Legal row looms over similar net magazines

By SIMON HENDERY

A legal spat is brewing between internet magazine NetGuide and a new rival with a similar look.

NetGuide's publisher, Phil Ryan of Industrial Press, said newcomer Net Magazine had "overstepped the mark" with a publication that was so similar it was confusing readers and retailers.

But Net Magazine's publisher, IDG Communications, has hit back at Mr Ryan's threat of legal action, saying the two A5-sized monthly magazines are aimed at different audiences.

IDG New Zealand managing director Martin Taylor said yesterday that the Industrial Press claims were "paranoid and anti-competitive," and his firm would defend its position strenuously.

"We launched our magazine because there is a clear gap in the market for a different kind of net magazine," Mr Taylor said.

"We saw an opportunity to do a magazine that was much better at explaining to people how they can get more useful things done on the internet, as opposed to a 'what's on the net' type magazine, a site guide."

NetGuide has been running for four years and has an audited circulation of 30,000 copies a month.

Mr Ryan said it was flattering that a multinational company like IDG, whose publications include Computerworld, PC World and business magazine Unlimited, had copied the NetGuide format.

"Robust competition is a good thing but there is a point where flattery becomes plagiarism and in our opinion IDG have well overstepped the mark."

Mr Taylor said that while both magazines were the same size, "I think it would be a sad day for magazine publishing, or publishing of any description, if someone had proprietary rights over a size that they never invented in the first place."

He said IDG sold a glossy A5-format magazine, Net Beginner, in May and its popularity convinced the company that there was a gap in the market for a publication like Net Magazine.

Mr Ryan said NetGuide had fielded "hundreds of e-mails" from angry readers who had bought Net Magazine thinking it was a new edition of NetGuide.

"The confusion has even extended to many retailers who have also mistaken their product for ours."