Is the Caspian Sea saltwater?

The sea has a surface area of 371,000 km (143,200 sq mi) (not including the detached lagoon of Garabogazköl) and a volume of 78,200 km(18,800 cu mi). It has a salinity of approximately 1.2% (12 g/l), about a third of the salinity of most seawater.

Caspian Sea

The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. It is an endorheic basin (a basin without outflows) located between Europe and Asia, to the east of the Caucasus Mountains and to the west of the broad steppe of Central Asia. It is bounded by Kazakhstan to the northeast, Russia to the northwest, Azerbaijan to the west, Iran to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southeast. The Caspian Sea is home to a wide range of species and may be best known for its caviar and oil industries. Pollution from the oil industry and dams on rivers draining into the Caspian Sea have had negative effects on the organisms living in the sea.

The wide and endorheic Caspian Sea has a north–south orientation and its main freshwater inflow, the Volga River, enters at the shallow north end. Two deep basins occupy its central and southern areas. These facts lead to horizontal differences in temperature, salinity, and ecology. The Caspian Sea spreads out over nearly 750 miles (1,200 km) from north to south, with an average width of 200 miles (320 km). It covers a region of around 149,200 square miles (386,400 square km)—bigger than the region of Japan—and its surface is about 90 feet (27 meters) below sea level. The sea bed in the southern part reaches as low as 1,023 m (3,356 ft) below sea level, which is the second lowest natural depression on earth after Lake Baikal (−1,180 m, −3,871 ft). The ancient inhabitants of its coast perceived the Caspian Sea as an ocean, probably because of its saltiness and large size.

The word Caspian is derived from the name of the Caspi, an ancient people who lived to the southwest of the sea in Transcaucasia. Strabo wrote that "to the country of the Albanians belongs also the territory called Caspiane, which was named after the Caspian tribe, as was also the sea; but the tribe has now disappeared". Moreover, the Caspian Gates, which is the name of a region in Iran's Tehran province, possibly indicates that they migrated to the south of the sea. The Iranian city of Qazvin shares the root of its name with that of the sea. In fact, the traditional Arabic name for the sea itself is Baḥr al-Qazwin (Sea of Qazvin).

In classical antiquity among Greeks and Persians it was called the "Hyrcanian Ocean". In Persian antiquity, as well as in modern Iran, it is known as, "Daryā-e Khazar"; it is also sometimes referred to as "Mazandaran Sea" () in Iran. Ancient Arabic sources refer to it as "Baḥr Gīlān" (بحر گیلان) meaning "the Gilan Sea".

Turkic languages refer to the lake as "Khazar Sea". In Turkmen, the name is, in Azeri, it is, and in modern Turkish, it is. In all these cases, the second word simply means "sea", and the first word refers to the historical Khazars who had a large empire based to the north of the Caspian Sea between the 7th and 10th centuries. An exception is Kazakh, where it is called, "Kaspiy teñizi" (Caspian Sea).

Renaissance European maps labelled it as "Abbacuch Sea" (Oronce Fine's 1531 world map), "Mar de Bachu" (Ortellius' 1570 map), or "Mar de Sala" (Mercator's 1569 map).

Old Russian sources call it the "Khvalyn" or "Khvalis" Sea (Хвалынское море / Хвалисское море) after the name of Khwarezmia. In modern Russian, it is called, "Kaspiyskoye more".

The Caspian Sea, like the Black Sea, Namak Lake, and Lake Urmia, is a remnant of the ancient Paratethys Sea. It became landlocked about 5.5 million years ago due to tectonic uplift and a fall in sea level. During warm and dry climatic periods, the landlocked sea almost dried up, depositing evaporitic sediments like halite that were covered by wind-blown deposits and were sealed off as an evaporite sink when cool, wet climates refilled the basin. (Comparable evaporite beds underlie the Mediterranean.) Due to the current inflow of fresh water, the Caspian Sea is a freshwater lake in its northern portions, and is most saline on the Iranian shore, where the catchment basin contributes little flow. Currently, the mean salinity of the Caspian is one third that of Earth's oceans. The Garabogazköl embayment, which dried up when water flow from the main body of the Caspian was blocked in the 1980s but has since been restored, routinely exceeds oceanic salinity by a factor of 10.

The Caspian Sea is the largest inland body of water in the world and accounts for 40 to 44% of the total lacustrine waters of the world. The coastlines of the Caspian are shared by Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan. The Caspian is divided into three distinct physical regions: the Northern, Middle, and Southern Caspian. The Northern–Middle boundary is the Mangyshlak Threshold, which runs through Chechen Island and Cape Tiub-Karagan. The Middle–Southern boundary is the Apsheron Threshold, a sill of tectonic origin between the Eurasian continent and an oceanic remnant, that runs through Zhiloi Island and Cape Kuuli. The Garabogazköl Bay is the saline eastern inlet of the Caspian, which is part of Turkmenistan and at times has been a lake in its own right due to the isthmus that cuts it off from the Caspian.

Differences between the three regions are dramatic. The Northern Caspian only includes the Caspian shelf, and is very shallow; it accounts for less than 1% of the total water volume with an average depth of only. The sea noticeably drops off towards the Middle Caspian, where the average depth is. The Southern Caspian is the deepest, with oceanic depths of over, greatly exceeding the depth of other regional seas, such as the Persian Gulf. The Middle and Southern Caspian account for 33% and 66% of the total water volume, respectively. The northern portion of the Caspian Sea typically freezes in the winter, and in the coldest winters ice forms in the south as well.

Over 130 rivers provide inflow to the Caspian, with the Volga River being the largest. A second affluent, the Ural River, flows in from the north, and the Kura River flows into the sea from the west. In the past, the Amu Darya (Oxus) of Central Asia in the east often changed course to empty into the Caspian through a now-desiccated riverbed called the Uzboy River, as did the Syr Darya farther north. The Caspian also has several small islands; they are primarily located in the north and have a collective land area of roughly. Adjacent to the North Caspian is the Caspian Depression, a low-lying region below sea level. The Central Asian steppes stretch across the northeast coast, while the Caucasus mountains hug the western shore. The biomes to both the north and east are characterized by cold, continental deserts. Conversely, the climate to the southwest and south are generally warm with uneven elevation due to a mix of highlands and mountain ranges; the drastic changes in climate alongside the Caspian have led to a great deal of biodiversity in the region.

The Caspian Sea has numerous islands throughout, all of them near the coasts; none in the deeper parts of the sea. Ogurja Ada is the largest island. The island is long, with gazelles roaming freely on it. In the North Caspian, the majority of the islands are small and uninhabited, like the Tyuleniy Archipelago, an Important Bird Area (IBA), although some of them have human settlements.

The Caspian has characteristics common to both seas and lakes. It is often listed as the world's largest lake, although it is not a freshwater lake. It contains about 3.5 times more water, by volume, than all five of North America's Great Lakes combined. The Caspian was once part of the Tethys Ocean, but became landlocked about 5.5 million years ago due to plate tectonics. The Volga River (about 80% of the inflow) and the Ural River discharge into the Caspian Sea, but it has no natural outflow other than by evaporation. Thus the Caspian ecosystem is a closed basin, with its own sea level history that is independent of the eustatic level of the world's oceans.

The level of the Caspian has fallen and risen, often rapidly, many times over the centuries. Some Russian historians claim that a medieval rising of the Caspian, perhaps caused by the Amu Darya changing its inflow to the Caspian from the 13th century to the 16th century, caused the coastal towns of Khazaria, such as Atil, to flood. In 2004, the water level was below sea level.

Over the centuries, Caspian Sea levels have changed in synchrony with the estimated discharge of the Volga, which in turn depends on rainfall levels in its vast catchment basin. Precipitation is related to variations in the amount of North Atlantic depressions that reach the interior, and they in turn are affected by cycles of the North Atlantic oscillation. Thus levels in the Caspian Sea relate to atmospheric conditions in the North Atlantic, thousands of miles to the northwest.

The last short-term sea-level cycle started with a sea-level fall of from 1929 to 1977, followed by a rise of from 1977 until 1995. Since then smaller oscillations have taken place.

The Volga River, the largest in Europe, drains 20% of the European land area and is the source of 80% of the Caspian's inflow. Its lower reaches are heavily developed with numerous unregulated releases of chemical and biological pollutants. Although existing data is sparse and of questionable quality, there is ample evidence to suggest that the Volga is one of the principal sources of transboundary contaminants into the Caspian.

The magnitude of fossil fuel extraction and transport activity in the Caspian also poses a risk to the environment. The island of Vulf off Baku, for example, has suffered ecological damage as a result of the petrochemical industry; this has significantly decreased the number of species of marine birds in the area. Existing and planned oil and gas pipelines under the sea further increase the potential threat to the environment.

The Vladimir Filanovsky field in the Russian section of the body of water was discovered for its wealth of oil in 2005. It is reportedly the largest discovery of oil in 25 years. It was announced in October 2016 that Lukoil would start production in this region.

The rising level of the Caspian Sea between 1994 and 1996 reduced the number of habitats for rare species of aquatic vegetation. This has been attributed to a general lack of seeding material in newly formed coastal lagoons and water bodies.

The Caspian turtle ("Mauremys caspica"), although found in neighboring areas, is a wholly freshwater species. The zebra mussel is native to the Caspian and Black Sea basins, but has become an invasive species elsewhere, when introduced. The area has given its name to several species, including the Caspian gull and the Caspian tern. The Caspian seal ("Pusa caspica") is the only aquatic mammal and is endemic to the Caspian Sea, being one of very few seal species that live in inland waters, but it is different from the those inhabiting freshwaters due to the hydrological environment of the sea.

