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to survive is to change this operating structure. There should be more resources expended for brilliant, compelling content that is deftly edited and less for the maintenance of in-house printing presses. Out-sourcing or sharing this printing function with other companies would help in this reorganization of operating costs. Allocating more resources for business development - sales- would also lead to increased revenues necessary to pay for this stellar content.

Unfortunately, even this re-allocation of the operating funds is not enough to save the daily newspapers.

Music Publishers Have the Right Idea

Excellent news organizations such as the "Wall Street Journal," the "New York Times" and the "Associated Press" allocate substantial resources to create exemplary content. Unfortunately, the proliferation of news aggregation websites has resulted in this content being used without payment to the organization that developed it.

If this sounds like stealing, it is. And it is part of the reason newspapers have been unable to realize revenue from their investment in content creation. This challenge has already been solved by another industry - the music publishing industry.

Any commercial venue where music is played is a revenue source for song writers and their publishers. From the dingiest, smoke-filled bar on the side of the road in Los Alamos to the opulent stage of "American Idol" in Los Angeles, if there is recorded or live music song being played as a part of the "entertainment," the person who wrote that song is getting a small percentage of the revenue that is being generated from it.

Having a hit song that is played on every rock radio station in the country will yield more revenue (in the form of royalties) for the writer than a song that is played once a year on a juke box. However, the critical component of this arrangement is that the content creators are being compensated for their work and the enforcement of this procedure comes from a third party licensing organization.

In the case of the music industry, a venue or media outlet that wants to use a songwriter's work can purchase a yearly license from the organizations that control the public performance rights to the compositions. The two largest organizations that manage this process for the music industry are the "American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers" (ASCAP) and "Broadcast Music Incorporated" (BMI).

Legal experts have noted a potential problem for this "intermediary"

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