The Right Stuff: TechArt’s 3.8-liter GTsport Kuah

The Right Stuff: TechArt’s 3.8-liter GTsport by Ian Kuah Excellence November 2006 76-80 [Horizontally Opposed - Pete - Is perfectly correct, scanning magazines and posting them to the web is a copyright infringement without the authorization from the magazine. In the future please refrain from doing so. Feel free to post links to the magazine's own site where users can read the articles for themselves or purchase the magazine at a local book store, etc. to read.]

Nice info. I wonder if the $35K price is the entire package? Sounds like it's just the engine increaseto 3.8L. If so, seems a bit steep.

It's probably the entire package.

This is a very significant article. It proves what we all knew about the basic Cayman S. We need to find out about the price, $35,000 for the whole package is a bargain!

mpollard, I don't mean to sinlge you out, but I don't know what else to do. What you are doing is flat-out wrong. Scanning and posting copyrighted materials — especially fresh material — or taking it from websites is not only illegal, but highly offensive to those of us who make a living in the creation of said material. Not only this, but you put Ken at significant legal risk by posting the property of various media companies; any of them can file a suit for copyright infringement quite easily. There is a reason that vitually ALL web forums such as this one have in their rules when you sign up an agreement that you will not post copyrighted material. I hate (HATE) to be the one to point this out, but I have no choice. To ask is one thing, but to just take what you want and post it is a flagrant violation of copyright laws established long ago. And then there's the ethics of it. Those who thank you for posting materials that you did not create are doing something akin to saying how good a candybar tastes and then thanking someone for shoplifting it. Please remove any and all materials that belong to Ross Periodicals from this website and any others in which you have posted them. Up until this point, I've felt that we have a great relationship with planet-9.com, and I'd hate to see that soured. Edited by - horizontally-opposed on 09/28/2006 2:56:48 PM

Horizontally-opposed, Thanks for the clarification. I like to visit this site to view as much information about Porsche and the Cayman as possible. It is convenient and I certainly do not want to be viewed as a shoplifter. Is there a way to have articles/links compiled here with a 'pay to view' option? I am not as webwise as I would like to be. Ihave read posted articles, appreciated havingmpollard find themandfeelcompelledto do what is appropriate after reading your reply. I am interested to knowwhat legal and ethical meansare available to folks like myself who enjoy the planet-9.com as a quick source for this information. caymantime

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr noshade="" id="quote" height="1" /> I am not as webwise as I would like to be. Ihave read posted articles, appreciated havingmpollard find themandfeelcompelledto do what is appropriate after reading your reply. I am interested to knowwhat legal and ethical meansare available to folks like myself who enjoy the planet-9.com as a quick source for this information. <hr noshade="" id="quote" height="1" /> </blockquote> Easy. If there's a web link to the article, just post that. If not, then post what magazine it came from and buy it. Both options are perfectly legal and ethical, and neither requires any degree of web expertise. Edited by - Interpol on 09/28/2006 5:30:09 PM

why wouldn't you just buy a GT3? i'd love to see a comparison between those two cars.

As a subscriber to Excellence as I'm sure many of us are, I'm dissapointed to hear this request. I understand the position, but it is still dissapointing. I believe that by posting these articles, you drum up support for the magazine. Seeing them mentioned here is the reason that I am a subscriber.

Thank you, Interpol I have noticed that some articles have web links and others do not. I assume the magazine purchase is the only option to acquire those articles without linksor (hate to sound ignorant again..but here goes) is it possible to pay a feeto view a single article?

smounic, I agree. Because of mpollard I became a subscriber to a few magazines, but unfotunately I can't afford to subscribe to them all. Maybe in the future I'll be able to cover them all. Everyone knows that magazine websites are at least an issue or two behind as far as posting current magazine content, but I guess we have to do the right thing, no matter how disappointing.