Archeological studies of Gobustan petroglyphs indicate that there once had been dolphins and porpoises, or a certain species of beaked whales and a whaling scene indicates large baleen whales likely being present in Caspian Sea at least until when the Caspian Sea ceased being a part of the ocean system or until the Quaternary or much more recent periods such as until the last glacial period or antiquity. Although the rock art on Kichikdash Mountain is assumed to be of a dolphin or of a beaked whale, it might instead represent the famous beluga sturgeon due to its size (430 cm in length), but fossil records suggest certain ancestors of modern dolphins and whales, such as "Macrokentriodon morani" (bottlenose dolphins) and "Balaenoptera sibbaldina" (blue whales) were presumably larger than their present descendants. From the same artworks, auks, like Brunnich's Guillemot could also have been in the sea as well, and these petroglyphs suggest marine inflow between the current Caspian Sea and the Arctic Ocean or North Sea, or the Black Sea. This is supported by the existences of current endemic, oceanic species such as lagoon cockles which was genetically identified to originate in Caspian/Black Seas regions.

The sea's basin (including associated waters such as rivers) has 160 native species and subspecies of fish in more than 60 genera. About 62% of the species and subspecies are endemic, as are 4–6 genera (depending on taxonomic treatment). The lake proper has 115 natives, including 73 endemics (63.5%). Among the more than 50 genera in the lake proper, 3–4 are endemic: "Anatirostrum", "Caspiomyzon", "Chasar" (often included in "Ponticola") and "Hyrcanogobius". By far the most numerous families in the lake proper are gobies (35 species and subspecies), cyprinids (32) and clupeids (22). Two particularly rich genera are "Alosa" with 18 endemic species/subspecies and "Benthophilus" with 16 endemic species. Other examples of endemics are four species of "Clupeonella", "Gobio volgensis", two "Rutilus", three "Sabanejewia", "Stenodus leucichthys", two "Salmo", two "Mesogobius" and three "Neogobius". Most non-endemic natives are either shared with the Black Sea basin or widespread Palearctic species such as crucian carp, Prussian carp, common carp, common bream, common bleak, asp, white bream, sunbleak, common dace, common roach, common rudd, European chub, sichel, tench, European weatherfish, wels catfish, northern pike, burbot, European perch and zander. Almost 30 non-indigenous, introduced fish species have been reported from the Caspian Sea, but only a few have become established.

Six sturgeon species, the Russian, bastard, Persian, sterlet, starry and beluga, are native to the Caspian Sea. The last of these is arguably the largest freshwater fish in the world. The sturgeon yield roe (eggs) that are processed into caviar. Overfishing has depleted a number of the historic fisheries. In recent years, overfishing has threatened the sturgeon population to the point that environmentalists advocate banning sturgeon fishing completely until the population recovers. The high price of sturgeon caviar, however, allows fishermen to afford bribes to ensure the authorities look the other way, making regulations in many locations ineffective. Caviar harvesting further endangers the fish stocks, since it targets reproductive females.

Many rare and endemic plant species of Russia are associated with the tidal areas of the Volga delta and riparian forests of the Samur River delta. The shoreline is also a unique refuge for plants adapted to the loose sands of the Central Asian Deserts. The principal limiting factors to successful establishment of plant species are hydrological imbalances within the surrounding deltas, water pollution, and various land reclamation activities. The water level change within the Caspian Sea is an indirect reason for which plants may not get established.

These affect aquatic plants of the Volga Delta, such as "Aldrovanda vesiculosa" and the native "Nelumbo caspica". About 11 plant species are found in the Samur River Delta, including the unique liana forests that date back to the Tertiary period.

Reptiles native to the region include spur-thighed tortoise ("Testudo graeca buxtoni") and Horsfield's tortoise.

The history of the Caspian sea is divided into two parts: a Miocene stage, determined by tectonic events that correlate with the closing of the Tethys Sea, and a Pleistocene stage, that includes glaciation cycles and the creation of the present Volga River. During the first stage, the Tethys Sea had evolved into the Sarmatian Lake, that was created from the modern Black Sea and south Caspian, when the collision of the Arabian peninsula with Western Asia pushed up the Kopet Dag and Caucasus Mountains, setting definitive south and west boundaries to the Caspian basin. This orogeneic movement was continuous throughout the years, while Caspian was regularly disconnecting from the Black Sea. In the late Pontian, a mountain arch rose across the south basin and divided it in the Khachmaz and Lankaran Lakes (or early Balaxani). The period of restriction to the south basin was reversed during the Akchagyglian, when the lake expanded to more than three times its present area and established the first of a series of contacts with the Black Sea and with Lake Aral. A recession of the lake Akchagyl completed stage one.

The earliest hominid remains found around the Caspian Sea are from Dmanisi dating back to around 1.8 Ma and yielded a number of skeletal remains of Homo erectus or Homo ergaster. More later evidence for human occupation of the region came from a number of caves in Georgia and Azerbaijan such as Kudaro and Azykh Caves. There is evidence for Lower Palaeolithic human occupation south of the Caspian from western Alburz. These are Ganj Par and Darband Cave sites.

Neanderthal remains also have been discovered at a cave site in Georgia. Discoveries in the Huto cave and the adjacent Kamarband cave, near the town of Behshahr, Mazandaran south of the Caspian in Iran, suggest human habitation of the area as early as 11,000 years ago.

The Caspian area is rich in energy resources. Oil wells were being dug in the region as early as the 10th century to reach oil "for use in everyday life, both for medicinal purposes and for heating and lighting in homes". By the 16th century, Europeans were aware of the rich oil and gas deposits around the area. English traders Thomas Bannister and Jeffrey Duckett described the area around Baku as "a strange thing to behold, for there issueth out of the ground a marvelous quantity of oil, which serveth all the country to burn in their houses. This oil is black and is called nefte. There is also by the town of Baku, another kind of oil which is white and very precious [i.e., petroleum]."

In the 18th century, during the rule of Peter I the Great, Fedor I. Soimonov, hydrographer and pioneering explorer of the Caspian Sea charted the until then little known body of water. Soimonov drew a set of four maps and wrote "Pilot of the Caspian Sea", the first report and modern maps of the Caspian, that were published in 1720 by the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Today, oil and gas platforms abound along the edges of the sea.Countries on the Caspian region, such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, illustrate the examples of natural-resource-based economies. A resource-based economy is defined as one where the natural resources, gas and oil, compose more that 10 percent of the particular country's GDP and 40 percent of exports' All the Caspian region economies are highly dependent on the mineral wealth. The world energy markets got influenced by Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, as they became strategically crucial in this sphere, thus attracting the largest share of FDI (foreign direct investment).

Iran has an enormous energy potential based on several specific factors: 137.5 billion bbl of crude oil reserves, the second largest in the world, Producing around 4 million bbl/day. Additionally, Iran has an estimated 988.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, around 16 percent of total world reserves, which makes it to play a key role in the global energy security equation.

Russia's economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russia's extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it the second leading producer of oil and natural gas globally.

The Caspian Sea region presently is a significant, but not major, supplier of crude oil to world markets, based upon estimates by BP Amoco and the U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy. The Caspian region produced an estimated 1.4–1.5 million barrels per day (bbls/day) including natural gas liquids in 2001, or 1.9% of total world output (table 1).3 More than a dozen non-Caspian countries each produce more than 1.5 million bbls/day. Caspian region production has been higher, but suffered during the collapse of the Soviet Union and the years following. Kazakhstan accounts for 55% and Azerbaijan for about 20% of current regional oil output.

The world's first offshore wells and machine-drilled wells were made in Bibi-Heybat Bay, near Baku, Azerbaijan. In 1873, exploration and development of oil began in some of the largest fields known to exist in the world at that time on the Absheron Peninsula near the villages of Balakhanli, Sabunchi, Ramana, and Bibi Heybat. Total recoverable reserves were more than 500 million tons. By 1900, Baku had more than 3,000 oil wells, 2,000 of which were producing at industrial levels. By the end of the 19th century, Baku became known as the "black gold capital", and many skilled workers and specialists flocked to the city.

By the beginning of the 20th century, Baku was the centre of international oil industry. In 1920, when the Bolsheviks captured Azerbaijan, all private property – including oil wells and factories – was confiscated. Afterwards, the republic's entire oil industry came under the control of the Soviet Union. By 1941, Azerbaijan was producing a record 23.5 million tons of oil per year, and the Baku region supplied nearly 72 percent of all oil extracted in the entire Soviet Union.

In 1994, the "Contract of the Century" was signed, signalling the start of major international development of the Baku oil fields. The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline, a major pipeline allowing Azerbaijan oil to flow straight to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, opened in 2006.

Baku, which is the starting point of all sea routes of Azerbaijan, is the largest port of the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan has access to the oceans along the Caspian Sea-Volga-Volga-Don Canal, and the Don-Sea of Azov. Along with the Volga-Don Canal, the Azerbaijani vessels have the opportunity to enter the world ocean through the Volga-Baltic and White Sea-Baltic canals. Moreover, oil tankers are being transported through the Caspian Sea. Baku Sea Trade Port and Caspian Shipping Company CJSC, have a big role in the sea transportation of Azerbaijan. The Caspian Sea Shipping Company CJSC, along with the transport fleet, also includes a specialized fleet and shipyards. The transport fleet consists of 51 vessels, including 20 tankers, 13 ferries, 15 universal dry cargo vessels, 2 Ro-Ro vessels, as well as 1 technical vessel and 1 floating workshop. The specialized fleet includes 210 vessels, including 20 cranes, 25 towing and supplying vehicles, 26 passenger, two pipe-laying, six fire-fighting, seven engineering-geological, two diving and 88 auxiliary vessels.

The Caspian Sea Shipping Company of Azerbaijan, which acts as a liaison in the Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia (TRACECA), simultaneously with the transportation of cargo and passengers in the Trans-Caspian direction, also performs work to fully ensure the processes of oil and gas production at sea. This activity has a rich history. The development of the shipping industry in Azerbaijan is closely connected with the formation and progress of the oil industry. In the 19th century, the sharp increase in oil production in Baku gave a huge impetus to the development of shipping in the Caspian Sea, and as a result, there was a need to create fundamentally new floating facilities for the transportation of oil and oil products.

