PressThink: Newspaper Chain Goes Creative Commons: GateHouse Media Rolls CC Over 96 Newspaper Sites

A very unusual development for a print media company to change from traditional copyright to a Creative Commons approach. Could it be the wave of the future? As traditional print media companies lose advertising revenue and readers along with their waning financial results , print media really must try different ways to bring readers/consumers/people into their fold.

Wall Street seems to approve.

"GateHouse, which went public in October, saw its stock rise 20 percent in the first day of trading: investors were clearly treating GateHouse like an internet stock, not a newspaper play. The run-up in price made GateHouse the most valuable newspaper company in America, leading Dow Jones, Scripps, The New York Times Company and far above cellar-dwellers Gannett and Tribune. GateHouse’s move towards open source, open licensing, and open conversations is the biggest experiment to date in whether a media company with open source ambitions can walk hand in hand with Wall Street. "