Believe me, it gives me no pleasure to wade into these waters... Nor do I wish to come off as some high and mighty who has never read a posted article online. As the internet continues to change the way we view media — and because so much of it surrounds the written word (though this too is evolving quickly) — it's sometimes hard (but, I would argue, not TOO hard) to differentiate between what is proprietary material that's been stolen and what is fresh or original. Notice that I didn't attack the readers of such posts, but the poster as well as the action of thanking him or her. Nor do I feel that mpollard is alone, there are so many people involved in similar actions that I don't think people really stop to think about what they're doing. Nor do I think they do it maliciously — I think they see it as a nice thing to do for others on the forums and even for the magazines. We just need to be the ones controlling how our content reaches readers — for a lot of reasons if you stop to think about it and then think it through. Because so much of the web provides free content, it's not surprising to expect to get the content we as for-profit magazines generate for free, as well. Many people and companies are working toward web models that do the above and make a profit, and some have found it. Others, such as Ken, are doing a great service to a lot of people in addition to their day jobs — and for them we can be thankful. So, if you haven't thanked your admins and webmaster lately, be sure to do so. (Thanks Ken!) Those of us who use Porsche web forums know that they're timely, have incredible breadth of topic as well as incredibly specific information. All "right now." They're an incredible thing, really. But that model doesn't work so well for periodicals. Rather than try to compete with forums, we see the way forward as remaining committed to making magazines that readers can't wait to get in their mailboxes (which only adds to our frustration with the USPS for our West Coasters...). Many readers tell us we're still doing that when they couldn't care less about their other car mag subscriptions. Can we do it better? Of course? Can we grow? Yes. Do we ever get it wrong? Sure. Is Excellence everything I'd like it to be? Of course not, but we do it on an extremely tight budget and with few personnel. And we'd like to make money at it. So we're a conservative company that is still committed to making magazines the old-fashioned way. It pains me greatly when I see Excellence lumped in with so many other magazines or those who write for it with so many other journalists. Sure, we're human and capable of mistakes, but we operate under a VERY different model than most magazines. To my knowlege, we're one of the last, true "reader-driven" car magazine companies in the U.S. Today, most magazines are "circulation-driven" which really means "advertising-driven." Keep the circulation numbers up and you can charge more for the ads. Follow this to its logical end and you end up giving away magazines to make ad dollars. We don't give our subscriptions away for $5 or $10 a year (do the math on mailing costs + printing costs alone) to keep circulation up. We charge $23 a year for nine issues. I guess that's a bad value compared to R&T and CandD on the face of it, but then Excellence is bigger in terms of pages than either (though 9 issues per year vs. 12) and that means 1,800 pages of pure Porsche content delivered to your door. Yes, a lot of those are ads, but we DO need to make a living so that we can provide the 75-80 pages of P-car editorial content in every issue. And, certainly, we could make more money from ads were we to accept them from just anyone. None of them are from lifestyle, tobacco, or other areas that would love to advertise with you of the demographically rich target market that is the Porsche community. Nor are our articles biased as a result of the ad director's wishes. He has no influence on editorial direction whatsoever. Compare/contrast this with Stephan Wilkinson's excellent view into the world of car magazines in his book, "The Gold-Plated Porsche." It's a wonderful read. Nor do advertisers have any sway. I won't name names, but most car magazines in Excellence's segment take all the free parts, tires, etc. they can get their hands on. I won't say it's not tempting when I need to belly up to the counter and order 265/35ZR18 N-spec tires... but I believe in the policy. Not only is it "right" for the reader (though it does limit what we can "test" to some extent), it is right for our advertisers. Say one shady dealer offers me a free part that a competitor offers a version of (one who produces a superior item but can't afford to or won't give them away) and we write about it. Who gets ripped off? More than one party does... Porsche, for instance, constitutes less than 3 percent of our total advertising (and less and less of late), so offending them doesn't mean much in terms of the almighty dollar. My glowing report on the Cayman S a year ago or so should be contrasted with my more recent 997 Turbo U.S. road test. I was very happy to see Ian Kuah complimented, he is indeed a very professional journalist and an excellent driver. While I don't always agree with all of his assessments (and he mine) I can trust him to get the story and get it right. Any differences are usually down to personality, driving style, and what have you. I'm just as confident in our other writers, and have been very happy to have Chris Harris in the book, as well. The main objective, above all else, it to create a great magazine with a loyal following, the kind of platform that is truly valuable to advertisers. The kind of magazine they know goes to the people they want to reach — and it's gratifying to see that this model still works. Our advertisers tell us it does. If you gather, from this long-winded diatribe, that I am passionate about the magazines we produce and how we produce them, then you are right. Why I am taking the time to say all this is simple: When I see that someone is disappointed in a decision we make — in this case to protect our copyrighted material — I want to explain WHY we must do so. If we're trying to make magazines that you can't wait to get and devour — something that's totally outside of the right-now model of today's media — seeing it published on the web by others is defeating not only to us but, in the end, many of our readers as well as our advertisers. Might as well toss the magazine if you've seen all the content online already, or even those articles you're interested in. And then where is the value for advertisers? We;'re really trying to create a magazine that you'll take to your favorite chair — or throne — and spend some time enjoying. We're trying to CRAFT something you'll love. It's a lofty goal and I am sure we miss it regularly, but that's the goal anyway. As for disappointment in our not posting the GTstreet article, I'd hope you see that we've posted two of our articles from each issue (very early, as they are reaching the first subscribers — at least that is our aim) instead of what we didn't give away. I specifically had this community in mind when I chose to put our cover story on the website for free, and then hoped the GTstreet would encourage a few of your to subscribe or head for the newsstand. Moreover, we're not pulling the sneaky "read two thirds of an article and then, SURPRISE! buy a subscription to read the rest." But we simply can't give all the content away for free, and we remain unsure — at this point, anyway — of the value in selling the features off as a one-time read. Remember, we're in the old-fashioned magazine business. When/if that is no longer viable, we'll have hopefully come up with a new medium for our content. The website is a step in that direction. Obviously, we want you to buy the magazine to read the rest of the articles we don't post on the website for free. I haven't checked closely, but I don't think the other Porsche mags are giving free views to any of their current articles away on the web. And how much, really, is $23 a year? If you don't like the magazine, then I agree it's $23 too much... If you DO like it, then know that we need your support to continue providing high-quality Porsche content. We can't do it without you, and value each and every subscription. If you've actually waded all the way through this, thanks for reading. Sorry for the typos, I am sure there are many and I simply don't have the time to go back through and edit this thing down/right. Best regards, pete Edited by - horizontally-opposed on 09/28/2006 7:37:23 PM