Many of the islands along the Azerbaijani coast continue to hold significant geopolitical and economic importance because of the potential oil reserves found nearby. Bulla Island, Pirallahı Island, and Nargin, which is still used as a former Soviet base and is the largest island in the Baku bay, all hold oil reserves.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent opening of the region has led to an intense investment and development scramble by international oil companies. In 1998, Dick Cheney commented that "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian."

A key problem to further development in the region is the status of the Caspian Sea and the establishment of the water boundaries among the five littoral states. The current disputes along Azerbaijan's maritime borders with Turkmenistan and Iran could potentially affect future development plans.

Much controversy currently exists over the proposed Trans-Caspian oil and gas pipelines. These projects would allow Western markets easier access to Kazakh oil and, potentially, Uzbek and Turkmen gas as well. Russia officially opposes the project on environmental grounds. However, analysts note that the pipelines would bypass Russia completely, thereby denying the country valuable transit fees, as well as destroying its current monopoly on westward-bound hydrocarbon exports from the region. Recently, both Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have expressed their support for the Trans-Caspian Pipeline.

U.S. diplomatic cables disclosed by WikiLeaks revealed that BP covered up a gas leak and blowout incident in September 2008 at an operating gas field in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshi area of the Azerbaijan Caspian Sea.

, negotiations related to the demarcation of the Caspian Sea had been going on for nearly a decade among the states bordering the Caspian – Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Iran. The status of the Caspian Sea is the key problem. Access to mineral resources (oil and natural gas), access for fishing, and access to international waters (through Russia's Volga river and the canals connecting it to the Black Sea and Baltic Sea) all depend upon the outcomes of negotiations. Access to the Volga River is particularly important for the landlocked states of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. This concerns Russia, because the potential traffic would use its inland waterways. If a body of water is labelled as a sea, then there would be some precedents and international treaties obliging the granting of access permits to foreign vessels. If a body of water is labelled merely as a lake, then there are no such obligations. Environmental issues are also somewhat connected to the status and borders issue.

All five Caspian littoral states maintain naval forces on the sea.

According to a treaty signed between Iran and the Soviet Union, the Caspian Sea is technically a lake and was divided into two sectors (Iranian and Soviet), but the resources (then mainly fish) were commonly shared. The line between the two sectors was considered an international border in a common lake, like Lake Albert. The Soviet sector was sub-divided into the four littoral republics' administrative sectors.

Russia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan have bilateral agreements with each other based on median lines. Because of their use by the three nations, median lines seem to be the most likely method of delineating territory in future agreements. However, Iran insists on a single, multilateral agreement between the five nations (as this is the only way for it to achieve a one-fifth share of the sea). Azerbaijan is at odds with Iran over some oil fields that both states claim. Occasionally, Iranian patrol boats have fired at vessels sent by Azerbaijan for exploration into the disputed region. There are similar tensions between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan (the latter claims that the former has pumped more oil than agreed from a field, recognized by both parties as shared).

The Caspian littoral states' meeting in 2007 signed an agreement that bars any ship not flying the national flag of a littoral state from entering the sea.

Negotiations among the five littoral states have been ongoing, amidst ebbs and flows, for the past 20 years, with some degree of progress being made at the fourth Caspian Summit held in Astrakhan in 2014.

The Caspian Summit is a head of state-level meeting of the five littoral states. The fifth Caspian Summit took place on August 12, 2018 in the Kazakh port city of Aktau. The five leaders signed the ‘Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea’.

The five littoral states build consensus on legally binding governance of the Caspian Sea through Special Working Groups of a Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea. In advance of a Caspian Summit, 51st Special Working Group took place in Astana in May 2018 and found consensus on multiple agreements: Agreements on cooperation in the field of transport; trade and economic cooperation; prevention of incidents on the sea; combating terrorism; fighting against organized crime; and border security cooperation.

The Convention grants jurisdiction over 15 miles of territorial waters to each neighboring country, plus additional 10 miles of exclusive fishing rights on the surface, while the rest is international waters. The seabed, on the other hand, remains undefined, subject to bilateral agreements between countries. Thus, the Caspian Sea is legally neither fully a sea nor a lake.

UNECE recognizes several rivers that cross international borders which flow into the Caspian Sea.
These are:
Although the Caspian Sea is endorheic, its main tributary, the Volga, is connected by important shipping canals with the Don River (and thus the Black Sea) and with the Baltic Sea, with branch canals to Northern Dvina and to the White Sea.

Another Caspian tributary, the Kuma River, is connected by an irrigation canal with the Don basin as well.

Several scheduled ferry services (including train ferries) operate on the Caspian Sea, including:

The ferries are mostly used for cargo; only the Baku–Aktau and Baku–Türkmenbaşy routes accept passengers.

As an endorheic basin, the Caspian Sea basin has no natural connection with the ocean. Since the medieval period, traders reached the Caspian via a number of portages that connected the Volga and its tributaries with the Don River (which flows into the Sea of Azov) and various rivers that flow into the Baltic Sea. Primitive canals connecting the Volga Basin with the Baltic have been constructed as early as the early 18th century. Since then, a number of canal projects have been completed.

The two modern canal systems that connect the Volga Basin, and hence the Caspian Sea, with the ocean are the Volga–Baltic Waterway and the Volga–Don Canal.

The proposed Pechora–Kama Canal was a project that was widely discussed between the 1930s and 1980s. Shipping was a secondary consideration. Its main goal was to redirect some of the water of the Pechora River (which flows into the Arctic Ocean) via the Kama River into the Volga. The goals were both irrigation and the stabilization of the water level in the Caspian, which was thought to be falling dangerously fast at the time. During 1971, some peaceful nuclear construction experiments were carried out in the region by the U.S.S.R.

In June 2007, in order to boost his oil-rich country's access to markets, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed a link between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. It is hoped that the "Eurasia Canal" (Manych Ship Canal) would transform landlocked Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries into maritime states, enabling them to significantly increase trade volume. Although the canal would traverse Russian territory, it would benefit Kazakhstan through its Caspian Sea ports. The most likely route for the canal, the officials at the Committee on Water Resources at Kazakhstan's Agriculture Ministry say, would follow the Kuma–Manych Depression, where currently a chain of rivers and lakes is already connected by an irrigation canal (Kuma–Manych Canal). Upgrading the Volga–Don Canal would be another option.

Caspian Sea

The sea has a surface area of 371,000 km (143,200 sq mi) (not including the detached lagoon of Garabogazköl) and a volume of 78,200 km(18,800 cu mi). It has a salinity of approximately 1.2% (12 g/l), about a third of the salinity of most seawater.

In classical antiquity among Greeks and Persians it was called the "Hyrcanian Ocean". In Persian antiquity, as well as in modern Iran, it is known as, "Daryā-e Khazar"; it is also sometimes referred to as "Mazandaran Sea" () in Iran. Ancient Arabic sources refer to it as "Baḥr Gīlān" (بحر گیلان) meaning "the Gilan Sea".

Turkic languages refer to the lake as "Khazar Sea". In Turkmen, the name is, in Azeri, it is, and in modern Turkish, it is. In all these cases, the second word simply means "sea", and the first word refers to the historical Khazars who had a large empire based to the north of the Caspian Sea between the 7th and 10th centuries. An exception is Kazakh, where it is called, "Kaspiy teñizi" (Caspian Sea).

Renaissance European maps labelled it as "Abbacuch Sea" (Oronce Fine's 1531 world map), "Mar de Bachu" (Ortellius' 1570 map), or "Mar de Sala" (Mercator's 1569 map).

Old Russian sources call it the "Khvalyn" or "Khvalis" Sea (Хвалынское море / Хвалисское море) after the name of Khwarezmia. In modern Russian, it is called, "Kaspiyskoye more".

The Caspian Sea has numerous islands throughout, all of them near the coasts; none in the deeper parts of the sea. Ogurja Ada is the largest island. The island is long, with gazelles roaming freely on it. In the North Caspian, the majority of the islands are small and uninhabited, like the Tyuleniy Archipelago, an Important Bird Area (IBA), although some of them have human settlements.

The level of the Caspian has fallen and risen, often rapidly, many times over the centuries. Some Russian historians claim that a medieval rising of the Caspian, perhaps caused by the Amu Darya changing its inflow to the Caspian from the 13th century to the 16th century, caused the coastal towns of Khazaria, such as Atil, to flood. In 2004, the water level was below sea level.

The last short-term sea-level cycle started with a sea-level fall of from 1929 to 1977, followed by a rise of from 1977 until 1995. Since then smaller oscillations have taken place.

The Vladimir Filanovsky field in the Russian section of the body of water was discovered for its wealth of oil in 2005. It is reportedly the largest discovery of oil in 25 years. It was announced in October 2016 that Lukoil would start production in this region.

The rising level of the Caspian Sea between 1994 and 1996 reduced the number of habitats for rare species of aquatic vegetation. This has been attributed to a general lack of seeding material in newly formed coastal lagoons and water bodies.

These affect aquatic plants of the Volga Delta, such as "Aldrovanda vesiculosa" and the native "Nelumbo caspica". About 11 plant species are found in the Samur River Delta, including the unique liana forests that date back to the Tertiary period.

Reptiles native to the region include spur-thighed tortoise ("Testudo graeca buxtoni") and Horsfield's tortoise.

Neanderthal remains also have been discovered at a cave site in Georgia. Discoveries in the Huto cave and the adjacent Kamarband cave, near the town of Behshahr, Mazandaran south of the Caspian in Iran, suggest human habitation of the area as early as 11,000 years ago.

In the 18th century, during the rule of Peter I the Great, Fedor I. Soimonov, hydrographer and pioneering explorer of the Caspian Sea charted the until then little known body of water. Soimonov drew a set of four maps and wrote "Pilot of the Caspian Sea", the first report and modern maps of the Caspian, that were published in 1720 by the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Iran has an enormous energy potential based on several specific factors: 137.5 billion bbl of crude oil reserves, the second largest in the world, Producing around 4 million bbl/day. Additionally, Iran has an estimated 988.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, around 16 percent of total world reserves, which makes it to play a key role in the global energy security equation.

