Where do parents, therapists and teachers within the autism community get their news and updates on the goings on for organizations, personal stories published in newspapers, gain insight into various issues like vaccines, special education, employment and supported living?
For a number of years I have received daily emails from google based on an alert I have set for stories involving the term "autism".
http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en
The Schafer Autism News Report is now charging $35.00 per year for a subscription to news stories, calendar listings, editorial comment and letters from other parents regarding printed news stories.
I received an email informing me I had three weeks left of my free subscription. I thought about sending a reply back and saying no thanks, but have not yet done that. I get the report at two different email addresses and only one of them sends me the calendar listings.
I cannot read that anyway since it is on one very long page that requires moving up and down to read. Why would I pay $35 to read something in this manner? The theme of the report has been vaccine related for the past year and something I am not interested in.
"Your $35 subscription for 200 editions per year not only keeps you up to date, but also supports the entire community's need for a good source of news and information about autism."
Seems to me the only support it goes to is the Editor of the report.
Now I also have been informed from the CEO of Autism Today that there are levels of membership for their website. "Autism Today is proud to introduce two new levels of membership, Gold and Platinum." The introductory rate is $9.95 per month or a yearly fee before they start with the regular price of $14.95 for the gold, add another ten bucks for the Platinum membership.
The gold membership states the following:
"Access to the entire Autism Today article archive plus the most recent"
I found an article listed there in its entirety that I wrote on my BellaOnline Autism Spectrum Disorders site - http://autismspectrumdisorders.bellaonline.com
If they are now charging people for access to other articles online that they take, I will have to look into copyright issues as I never gave my permission for them to take my article and to ask payment for that is infringement of my property rights. They cannot make money off of my content they obtained illegally.
I get so many annoying emails from Autism Today trying to get me to buy a book, donate money, become a partner and now join a membership to get more stuff and access to other data.
People should be able to search for conferences, doctors and other professionals in their area for free. Why are people paying for this service and why are these organizations going this route?
Here are the autism magazines that are published. The prices are high compared to other periodicals:
Autism Spectrum Quarterly - $34.95 for one year, Canadian is $47.50 (4 issues per year)
http://www.autismspectrumquarterly.com
Spectrum Publications - $29.95 (6 issues)- http://www.spectrumpublications.com
Autism/Asperger's Digest Magazine - $49.95 for one year (6 issues) or a three issue subscription for $24.95. You can buy previous single copy issues online.
The Autism Perspective (TAP) - $31.00 for four issues, Canadaian is $44.00. You can read a pdf sample issue online.
http://www.theautismperspective.org
Do you get any of these magazines? Have you paid for a subscription to the Schafer News Report? Are you going to obtain a paid membership at Autism Today?
How do other parents, professionals - being either teachers or therapists feel about paying for information at these sites?
Are there other organizations and/or sites following along in this trend? Please do post your thoughts.
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Comments: 9
i used to get a periodical called...Looking Up...it is an international autism magazine. you have me thinking about subscribing to some of these other periodicals you have listed....thanks for taking the time to write this article...it is very helpful!
This is VERY WRONG... If it's happened to you I'm sure this has happened to many others and I can't help but wonder if they even know about it. There is no way that it's legal to charge people for information that they are making money on.
I was thinking a little larger scale here though... perhaps you could start a class action suit against these people, find other people they have stolen from!!!!!
Hmm, another thought just came to me too, I wonder if someone saw your article and thought it was good and wrote to the magazine and submitted the article as their own? Perhaps the magazine doesn't know this is a stolen article. I would surely look into this.
If you don't feel like going through all of that I would call them and make them aware of the situation and tell them you now expect a free lifetime membership to both the magazine AND the website OR will will pursue this further and contact a lawyer, what do you think? The worst thing they could say is, "no, go ahead".
The "anything to make a buck and the rest of you are out of luck" mentality.
This is a despicable way to take advantage of already overburdened parents.