestige and reach of TIME to actually make the changes the article discussed. And thus my adventures with Big Media began…

My original message

the nation’s only university center dedicated to K-12 technology leadership

issues. Our primary function is to try and help school administrators understand

this “new” (to them, at least) world of technology and what it means for

schools.

How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century, should be required reading for

every K-12 principal and superintendent in the country. Of course I want to help

make that happen! Can you give me more information on how to get a PDF copy of

this article? Would TIME be willing to let us post it on our web site for others

to access? As we (and others) do workshops with school leaders, it would be

great to be able to send them to the article for background

reading.

Thanks!

TIME’s reply

Scott,

Thank you for your interest in TIME Magazine.  Unfortunately there are only two options for electronic use of our content:

1. If you wish to link to articles in the Time.com archive, there is no charge for the link. 

2. If you wish to post the article onto your website, there is a 1-year fee of $2,000 per article.  The license fee is for text only, since we do not own the rights to the images.

Let me know how you would like to move forward.

Thanks,

Evelyn
TIME Reprints

My second try

Thanks for the quick reply. Unfortunately option 2 is well beyond our

budget. Is there no one I can talk to about the possibility of waiving this fee?

Getting K-12 educators access to this single article doesn’t seem like it would

be a big deal on TIME’s end but could have a huge impact on making the kind of

changes the article discusses. If TIME made this freely available to folks, a

lot of school-oriented organization could publicize TIME’s donation of access

and get lots of educators to read the article. This is THE most important issue

facing schools right now and they don’t even know it, more or less talk about

it. It’s amazing how timely and prescient this article is. Can’t TIME help us

help schools?

TIME’s second reply

Scott,

The link can be posted free of charge, the article will be in the

archive indefinitely.  My apologies for the inconvenience, but I cannot grant

permission to post the actual article.

Thanks,
Evelyn