Russia's economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russia's extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it the second leading producer of oil and natural gas globally.

In 1994, the "Contract of the Century" was signed, signalling the start of major international development of the Baku oil fields. The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline, a major pipeline allowing Azerbaijan oil to flow straight to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, opened in 2006.

Many of the islands along the Azerbaijani coast continue to hold significant geopolitical and economic importance because of the potential oil reserves found nearby. Bulla Island, Pirallahı Island, and Nargin, which is still used as a former Soviet base and is the largest island in the Baku bay, all hold oil reserves.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent opening of the region has led to an intense investment and development scramble by international oil companies. In 1998, Dick Cheney commented that "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian."

A key problem to further development in the region is the status of the Caspian Sea and the establishment of the water boundaries among the five littoral states. The current disputes along Azerbaijan's maritime borders with Turkmenistan and Iran could potentially affect future development plans.

U.S. diplomatic cables disclosed by WikiLeaks revealed that BP covered up a gas leak and blowout incident in September 2008 at an operating gas field in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshi area of the Azerbaijan Caspian Sea.

All five Caspian littoral states maintain naval forces on the sea.

According to a treaty signed between Iran and the Soviet Union, the Caspian Sea is technically a lake and was divided into two sectors (Iranian and Soviet), but the resources (then mainly fish) were commonly shared. The line between the two sectors was considered an international border in a common lake, like Lake Albert. The Soviet sector was sub-divided into the four littoral republics' administrative sectors.

The Caspian littoral states' meeting in 2007 signed an agreement that bars any ship not flying the national flag of a littoral state from entering the sea.

Negotiations among the five littoral states have been ongoing, amidst ebbs and flows, for the past 20 years, with some degree of progress being made at the fourth Caspian Summit held in Astrakhan in 2014.

The Caspian Summit is a head of state-level meeting of the five littoral states. The fifth Caspian Summit took place on August 12, 2018 in the Kazakh port city of Aktau. The five leaders signed the ‘Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea’.

The Convention grants jurisdiction over 15 miles of territorial waters to each neighboring country, plus additional 10 miles of exclusive fishing rights on the surface, while the rest is international waters. The seabed, on the other hand, remains undefined, subject to bilateral agreements between countries. Thus, the Caspian Sea is legally neither fully a sea nor a lake.

UNECE recognizes several rivers that cross international borders which flow into the Caspian Sea.
These are:
Although the Caspian Sea is endorheic, its main tributary, the Volga, is connected by important shipping canals with the Don River (and thus the Black Sea) and with the Baltic Sea, with branch canals to Northern Dvina and to the White Sea.

Another Caspian tributary, the Kuma River, is connected by an irrigation canal with the Don basin as well.

Several scheduled ferry services (including train ferries) operate on the Caspian Sea, including:

The ferries are mostly used for cargo; only the Baku–Aktau and Baku–Türkmenbaşy routes accept passengers.

The two modern canal systems that connect the Volga Basin, and hence the Caspian Sea, with the ocean are the Volga–Baltic Waterway and the Volga–Don Canal.


What years did Sorley MacLean live?

Sorley MacLean (; 26 October 1911 – 24 November 1996) was a Scottish Gaelic poet, described by the Scottish Poetry Library as "one of the major Scottish poets of the modern era" because of his "mastery of his chosen medium and his engagement with the European poetic tradition and European politics". Nobel Prize Laureate Seamus Heaney credited MacLean with saving Scottish Gaelic poetry.

Sorley MacLean

He was raised in a strict Presbyterian family on the island of Raasay, immersed in Gaelic culture and literature from birth, but abandoned religion for socialism. In the late 1930s, he befriended many Scottish Renaissance figures, such as Hugh MacDiarmid and Douglas Young. He was wounded three times while serving with the British Army during the Second World War. MacLean published little after the war, due to his perfectionism. In 1956, he became head teacher at Plockton High School, where he advocated for the use of the Gaelic language in formal education.

In his poetry, MacLean juxtaposed traditional Gaelic elements with mainstream European elements, frequently comparing the Highland Clearances with contemporary events, especially the Spanish Civil War. His work was a unique fusion of traditional and modern elements that has been credited with restoring Gaelic tradition to its proper place and reinvigorating and modernizing the Gaelic language. Although his most influential works, "Dàin do Eimhir" and "An Cuilthionn", were published in 1943, MacLean did not become well known until the 1970s, when his works were published in English translation. His later poem "Hallaig", published 1954, achieved "cult status" outside Gaelic-speaking circles for its supernatural representation of a village depopulated in the Highland Clearances and came to represent all Scottish Gaelic poetry in the English-speaking imagination.

Sorley MacLean was born at Òsgaig on the island of Raasay on 26 October 1911; Scottish Gaelic was his first language. Before he went to school at the age of six, he spoke very little English. He was the second of five sons born to Malcolm (1880–1951) and Christina MacLean (1886–1974). The family owend a small croft and ran a tailoring business, but they later gave up the croft to move to a better house, which proved detrimental to their finances when the Great Depression took a high toll on the tailoring business. His brothers were John Maclean (1910–1970), a schoolteacher and later rector of Oban High School, who was also a piper; Calum Maclean (1915–1960), a noted folklorist and ethnographer; and Alasdair (1918–1999) and Norman (c.1917–c.1980), who became general practitioners. Sorley's two younger sisters, Isobel and Mary, were also schoolteachers. His patronymic was Somhairle mac Chaluim 'ic Chaluim 'ic Iain 'ic Tharmaid 'ic Iain 'ic Tharmaid; he could not trace his genealogy with certainty to the eighth generation.

At home, he was steeped in Gaelic culture and beul-aithris (the oral tradition), especially old songs. His mother, a Nicolson, had been raised near Portree, although her family was of Lochalsh origin; her family had been involved in Highland Land League activism for tenant rights. His father owned had been raised on Raasay, but his family was originally from North Uist and, before that, probably Mull. Both sides of the family had been evicted during the Highland Clearances, of which many people in the community still had a clear recollection. Both his mother's and father's families contained individuals who were considered accomplished by their communities, whether through formal education or extensive knowledge of the oral tradition.

What MacLean learned of the history of the Gaels, especially of the Clearances, had a significant impact on his worldview and politics. On his mother's side were three noteworthy singers, two pipers, and a village bard. Of especial note was MacLean's paternal grandmother, Mary Matheson, whose family had been evicted from Lochalsh in the 18th century. Until her death in 1923, she lived with the family and taught MacLean many traditional songs from Kintail and Lochalsh, as well as Skye. As a child, MacLean enjoyed fishing trips with his aunt Peigi, who taught him other songs. Unlike other members of his family, MacLean could not sing, a fact that he connected with his impetus to write poetry.

MacLean was raised in the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which he described as "the strictest of Calvinist fundamentalism". Calvinism taught that God would save a small portion of humanity, the elect, while the vast majority were doomed by the sinfulness inherent in human nature. Only 5% of the congregation took communion; the remainder were considered mere "adherents" who were probably destined for eternal torment in hell. Free Presbyterians believed that the Free Church was too lenient, let alone the Church of Scotland. They prohibited any form of amusement on the Sabbath, but had a rich tradition of unaccompanied psalm singing.

MacLean later said that he had abandoned religion for socialism at the age of twelve, as he refused to accept that a majority of human beings were consigned to eternal damnation. Nevertheless, the pessimism of the Calvinist tradition had a strong impact on his world-view, and he also retained "a puritanical contempt for mere worldly riches and power". Later in life, he had a complicated view of the church and religion. Although he criticized the church's suppression of Gaelic song and the oral tradition and the negative effect of church teachings on some social groups, especially women, Professor Donald Meek pointed out that at times MacLean seemed to articulate the ideas of liberation theology. MacLean defended the Free Presbyterian Church against opponents who had little familiarity with it, once describing Free Presbyterian elders as "saintly, just saintly men". Sometimes he even altered his poetry to avoid offending the religious members of his family. He also admired the literary sophistication and creativity of Protestant sermons in Gaelic. The wide vocabulary, high register, and passion of these sermons had a significant impact on his poetic style.

He was educated at Raasay Primary School and Portree Secondary School. In 1929, he left home to attend the University of Edinburgh. For economic reasons, he chose to study English instead of Celtic. He disliked the head of the English department, Herbert Grierson, who favoured different poets than MacLean; MacLean felt that Grierson imposed his aesthetic preferences on the department. MacLean's academic work has been described as merely "dutiful". While at Edinburgh, MacLean also took classes in the Celtic department, then under William J. Watson. He was involved in left-wing politics, literary circles, and the university shinty team. MacLean later described an occasion in which he had demonstrated against Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. According to Celtic scholar Emma Dymock, MacLean's education at Edinburgh broadened his horizons and the city itself was significant in his life. While in Edinburgh, he observed urban poverty, slums, and overcrowding, especially severe due to the Great Depression. After his graduation in 1933 with a first-class degree, rather than pursuing postgraduate studies he remained in Edinburgh and spent a year at Moray House Teachers' Training College, where he met Hugh MacDiarmid.

In 1934, he returned to Skye to teach English at Portree High School. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, he considered volunteering to fight in the International Brigades; according to his daughter, he would have gone if not for family responsibilities. At the time, his mother was seriously ill and his father's business was failing. In January 1938, MacLean accepted a teaching position at Tobermory High School on Mull, where he stayed until December. The year he spent on Mull had a profound effect on him, because Mull was still devastated from nineteenth-century clearances in which many MacLeans had been evicted. MacLean later said, "I believe Mull had much to do with my poetry: its physical beauty, so different from Skye’s, with the terrible imprint of the clearances on it, made it almost intolerable for a Gael." He believed that fascism was likely to emerge victorious in Europe, and was further dismayed by the continuing decline of the Gaelic language.

