“It is the kind of thing that most Japanese young women wouldn’t think twice about doing…. They might spot a new hairstyle or a new dress in a glossy fashion magazine and they want to know what their friends think – so they take a quick snap with their mobile phone camera and send everybody a picture. | But the publishers of those magazines feel they are being cheated out of valuable sales.” Quentin Sommerville
—Japan’s ‘Digital Shoplifting’ Plague (BBC)

This is yet another attempt to preserve an Old Media way of thinking about the world.

While I can certianly understand their efforts — nobody wants to see their business model go down the drain — it’s not going to work. What about bypassing all the paper costs, and selling access to a subscription service that e-mails trendy photos directly to the phones of those who want them, for a few pennies per photo?

My wife saves whole magazines just because there is a single photo of something she likes; what a waste of trees (and space!).