It’s always a pleasure for those of us at the newspaper to bring the community the news it wants to see and finds both relevant and entertaining, but can our readers do us a favor? Please do not repost our content improperly on the internet.

We’re in the business of providing community news. We do this because we love our jobs and care about our community. We work in community journalism and advertising because it’s how we make our livelihood, pay our bills and can afford the simple creature comforts in life.

One recurring problem we see in our community is how often people — who may not even understand what they’re doing is wrong — republish our content.

The issue isn’t so much the sharing of newspapers. That’s gone on for years and is an especially popular practice with the Monroe Times. Somebody with a subscription reads their edition of the Times and then gives it to a family member or friend so they can read it. We understand that happens and has happened since the beginning of time with newspapers.

What really deflates both our spirits, and our ability to earn a living, is when someone cuts and pastes stories and photographs and reposts them online. 

Republishing stories without permission is copyright infringement. 

Some people are shaking their heads right now saying to themselves, “big deal.”

Think about this, we have many people in this community who copy and paste our stories on social media and then tag people, giving them access to this content. The net result is that hundreds of people who should be reading our content through subscription are seeing it because it’s stolen. If one person does this a dozen times over the length of a year, they’ve provided our content to perhaps 1,000 people or more.

The result is our product is devalued, and people feel no need to subscribe, because the content they see about their family members or friends is delivered to them in this manner.

It’s truly difficult pointing this out because people who share our information genuinely want others to read it. The vast majority of items from the Times that we see shared improperly are about youth sports, local news and our coverage of local government. Readers should know that it’s this type of content that requires the most work, is unique to our product and is the reason this community has a newspaper.

It’s enough that the content is being shared this way, but to add insult to injury, the writer and photographer sometimes aren’t attributed for their work. 

Those doing it clearly appreciate the work of the writer or photographer — otherwise they wouldn’t be sharing it — but they don’t think about the time such quality content requires.

News does not magically appear on our pages. There is a complicated process involved that requires skilled and knowledgeable people putting in their time and effort. These jobs are difficult, require the staff to work odd hours, on weekends and on holidays. We show up, are present in the community and are trying to earn a living.

Moreover, we work with community institutions and individuals in an effort to share their news. We take submitted news from schools, clubs, civic groups and other entities. In this regard, the Times has always been a community institution.

When has it ever been OK to steal from a community institution?

When you see someone republishing our content this way, you have to think of it as though someone is taking away money from all of the community events we promote. Reprinting newspaper content is like taking something from the host of volunteer organizations that use our pages to promote their fundraisers.

This is not nearly the biggest issue in this community, but we’ve seen an increase in the number of people who have recopied our content. Instead of burying our head in the sand and just letting it happen, we beseech people to subscribe. In the last three years, we’ve gained readers, and this is because we’ve changed our format to all local news. We’re considered the best local newspaper among all the newspapers our size in the state of Wisconsin. Do we think that it’s worth 87 cents to have an edition of our paper delivered to your door in the United States mail? Absolutely.

We’re thankful to our tried-and-true subscribers and those who have stuck by us through change and 120 years of history. The vast majority of our readers know they are getting a good return for their money. They and our advertisers support what we’re doing which, in turn, supports the community as a whole.

For those of you participating in copyright infringement of our product, please discontinue this now. Encourage people to properly pay for that which has value and intangible importance to the community.

— Matt Johnson is publisher of the Monroe Times. His column is published Wednesdays.