Between 1939 and 1941, he taught at Boroughmuir High School in Edinburgh, and in Hawick. During this period, he wrote most of the poetry that would become "Dàin do Eimhir", including the epic "An Cuilthionn". MacLean cultivated friendships with Scottish Renaissance poets, including MacDiarmid, Robert Garioch, Norman MacCaig, Douglas Young, and George Campbell Hay. MacLean, also a noted historian, published two influential papers on nineteenth-century Gaelic poetry in "Transactions of the " in 1938 and 1939, which challenged the Celtic Twilight view of Gaelic literature. MacLean accused the "Celtic Twilightists" with "attributing to Gaelic poetry the very opposite of every quality which it actually has", at which they only succeeded because they catered to a credulous English-speaking audience. He pointed out that the apparent sentimentality or impotence of the corpus of Clearance poetry may have been an artefact of the fact that landlords would not have preserved poetry critical of them. His use of Gaelic poetry as a potential source material for historical studies was extremely innovative at the time.

Upon the outbreak of war in 1939, MacLean wanted to volunteer for the Cameron Highlanders but was prevented due to the shortage of teachers. He was drafted into the Royal Corps of Signals in September 1940 and was sent overseas to North Africa in December 1941. In the North African Campaign, he served with the Royal Horse Artillery and was wounded on three occasions, but on the first two not severely enough to be classified as a casualty. His military career ended in November 1942 during the Second Battle of El Alamein, when he was at a command post when a land mine exploded nearby, throwing MacLean thirty feet through the air. He was wounded in the leg and broke several bones in his feet. MacLean wrote a few poems about the war in which he challenged the traditional Gaelic exaltation of heroism, exemplified by the lament for Alasdair of Glengarry; he viewed physical courage as morally neutral, since it was also valued by Nazis and used for evil ends.

MacLean returned to Britain for convalescence in March 1943. He was discharged from Raigmore Hospital in Inverness in August 1943 and released from the army in September. In the fall of 1943, he resumed teaching at Boroughmuir, where he met Renee Cameron in 1944. They married on 24 July 1946 in Inverness and had three daughters and six grandchildren. According to friends, their marriage was happy and peaceful, as they complemented each other well, and MacLean "mellowed" with age and family life. He had never been a member of the Communist Party, and the Soviet occupation of Poland after the war caused MacLean to become disillusioned with the Soviet Union and Stalinism. He retained his socialist world-view and strong belief in social justice. During this period, he frequently reviewed poetry and continued to make friends in literary circles, including younger poets such as Iain Crichton Smith and George Mackay Brown. He became particularly close to Sydney Goodsir Smith, who shared a flat with MacLean and his family for more than a year. In 1947 he was promoted to Principal Teacher of English at Boroughmuir, but MacLean wanted to return to the western Highlands.

In 1956, MacLean was offered the position of head teacher of Plockton High School in Wester Ross, not far from where his paternal grandmother's family had lived. It was a difficult assignment as the remote location was not attractive to teacher candidates, and MacLean frequently had to teach himself due to vacancies. While at Plockton, he promoted the use of Scottish Gaelic in formal education and campaigned for a Highers exam for learners of Gaelic. Before 1968, there was no separate exam for Gaelic learners, who had to compete with native speakers if they took Gaelic Highers. MacLean felt that this unfair policy discouraged many students from studying Gaelic, although he encouraged his students to take the exam even if they were not native speakers. In 1966, he presented a paper to the Gaelic Society of Inverness outlining the practical issues in Gaelic education. MacLean pointed out that in continental Europe, it was not uncommon to study three or four languages in school. According to MacLean, Scottish children would benefit from studying three languages in school alongside English, and "surely it is not expecting too much of Gaelic patriotism to demand that Gaelic should be one of the three?" MacLean set high academic expectations for his students and also promoted shinty; in 1965, the Plockton team won the cup for Ross and Cromarty.

MacLean's many friends and visitors commented on his prodigious knowledge and deep interest in genealogy and local history. He continued to participate in left-wing politics, eventually joining the Scottish Labour Party. During his later years, he published few poems due to his "concern with quality and authenticity over quantity"; his family responsibilities and career left him little spare time to write. MacLean said that he had burned his poetry instead of publishing it because of his "long years of grinding school-teaching and [his] addiction to an impossible lyric ideal".
After his retirement in 1972, MacLean moved to his great-grandmother's house at Peinnachorrain in Braes on Skye, with views over the Sound of Raasay, where he entertained frequently. Following the English publication of his poetry, he began be in demand internationally for poetry readings, for which he traveled to such places as Rotterdam, Baddeck Cape Breton, and Berlin. MacLean was writer in residence at the University of Edinburgh from 1973 to 1975, where he reportedly kept an open door and warm welcome for aspiring Gaelic poets. Later, he was the first "filidh" at the recently founded Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, a Gaelic-medium university on Skye, from 1975 to 1976. He was involved in founding the institution and also served on its board. In 1993, his daughter Catrìona died at the age of 41; MacLean and his wife helped to raise her three children. The poet died of natural causes on 24 November 1996, aged 85, at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness.

Before he went to university, MacLean was writing in both English and Gaelic. After writing a Gaelic poem, "A' Chorra-ghritheach" ("The Heron"), in 1932, he decided to write only in Gaelic and burned his earlier poems. MacLean later said, "I was not one who could write poetry if it did not come to me in spite of myself, and if it came, it had to come in Gaelic". However, it is also clear from his correspondence with MacDiarmid that his choice was also motivated by his determination to preserve and develop the Gaelic language. The Gaelic language had been in decline for several centuries; the 1931 census registered 136,135 Gaelic speakers in Scotland, only 3% of the Scottish population. Despite his decision to write in the language, at times MacLean doubted that Gaelic would survive and his poetry would be appreciated.

For 1,500 years, Scottish Gaelic literature had developed a rich corpus of song and poetry across "literary, sub-literary, and non-literate" registers; it retained the ability to convey "an astonishingly wide range of human experience". MacLean's work drew on this "inherited wealth of immemorial generations"; according to MacInnes, few people were as intimately familiar with the entire corpus of Gaelic poetry, written and oral, as MacLean. In particular, MacLean was inspired by the intense love poetry of William Ross, written in the eighteenth century. Of all poetry, MacLean held in highest regard the Scottish Gaelic songs composed before the nineteenth century by anonymous, illiterate poets and passed down via the oral tradition. He once said that Scottish Gaelic song-poetry was "the chief artistic glory of the Scots, and of all people of Celtic speech, and one of the greatest artistic glories of Europe".

MacLean once said that various Communist figures meant more to him than any poet, writing in a letter to Douglas Young in 1941 that "Lenin, Stalin and Dimitroff now mean more to me than Prometheus and Shelley did in my teens". Other left-wing figures that inspired MacLean included James Connolly, an Irish trade union leader executed for leading the Easter Rising; John Maclean, Scottish socialist and pacifist; and John Cornford, Julian Bell, and Federico García Lorca, who were killed by the Francoist regime during the Spanish Civil War. Many of these figures were not Gaels, and some critics have noted MacLean's unusual generosity to non-Gaelic people in his work. Perhaps the one uniting theme in his work is MacLean's anti-elitism and focus on social justice.

Nevertheless, MacLean read widely and was influenced by poets from a variety of styles and eras. Of contemporary poets, Hugh MacDiarmid, Ezra Pound, and William Butler Yeats had the greatest impact. After reading "A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle" by MacDiarmid, MacLean decided to try his hand at extended narrative poetry, resulting in the unfinished "An Cuilthionn". He was also influenced by the Metaphysical school. However, he "had nothing but contempt" for the popular left-wing poets of the 1930s, such as W. H. Auden or Stephen Spender, and sometimes regarded poetry as a useless aesthetic hobby.

In 1940, eight of MacLean's poems were printed in "17 Poems for 6d", along with Scots poems by Robert Garioch. The pamphlet sold better than expected and was reprinted a few weeks later; it received favorable reviews. While MacLean was in North Africa, he left his poetry with Douglas Young, who had promised to help publish it. In November 1943, the poems were published as "" (). "Dàin do Eimhir" was a sequence of sixty numbered poems, with twelve missing; of the other poems, the most significant was the long narrative poem "An Cuilthionn". The book marked a sharp break in style and substance of Gaelic poetry from earlier eras. In his poetry, MacLean emphasized the struggle between love and duty, which was personified in the poet's difficulty in choosing between his infatuation with a female figure, Eimhir, and what he sees as his moral obligation to volunteer in the Spanish Civil War.

The book has been the subject of scholarly debate. Attempting to explain why MacLean's earlier poetry has had the greatest influence, Derick Thomson wrote that it is love poetry which is most timeless, while MacLean's political poetry has not aged as well. According to Maoilios Caimbeul, "There is not, and I doubt there will ever be, a series of love poems" that would have as much influence on Gaelic literature. Ronald Black suggested that "duty [is not]... a comprehensible emotion nowadays" and therefore " the greatest universal in MacLean’s verse is the depiction of that extraordinary psychosis which is called being in love". However, this type of commentary has been criticized as an attempt to depoliticize MacLean's work. Seamus Heaney argued that Eimhir was similar to Beatrice in Dante's "Divine Comedy", in that Eimhir "resolves at a symbolic level tensions which would otherwise be uncontainable or wasteful". Scottish poet Iain Crichton Smith said, "there is a sense in which the Spanish Civil War does not form the background to these poems, but is the protagonist".

