Changes for Retailers wanting to use WA tasting notes

The Wine Advocate has begun notifying Retailers and Wineries that there will be a cost for and requirements to post WA tasting notes on their websites. I am actually surprised it took this long. After all Getty Images has been sending $760 to $1,200 demand letters to using their “copyrighted” images for several years.

To use Wine Advocate’s “copyrighted” tasting notes requires the user purchase a commercial subscription for $100 more per year than the standard subscription, (nominal amount). The user will also have standard guidelines for displaying the notes on their websites, brochures and flyers.

We are discussing our course of action as Carrie just renewed her regular subscription and hadn’t heard about this until today.

https://www.erobertparker.com/info/subagree_commercial.asp

Why do you need to discuss a course of action? Did you look at the FAQ that eRP sent? There is a very simple solution for you to remain a legal, commercial subscriber.

https://www.erobertparker.com/subscriptions/FAQ.aspx

What if I already have an ordinary subscription to eRobertParker.com and I want to convert this to a Commercial Subscription?

You can easily be credited for the time remaining on your ordinary subscription. When you fill in your subscriber details for your new Commercial Subscription, be sure to make note that you are already a subscriber. One of our customer service advisors will calculate the value remaining on your current account and deduct this from your new Commercial Subscription cost.

Eric,
I’ve decided I’m eliminating any of their content that’s on our website. I have a personal subscription and will still look at it and visit WA.
I’ve read all the terms and it’s just one more nail of discontent that I’ve gone through which I won’t go into. I’d rather link to CT and donate the funds there.

Eric,

We saw the FAQ. The discussion was whether or not WA ratings drive sales anymore or did they in the past? The same with WS. A 94 point WS wine sits on the self all year and then gets # 2 wine of the year and now everybody wants it. We are sitting on 98 WA wines. Do we really need their notes on our website? We’ve had a point whore section on our website for years and it’s just another 10 minutes of time I spend uploading/updating our archaic website.

I am also curious how some of the wineries will react to this. The accolades can be key to sales but how do they feel about “giving” their wine to WA and being charged to use the notes if they are worthy?

Since I do not know, what is the difference in price between the two subscriptions?

$100 more (posted up thread)

Oops, sorry

Thanks. You are of course free to LINK to CT for no cost.

No problem, happy to donate a bit of time to keep you informed! pileon

We’ve carefully cultivated our customers to trust our judgement rather than that of a far-flung number-slinger, so I think we’ll continue to not subscribe to Wine Advocate, either as a business or as an individual.

FIFY

neener

Don’t trust a non-donor for the complete information. [snort.gif]

You can purchase:
1 subscription for $199
3 subscriptions for $399
additional groups of 3 subscriptions for $300 each

My guess is that they will block more than one login on each id unless multiple subscriptions are purchased. Probably not an issue for Randy and Carrie, but larger stores may have to purchase multiple subscriptions.

I can certainly appreciate them wanting to be paid for their IP off of which others get a commercial benefit.

But I always saw this as a chicken & egg thing, with Parker notes in a store also helping to drive subscriptions.

So, Total or Costco buy lots of commercial subscriptions. Do they then get “coverage” for store brands? It is tricky when you start making money from content usage. The new owners will be enforcing this to drive revenue. And heavily advertised brands that use his scores will be a bigger piece of the revenue pie.

This may be a dumb question, but is this just for posting their tasting notes?
What about points?
A retailer can simply post for example 2001 Domaine Carrie - WA 92, AM 90, WS 96.

I can’t imagine mining the Internet for retailers using this.

I am a changed person now, but I used to buy points, not notes. [snort.gif]

Dan,
The terms are for using any of their content, notes and scores.
I’m sure they won’t be the ones guarding the internet, they’ll probably pay a company with their new found wealth like Getty or someone that spend their days chasing copyright infringements.

Does The Wine Spectator charge retailers an additional fee for permission to quote notes and scores?

By the way, I think it would be an interesting copyright question if a retailer merely used the numerical score, as opposed to the detailed tasting notes.

Bruce

I have heard at least 2 formal legal opinions that the score alone are not protected by copyright, especially given that WA and WS have allowed free use by retailers for 2 decades.

That said, from the CT perspective, I have never been interested in testing this. (Although with many thousands of users, people could easily recreate the full database of scores in very short order.) My personal preference has been to work with the WA and WS on this.

BTW, I applaud them for moving towards a commercial license and especially if they are offering technology to make this more efficient for retailers.

Just curious would content be covered if provided by the winery in marketing info? not the notes per se but the score. Would the winery have the right to market the score and thus the retailer if no subscription was owned? Also would a wine then be able to opt out of any scoring if the content was not available?