Thanks Pete for reminding me to renew my Excellence subscription that ran out this summer. And thanks for all the other stuff too. You do havethat passion thing.

Although I'm disappointed as well, I do agree that posting magazine article scans or article content word-for-word without permission is rather unfair to the author/publisher. It's akin to posting MP3s of current music, except the intellectual property is in written form and not audio. Let's just take this as a lesson learned and heed the wishes of the authors and publishers who make such content available - on the web or in print. I admit that sometimes mpollard's reposts of all news/articles related to the Cayman are exciting and/or interesting to read that I even forget about the ethical ramifications. Edited by - Interpol on 09/28/2006 7:42:59 PM

We should also recall that this is a mature forum and we do not ever publically embarass our members. Pete, I trust that you took this to Marvin privately before you shouted in the public square? I tried to send this note via PM, but you have it blocked.

Ican only speak for myself. I subscribed to Excellence in part because of the exposure this forum has given it. I personally like to have the rag in my hands, on my bedside. Can't do that with a computer.

Pete, Your passion isevident and I appreciate your post. Thanks for not flaming my 'pay to view' question. I was thinking of themusic purchasemodel and was just wondering if something like it existed. caymantime

Pete, I'm going to chime in here for a second because as you know I've written for other publications in the past, write for some currently, do a radio show and of course manage this forum in my 'spare' time and I happen to be an attorney who understands copyright law and actually have some items registered with the copyright office in Washington D.C. I concur that intellectual property needs to be protected otherwise it has no value and if there is anything that we need to hold onto it is the value of our intellectual capital otherwise someone is going to off-shore it to make a higher profit. /fckeditor/editor/images/smiley/MWPX/regular_smile.gif That being said, I do think that there are things that traditional magazines such as Excellence can do in the Internet age to both increase magazine sales as well as meet the needs of people living on Internet time. You and I have discussed a few of those in the past, but I've got a few more ideas for you if you'd like to get together and chat about them. BTW I DO NOT think you should be spending your valuable time policing internet forums and my apologies for not doing a better job here. I would have hoped one of our moderators would have alerted me to this or I would have seen it, but I've been swamped lately and in the middle of a software change so my own policing efforts have been lax. Now with regard to one of those ideas, I really think Excellence should consider a per issue and annual internet subscription model. For example you already show 2 articles from your latest issue on your website. In my opinion your website should list the current issue's table of contents followed by a link to 'Purchase the current issue here'. I believe you said it is currently $23/year for 9 issues or roughly $2.50 per issue. I'm willing to be you could charge $5/issue for a PDF download (see Winding Road for a good PDF download format btw - content may be light at time but technically they have it down well). Right next to that link is another 'Subscribe for a year' and they can either subscribe to the paper version for a year, or get a code that allows them to download the next 9 issues if they prefer electronic, and guess what, maybe the price is $25 or $30 and you end up making more through the Internet because people are willing to pay for convenience. You talked about people wanting to get the next issue in their mailbox, well some people (quite a lot actually) would be willing to get instant gratification from an immediate download. Are there drawbacks? Sure, someone could download the issue and post it up on a website for others to grab freely, there are ways to combat that with copy protection/licensing schemes and most of the time people who download a pirate copy of something aren't the ones who are going to pay for your individual download or paper version anyway, at least not now. You can also vary the content to some degree, adding additional stories online or additional stories in print only to potentially drive cross sales, or provide greater audience numbers for the advertisers you do have. I think Excellence is an (pardon the pun) excellent magazine, but as with anything (like this website) there is always room for improvement. I also think I need to pen an article for your magazine here soon as my free time allows! Thanks for listening!