MacLean's work was innovative and influential because it juxtaposed elements from Gaelic history and tradition with icons from mainstream European history. He described his poetry as "radiating from Skye and the West Highlands to the whole of Europe". By this juxtaposition, he implicitly asserted the value of the Gaelic tradition and the right of Gaels to participate as equals in the broader cultural landscape. According to John MacInnes, MacLean put the much-denigrated Gaelic language and tradition in its proper place, which has a profound effect on Gaelic-speaking readers and is fundamental to their reading of his poetry. "An Cuilthionn", the mountains of Skye are used as a synecdoche for rifts in European politics, and the suffering of the Gaels due to the Highland Clearances is compared to the suffering of European people under Francoism and other fascist regimes. MacLean frequently compared the injustice of the Highland Clearances with modern-day issues; in his opinion, the greed of the wealthy and powerful was responsible for many tragedies and social problems.

The book won him recognition as "the major force in modern Gaelic poetry", according to "The Cambridge Companion to British Poetry". Caimbeul writes that the poems "capture the uncertainty, pain, yearning, and the search for stability that are at the heart of Modernism". Summarizing the impact of the book, Professor Donald MacAulay wrote, "After the publication of this book Gaelic poetry could never be the same again."

Although his poetry had a profound impact on the Gaelic-speaking world, it was not until the 1970s and 1980s that MacLean's work became accessible in English translation. His poetry was not very accessible to Gaelic speakers either, since "Dàin do Eimhir" was not reprinted. To English-speakers, MacLean remained virtually unknown until 1970, when issue 34 of "Lines Review" was dedicated to his work and some of his poems were reproduced in the anthology "Four Points of the Saltire." In the preface to the collection, Tom Scott forcefully argued for the merit of MacLean's poetry. Iain Crichton Smith published an English translation of "Dàin do Eimhir" in 1971. MacLean was part of the delegation that represented Scotland at the first Cambridge Poetry Festival in 1975, establishing his reputation in England. He was one of five Gaelic poets to be anthologized in the influential 1976 collection "Nua-Bhàrdachd Ghàidhlig / Modern Scottish Gaelic Poems" with verse translations by the authors. MacLean's verse translations were also included in later publications.

In 1977, Canongate Books published "Reothairt is Contraigh: Taghadh de Dhàin 1932-72" (). MacLean changed the ordering of the poems in "Dàin do Eimhir", altering many poems and omitting others. In the original version of "An Cuilthionn", MacLean had called upon the Red Army to liberate Scotland.
This passage was expunged, among other alterations and omissions that led the Scottish Poetry Library to describe the 1977 version as having been "bowdlerized". MacLean said that he would only consent to publishing the parts of his older work that he found "tolerable". The critical acclaim and fame that MacLean achieved was almost entirely from critics that did not understand his poetry in the original Gaelic. In 1989, a further compilation of his poetry, "O Choille gu Bearradh / From Wood to Ridge: Collected Poems in Gaelic and English" won him lasting critical acclaim. Complete annotated editions of his work have since been published.

From the early 1970s, MacLean was in demand internationally as a reader of his own poetry. He would start a reading of a poem by describing the images, then read the poem first in Gaelic and again in English, emphasizing that the translations were not to be read as poems in of themselves. His readings were described as deeply moving even by listeners who did not speak Gaelic; according to Seamus Heaney, "MacLean's voice had a certain bardic weirdness that sounded both stricken and enraptured". Gaelic poet George Campbell Hay wrote in a review that MacLean "is gifted with what the Welsh call Hwyl, the power of elevated declamation, and his declamation is full of feeling." These readings helped establish his international reputation as a poet. MacLean's poetry was also translated into German, and he was invited to poetry readings in Germany and Austria.

In the English-speaking world, MacLean's best-known poem is "Hallaig", a meditation on a Raasay village which had been cleared of its inhabitants. Raasay was cleared between 1852 and 1854; most of its inhabitants were forced to emigrate. Many of MacLean's relatives were affected, and Hallaig was one of the villages to be depopulated. The poem was written a century later, during MacLean's time in Edinburgh, and originally published in 1954 in the Gaelic-language magazine "Gairm". Beginning with the famous line, "Time, the deer, is in the wood of Hallaig", the poem imagines the village as it was before the Clearances, with the long-dead eternally walking through the trees. It is also filled with local names of individuals and places, which have deeper meanings to those intimately familiar with Raasay oral tradition. Unlike most of MacLean's output, "Hallaig" has no overt political references, and never directly mentions eviction or clearance. For this reason, it was seen as politically "safer" than others of MacLean's poems. Translated and promoted by Irish Nobel Prize Laureate Seamus Heaney, "Hallaig" achieved "cult status" and came to symbolize Scottish Gaelic poetry in the English-speaking imagination.

MacLean's poetry generally followed an older style of meter, based on the more dynamic patterns of the oral tradition rather than the strict, static metres of the written Gaelic poetry of the nineteenth century. He frequently combined metrical patters and shifted in the middle of a poem, achieving "sensuous effects" that cannot be translated. He typically used the traditional vowel rhymes, both internal and end-rhymes, that are ubiquitous in the oral tradition, but a few of his poems have less traditional rhyme schemes. However, he was flexible in his use of metre, "[combining] old and new in such a way that neither neutralizes each other," extending rather than repudiating tradition, in a way that is unique in Gaelic poetry. In MacInnes' analysis, "rhythmic patterns become a vital part of the meaning" of MacLean's poetry. Over time, his poems became less strict in their application of rhyme and metre. According to MacInnes, labels such as "classical" and "romantic", which have been applied respectively to the form and content of MacLean's poetry, are misleading because MacLean did not limit himself by those styles. Despite MacLean's reliance on the oral tradition, his poetry was not intended to be sung. Although he abandoned the "verbal codes" and intricate symbolism of the Gaelic tradition, MacLean occasionally used outmoded devices, such as the repeating of adjectives.

MacLean's poetry frequently used Gaelic themes and references, such as place names, trees, and sea symbolism. A knowledge of that tradition would bring additional interpretations and appreciation to a reading of MacLean's poetry. Another important symbol in his work is the face, which represents romantic love.

According to John MacInnes, MacLean's poetry "exhibits virtually an entire spectrum of language". Some of his poetry is transparent to a fluent Gaelic speaker, but the meaning of other poems needs to be untangled. MacLean coined very few neologisms; however, he revived or repurposed many obscure or archaic words. MacLean often said that he had heard these old words in Presbyterian sermons. According to MacInnes and Maoilios Caimbeul, MacLean's revival of these old, forgotten Gaelic words revolutionized literary Gaelic, by adding senses and a newness and modernity. Caimbeul wrote that MacLean's vocabulary is not "simple", but it is "natural" and arises naturally from everyday speech, although mixed with other influences.

In contrast, the English translations were all written in a very straightforward style, flattening the language by the necessity to choose one English word for the ambiguity and connotations of the Gaelic one. According to Christopher Whyte, the English translations produce "an official interpretation, one that restricts and deadens the range of possible readings of the poem". English could not convey the pop that MacLean's revival of disused words brought to his Gaelic poetry. While the Gaelic poems were noted for their acoustic properties, the translations did not pay any particular attention to sound, instead focusing narrowly on literal meaning. MacLean emphasized that his "line-by-line translations" were not poetry; of the prose translation of "An Cuilthionn" that appeared in "Dàin do Eimhir", he wrote, "my English version has not even the merit of very strict literal accuracy as I find more and more when I look over it". Seamus Heaney called the translations "cribs".

In June 1987, MacLean became the first freeman of Skye and Lochalsh. He received seven honorary degrees. Twice, he was the honorary head of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, in 1970 and 1982; he was made honorary president of the Saltire Society in 1985. In 1989, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. The next year, he was named the first University of Edinburgh Alumnus of the Year, and awarded a Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. "O Choille gu Bearradh" was the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year for 1990, and MacLean won the McVitie's Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year. He became a Fellow of the Educational Institute of Scotland in 1991, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1992, an honorary fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland in 1996, and an honorary Royal Scottish Academician the same year. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992; it has been suggested that he might have won if he had not written in such a marginalized language. MacLean is commemorated by a stone in Makars' Court, outside the Writers' Museum, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh, unveiled in 1998 by Iain Crichton Smith.

Hugh MacDiarmid wrote a letter to MacLean in 1977, a year before his death, stating that he and MacLean were the best Scottish poets of the twentieth century. MacDiarmid and MacLean influenced each other's work and maintained an extensive correspondence which has been published. Douglas Young wrote that "the best poetry written in our generation in the British Isles has been in Scottish Gaelic, by Sorley MacLean." John MacInnes called him a "magisterial writer" who "[pushed] Gaelic to its limits". He said that it is "truly astonishing" that Gaelic, so long minoritized, could have produced a writer like MacLean, who could not express what he had to say in any other language: "Somhairle MacGill-Eain needed Gaelic, and Gaelic needed Somhairle MacGill-Eain". According to Iain Crichton Smith, translator of MacLean's poetry, "Dàin do Eimhir" was "the greatest Gaelic book of this century", an assessment with which Christopher Whyte agreed. According to Maoilios Caimbeul, MacLean was the best Scottish Gaelic poet of all time. Smith compared the calibre of MacLean's love poetry to that of Catallus and William Butler Yeats. Nobel Prize Laureate Seamus Heaney said that MacLean had "saved Gaelic poetry... for all time".

While acknowledging the literary merit of MacLean's work, Whyte suggested that it was unfortunate that in the 1980s it stood in for all Scottish Gaelic poetry in the Anglophone world. According to Whyte, MacLean's poetry is "comparatively unGaelic, elitist rather than populist, and permeable only with difficulty to the community which uses the language in its day to day existence". MacInnes concedes that MacLean does not cater to his readers; however, in his opinion it would be incorrect to call the poetry elitist because of its "artistic sincerity", speaking "with affective directness and a simple passionate intensity". Compounding the difficulty is that the traditional medium of Gaelic poetry is song, and many fluent speakers do not have strong reading skills. In an effort to make MacLean's work more accessible to Scottish Gaelic speakers, the Sorley MacLean Trust commissioned several musicians to set some of MacLean's poems to music.

In the Gaelic-speaking world, MacLean's influence has been pervasive and persistent. Poet Aonghas MacNeacail started writing in English, because "My education gave me to believe that Gaelic literature was dead"; he credited MacLean with convincing him otherwise and inspiring him to write in Gaelic. The Gaelic rock band Runrig once invited MacLean to come onstage for a poetry reading. However, MacLean had less impact on rural Gaelic-speaking communities. Novelist Angus Peter Campbell wrote that he preferred the work of local Uist bards to MacLean, and he believed that other Uist people felt the same. Australian poet Les Murray has acknowledged MacLean's influence on his work.

A film, "Hallaig", was made in 1984 by Timothy Neat, including a discussion by MacLean of the dominant influences on his poetry, with commentary by Smith and Heaney, and substantial passages from the poem and other work, along with extracts of Gaelic song. The poem also forms part of the lyrics of Peter Maxwell Davies' opera "The Jacobite Rising"; and MacLean's own reading of it in English and in Gaelic was sampled by Martyn Bennett in his album Bothy Culture for a track of the same name.

A controversy erupted in 2000, when John MacLeod, chief of Clan MacLeod, put the Cullin on the market in order to finance the repair of Dunvegan Castle. His real estate agency, Savills, used excerpts from "An Cuilthionn" to advertise the property. Many people found this to be an inappropriate use of MacLean's work. Savills apologized unreservedly, which was accepted by Renee MacLean.

Sorley MacLean

Sorley MacLean (; 26 October 1911 – 24 November 1996) was a Scottish Gaelic poet, described by the Scottish Poetry Library as "one of the major Scottish poets of the modern era" because of his "mastery of his chosen medium and his engagement with the European poetic tradition and European politics". Nobel Prize Laureate Seamus Heaney credited MacLean with saving Scottish Gaelic poetry.

The book won him recognition as "the major force in modern Gaelic poetry", according to "The Cambridge Companion to British Poetry". Caimbeul writes that the poems "capture the uncertainty, pain, yearning, and the search for stability that are at the heart of Modernism". Summarizing the impact of the book, Professor Donald MacAulay wrote, "After the publication of this book Gaelic poetry could never be the same again."

MacLean's poetry frequently used Gaelic themes and references, such as place names, trees, and sea symbolism. A knowledge of that tradition would bring additional interpretations and appreciation to a reading of MacLean's poetry. Another important symbol in his work is the face, which represents romantic love.

A film, "Hallaig", was made in 1984 by Timothy Neat, including a discussion by MacLean of the dominant influences on his poetry, with commentary by Smith and Heaney, and substantial passages from the poem and other work, along with extracts of Gaelic song. The poem also forms part of the lyrics of Peter Maxwell Davies' opera "The Jacobite Rising"; and MacLean's own reading of it in English and in Gaelic was sampled by Martyn Bennett in his album Bothy Culture for a track of the same name.

A controversy erupted in 2000, when John MacLeod, chief of Clan MacLeod, put the Cullin on the market in order to finance the repair of Dunvegan Castle. His real estate agency, Savills, used excerpts from "An Cuilthionn" to advertise the property. Many people found this to be an inappropriate use of MacLean's work. Savills apologized unreservedly, which was accepted by Renee MacLean.


What is a paywall?

A paywall is a method of restricting access to content via a paid subscription. Beginning in the mid-2010s, newspapers started implementing paywalls on their websites as a way to increase revenue after years of decline in paid print readership and advertising revenue. In academics, research papers are often subject to a paywall and are available via academic libraries that subscribe.

Paywall

Paywalls have also been used as a way of increasing the number of print subscribers; for example, some newspapers offer access to online content plus delivery of a Sunday print edition at a lower price than online access alone. Newspaper websites such as that of "The Boston Globe" and "The New York Times" use this tactic because it increases both their online revenue and their print circulation (which in turn provides more ad revenue).

In 1996, "The Wall Street Journal" set up and has continued to maintain a "hard" paywall. It continued to be widely read, acquiring over one million users by mid-2007, and 15 million visitors in March 2008.

In 2010, following in the footsteps of "The Wall Street Journal", "The Times" (London) implemented a "hard" paywall; a decision which was controversial because, unlike "The Wall Street Journal", "The Times" is a general news site, and it was said that rather than paying, users would seek the information without charge elsewhere. The paywall was deemed in practice to be neither a success nor a failure, having recruited 105,000 paying visitors. In contrast "The Guardian" resisted the use of a paywall, citing "a belief in an open Internet" and "care in the community" as its reasoning – an explanation found in its welcome article to online news readers who, blocked from "The Times’s" site following the implementation of their paywall, came to "The Guardian" for online news. "The Guardian" since experimented with other revenue-increasing ventures such as open API. Other papers, prominently "The New York Times", have oscillated between the implementation and removal of various paywalls. Because online news remains a relatively new medium, it has been suggested that experimentation is key to maintaining revenue while keeping online news consumers satisfied.

Some implementations of paywalls proved unsuccessful, and have been removed. Experts who are skeptical of the paywall model include Arianna Huffington, who declared "the paywall is history" in a 2009 article in "The Guardian". In 2010, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales reportedly called "The Times's" paywall "a foolish experiment." One major concern was that, with content so widely available, potential subscribers would turn to free sources for their news. The adverse effects of earlier implementations included decline in traffic and poor search engine optimization.

Paywalls have become controversial, with partisans arguing over the effectiveness of paywalls in generating revenue and their effect on media in general. Critics of paywalls include many businesspeople, academics such as media professor Jay Rosen, and journalists such as Howard Owens and media analyst Matthew Ingram of GigaOm. Those who see potential in paywalls include investor Warren Buffett, former "Wall Street Journal" publisher Gordon Crovitz, and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Some have changed their opinions of paywalls. Felix Salmon of Reuters was initially an outspoken skeptic of paywalls, but later expressed the opinion that they could be effective. A NYU media theorist, Clay Shirky, was initially a skeptic of paywalls, but in May 2012 wrote, "[Newspapers] should turn to their most loyal readers for income, via a digital subscription service of the sort the [New York Times]" Paywalls are rapidly changing journalism, with an impact on its practice and business model, and on freedom of information on the Internet, that is yet unclear.

Three high level models of paywall have emerged: "hard paywalls" that allow no free content and prompt the user straight away to pay in order to read, listen or watch the content, "soft paywalls" that allow some free content, such as an abstract or summary, and "metered paywalls" that allow a set number of free articles that a reader can access over a specific period of time, allow more flexibility in what users can view without subscribing.

The "hard" paywall, as used by "The Times", requires paid subscription before any of their online content can be accessed. A paywall of this design is considered the riskiest option for the content provider. It is estimated that a website will lose 90% of its online audience and ad revenue only to gain it back through its ability to produce online content appealing enough to attract subscribers. News sites with "hard" paywalls can succeed if they:
Many experts denounce the "hard" paywall because of its inflexibility, believing it acts as a major deterrent for users. Financial blogger Felix Salmon wrote that when one encounters a "paywall and can’t get past it, you simply go away and feel disappointed in your experience." Jimmy Wales, founder of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, argued that the use of a "hard" paywall diminishes a site's influence. Wales stated that, by implementing a "hard" paywall, "The Times" "made itself irrelevant." Though the "Times" had potentially increased its revenue, it decreased its traffic by 60%.

The "soft" paywall is best embodied by the metered model. The metered paywall allows users to view a specific number of articles before requiring paid subscription. In contrast to sites allowing access to select content outside the paywall, the metered paywall allows access to any article as long as the user has not surpassed the set limit. The "Financial Times" allows users to access 10 articles before becoming paid subscribers. "The New York Times" controversially implemented a metered paywall in March 2011 which let users view 20 free articles a month before paid subscription. In April 2012 "New York Times" reduced the number of free articles per month to 10. Their metered paywall has been defined as not only soft, but "porous," because it also allows access to any link posted on a social media site, and up to 25 free articles a day if accessed through a search engine. The model is designed to allow the paper to "retain traffic from light users", which in turn allows the paper to keep their number of visitors high, while receiving circulation revenue from the site's heavy users. Using this model "The New York Times" garnered 224,000 subscribers in the first three months. While many proclaimed "The New York Times" paywall a success after it reported a profit in the third quarter of 2011, the profit increase is said to be "ephemeral" and "largely based on a combination of cutbacks and the sale of assets." Though the success of a metered paywall would create revenue for the newspaper and increased freedom for the public, the profitability of the metered model has yet to be sufficiently proven.

A "softer" paywall strategy includes allowing free access to select content, while keeping premium content behind a paywall. Such a strategy has been said to lead to "the creation of two categories: cheap fodder available for free (often created by junior staffers), and more 'noble' content." This type of separation brings into question the egalitarianism of the online news medium. According to political and media theorist Robert A Hackett, "the commercial press of the 1800s, the modern world’s first mass medium, was born with a profound democratic promise: to present information without fear or favour, to make it accessible to everyone, and to foster public rationality based on equal access to relevant facts.".

"The Boston Globe" implemented a version of this strategy in September 2011 by launching a second website, BostonGlobe.com, to solely offer content from the paper behind a hard paywall, aside from most sports content, which was kept open to compete against other local sports websites. BostonGlobe.com operates alongside a second, pre-existing news website Boston.com, which now only contains a limited amount of content from the subscription website on a delay, but carries a larger focus on community-oriented news. "The Boston Globe" editor Martin Baron described them as "two different sites for two different kinds of reader – some understand [that] journalism needs to be funded and paid for. Other people just won't pay. We have a site for them." By March 2014 the site had over 60,000 digital subscribers; at that time, the "Globe" announced that it would replace the hard paywall with a metered system allowing users to read 10 articles without charge in any 30-day period. "The Boston Globe" editor Brian McGrory believed that an ability to sample the site's premium content would encourage more people to subscribe to the service. At the same time, McGrory also announced plans to give Boston.com a more distinct editorial focus, with a "sharper voice that better captures the sensibilities of Boston", while migrating other content by "Globe" writers, such as blogs from Boston.com to the paper's website, but keeping them freely available.