No, I didn't and let me apologize publically to both mpollard and planet-9.com for my mistake. That said, we did not instigate this matter. Where is responsibility? Also, is there a value in making a public stand on this (very public) matter? Would getting truly nasty by filing a lawsuit that would be debilitating to both the poster and the host be a better plan? I'd hate to think that my actions led to someone losing their house, but where do you draw the boundary? Sad to say it, I think it is only a matter of time before we will see one media company or another land a massive settlement in such a suit. The precedent will need to be set. This is why Porsche goes after the mom and pops. I hate to see it, but more and more I undertand why PAG needs to do it. Yep, some good guys get hurt, but then you have to watch out for the bad guys, too... Frankly, I'd prefer to rally supporters (that's you guys) to help us by asking people to refrain from doing what's wrong and "policing" the boards for us — and for yourselves. We're all in this community together and I truly desire to see a symbiotic relationship grow between the forums and Excellence, each recognizing the other for what they're worth... Believe me I hear you on your desire to avoid embarrassing members — but I wonder where was this ideal as I suffered the nasty, highly personal attacks against me over my (totally misunderstood) column on Cayman S pricing months ago? As I recall, some of the things said about me and the magazine in that rather awful thread were TOTALLY unfounded, unmerited, and untrue. And plain mean. A few jumped to my defense, and I appreciate that, but it was all I had in me to not respond in kind to some of the nastier contributors to that thread. I certainly remember them, but won't name them though they were happy to name me. Moreover, I noted with a chuckle that threads about Cayman Ss at a discount and how much to ask for off the top soon followed without any of the outrage over my mere suggestion that Porsche has gotten the pricing strategy wrong in the eyes of most of its buyers (not the enthusiasts...) — without ANY condemnation of the Cayman S itself. After all, I am an ardent mid-engined Porsche fan myself. As for all of the helpful and friendly suggestions, we're looking at the right ways to expand our web presence and are moving slowly. Sometimes a little slower than I would like. All of the ideas given here have been considered and there is no doubt that Excellence and excellence-mag.com will evolve with time, but we're not sure how much of that evolution will be split between the magazine as a print deal and the brand as a web entity. I note that Excellence has a lot of presence on the web as a result of how often and eagerly it is referred to in all of the various Porsche forums. For good and bad. Your criticism, praise, qoutes, and discussion on the magazine is very helpful in guiding the content. I have to take it with a grain of salt always, but believe me it's seen and heard — and considered. Ken, thanks for the opportunity to be here. You provide a lot of Cayman owners with a service that I hope — and think — they fully value. Edited by - horizontally-opposed on 09/28/2006 8:59:22 PM

No worries! And I hope to never "flame" anyone, but then I won't shrink back from calling it as I see it, either, And I see your idea as a valid suggestion. We're definitely looking at this and much more, but wish to stay true to our roots as an old-fashioned magazine for as long as our readers want us to.... pete stout

I concur with both smounic and Moleculo that the mpollard posts that are in question actually promotes sales for these magazines. zornet

Move this topic somewhere else and let's get back to this awesome car!

I think MPollard should record an inspired reading of such articles and post the clip here. Some nice music building to the appropriate crescendos would be great. Also some provocative phrases describing the photos in the article and handling characteristics would be great!

Pete, Thank you for your reply. I guess I should have writen that we <u>should</u> never embarrass our members, considering the personal attacks that you report were targeted atyou. I am a new member of less than a month (therfore notavailalbe to jump to your defense), and have generally been impressed with the limited personalization of issues. If the forum goes down that path I will not be anactivemember much longer. That said, I simply do not have the time or resoruces to seek out all of the excellent content on the web and I did only become exposed to your magazine through this forum. I recognize the need to protect IP and see a potential for yourcompany tostart-upand broker a consolidation service for all relevant content. I would certainly pay a premmium for such a service. I am sure Marvin welcomes your apology. Duane

Ok all water under the bridge and we know where to find the article. Thanks!