Professional reception to the implementation of paywalls has been mixed. Most discussion of paywalls centers on their success or failure as business ventures, and overlooks their ethical implications for maintaining an informed public. In the paywall debate there are those who see the implementation of a paywall as a "sandbag strategy" – a strategy which may help increase revenue in the short term, but not a strategy that will foster future growth for the newspaper industry. For the "hard" paywall specifically, however, there seems to be an industry consensus that the negative effects (loss of readership) outweigh the potential revenue, unless the newspaper targets a niche audience.

There are also those who remain optimistic about the use of paywalls to help revitalize floundering newspaper revenues. Those who believe implementing paywalls will succeed, however, continually buffer their opinion with contingencies. Bill Mitchell states that for a paywall to bring new revenue and not deter current readers, newspapers must: "invest in flexible systems, exploit their journalists' expertise in niche areas, and, crucially, offer readers their money's worth in terms of new value." The State of the News Media's 2011 annual report on American journalism makes the sweeping claim that: "[t]o survive financially, the consensus on the business side of news operations is that news sites not only need to make their advertising smarter, but they also need to find some way to charge for content and to invent new revenue streams other than display advertising and subscriptions." Even those who do not believe in the general success of paywalls recognize that, for a profitable future, newspapers must start generating more attractive content with added value, or investigate new sources of earning revenue.

Proponents of the paywall believe that it may be crucial for smaller publications to stay afloat. They argue that since 90 percent of advertising revenues are concentrated in the top 50 publishers, smaller operations can't necessarily depend on the traditional ad-supported free content model the way that larger sites can. Many paywall advocates also contend that people are more than willing to pay a small price for quality content. In a March 2013 guest post for VentureBeat, Malcolm CasSelle of MediaPass stated his belief that monetization would become "something of a self-fulfilling prophecy: people [will] pay for content, and that money goes back into making the overall content even better."

In April 2013 the Newspaper Association of America released its industry revenue profile for 2012, which reported that circulation revenue grew by 5 percent for dailies, making it the first year of circulation growth in ten years. Digital-only circulation revenue reportedly grew 275%; print and digital bundled circulation revenue grew 499%. Along with the shift towards bundling print and online into combined access subscriptions, print-only circulation revenue declined 14%. This news corroborates a growing belief that digital subscriptions will be the key to securing the long-term survival of newspapers.

General user response to the implementation of paywalls has been measured through a number of recent studies which analyze readers' online news-reading habits. A study completed by the Canadian Media Research Consortium entitled "Canadian Consumers Unwilling to Pay for News Online", directly identifies the Canadian response to paywalls. Surveying 1,700 Canadians, the study found that 92% of participants who read the news online would rather find a free alternative than pay for their preferred site (in comparison to 82% of Americans), while 81% stated that they would absolutely not pay for their preferred online news site. Based on the poor reception of paid content by the participants, the study concludes with a statement similar to those of the media experts, stating, with the exception of prominent papers such as "The Wall Street Journal" and "The Times", that given the "current public attitudes, most publishers had better start looking elsewhere for revenue solutions."

Hackett argues that a "forum on the internet [...] can function as a specialized or smaller-scale public sphere." In the past, the internet has been an ideal location for the general public to gather and discuss relevant news issues – an activity made accessible first through free access to online news content, and subsequently the ability to comment on the content, creating a forum. Erecting a paywall restricts the public's open communication with one another by restricting the ability to both read and share online news.

The obvious way in which a paywall restricts equal access to the online public sphere is through requiring payment, deterring those who do not want to pay, and barring those who cannot from joining the online discussion. The restriction of equal access was taken to a new extreme when the UK's "The Independent" in October 2011 placed a paywall on foreign readers only. Online news media have the proven ability to create global connection beyond the typical reach of a public sphere. In "Democratizing Global Media," Hackett and global communications theorist Yuezhi Zhao describe how a new "wave of media democratization arises in the era of the internet which has facilitated transnational civil society networks of and for democratic communication." By placing a paywall on their international readers, "The Independent" hinders the growth and democratic quality of the public sphere created by the internet.

The use of paywalls has also received many complaints from online news readers regarding an online subscriptions' inability to be shared like a traditional printed paper. While a printed paper can be shared among friends and family, the ethics behind sharing an online subscription are less clear because there is no physical object involved. "The New York Times"' "ethicist" columnist, Ariel Kaminer, addressing the question of sharing online subscription, states that "sharing with your spouse or young child is one thing; sharing with friends or family who live elsewhere is another." The reader comments following Kaminer's response focus on the dichotomy between paying for a printed paper and paying for an online subscription. A printed paper's ease of access meant that more individuals could read a single copy, and that everyone who read the paper had the ability to send a letter to the editor without the hassle of registering or paying for the subscription. As such, the use of a paywall closes off the communication in both the personal realm and online. This opinion is not just held by online news readers, but also by opinion writers. Jimmy Wales comments that he "would rather write [an opinion piece] where it is going to be read", declaring that "putting opinion pieces behind paywalls [makes] no sense." Without easy access to both read and share insights and opinions, the online news platform loses an essential characteristic of democratic exchange.

The use of a paywall to bar individuals from accessing news content online without payment, brings up numerous ethical questions. According to Hackett, media are already "failing to furnish citizens with ready access to relevant civic information." The implementation of paywalls on previously free news content heightens this failure through intentional withholding. Hackett cites "general cultural and economic mechanisms, such as the commodification of information and the dependence of commercial media on advertising revenue" as two of the greatest influences on media performance. According to Hackett, these cultural and economic mechanisms "generate violations of the democratic norm of equality." Implementation of a paywall addresses and intimately ties the two mechanisms cited by Hackett, as the paywall commodifies news content to bring in revenue from both readers and from increased circulation of printed paper's ads. The result of these mechanisms, as stated by Hackett, is an impediment to "equal access to relevant [news] facts."
The commodification of information–making news into a product that must be purchased–restricts the egalitarian founding principal of the newspaper. Editor's Weblog reporter Katherine Travers, addressing this issue in a post discussing the future of "The Washington Post", asks, "is digital subscription as permissible as charging a couple of dollars now and then for a paper copy?" While subscription fees have long been attached to print newspapers, all other forms of news have traditionally been free. The UK's "Daily Mail" argues that print revenue is unique because "people pay for the convenience of print in recognition of the special cost of production and delivery of a tangible product and because they purchase it whole." Online news, in comparison has existed as a medium of free dissemination. Poynter digital media fellow Jeff Sonderman outlines the ethical tension created by a paywall. Sonderman explains that "[t]he underlying tension is that newspapers act simultaneously as businesses and as servants of the public’s interest. As for-profit enterprises, they have the right (the duty, even) to make money for shareholders or private owners. But most also claim to have a social compact, in which they safeguard the entire public interest and help their entire community shape and understand its shared values." By implementing a paywall before experimenting with other revenue-increasing initiatives, a newspaper arguably puts profit before the public.

While there has been little coverage and discussion of the ethical implications of the paywall regarding newspapers' obligation to maintain a generally informed public, there are two prominent instances where companies have addressed the restriction of online news coverage. First is the removal of paywalls in the face of breaking news (news covering national or local emergencies). Second is Google's "First Click Free" application, which news providers can implement if they wish to make news stories of interest accessible to readers regardless of a paywall.

Some newspapers have removed their paywall from blocking content covering emergencies. When Hurricane Irene hit the United States' east coast in late August 2011, "The New York Times" declared that all storm related coverage, accessed both online and through mobile devices, would be free to readers. "The New York Times"' assistant managing editor, Jeff Roberts, discusses the paper's decision, stating: "[w]e are aware of our obligations to our audience and to the public at large when there is a big story that directly impacts such a large portion of people." In his article discussing the removal of paywalls, Soderman commends "The New York Times"' action, stating that, while a publisher "commits to a paywall as the best business strategy for his news company, there may be some stories or subjects which carry such importance and urgency that it is irresponsible to withhold them from nonsubscribers."

Given the overwhelming opinion that, regardless of paywall success, new revenue sources must be sought out for newspapers' financial success, it is important to highlight new business initiatives. According to Poynter media expert Bill Mitchell, in order for a paywall to generate sustainable revenue, newspapers must create "new value"—higher quality, innovation, etc.—in their online content that merits payment which previously free content did not. In addition to erecting paywalls, newspapers have been increasingly exploiting tablet and mobile news products, the profitability of which remains inconclusive. Some newspapers have also embraced targeting niche audiences, such as the Daily Mail's Mail Online in the UK. Another strategy, pioneered by "The New York Times", involves creating new revenue by packaging old content in e-books and special feature offerings, to create an appealing product for readers. The draw of these packages is not just the topic but the authors and the breadth of coverage. According to reporter Mathew Ingram, newspapers can benefit from these special offerings in two ways, first by taking advantage of old content when new interest arises, such as an anniversary or an important event, and second, through the creation of packages of general interest. "The New York Times", for example, has created packages on baseball, golf and the digital revolution.(ebooks)

An open API (application programming interface) makes the online news site "a platform for data and information that [the newspaper company] can generate value from in other ways." Opening their API makes a newspaper's data available to outside sources, allowing developers and other services to make use of a paper's content for a fee. "The Guardian", in keeping with its "belief in an open internet", has been experimenting with the use of API. "The Guardian" has created an "open platform" which works on a three level system:While an open API is regarded as a gamble just like a paywall, journalist Matthew Ingram ethically notes that the use of an open API aims at "profiting from the open exchange of information and other aspects of an online-media world, while the [paywall] is an attempt to create the kind of artificial information scarcity that newspapers used to enjoy." An open API keeps news content free to the public while the newspaper makes a profit from the quality and usefulness of its data to other businesses. The open API strategy can be commended because it takes the pressure off of the news room to continually investigate and explore new means of revenue. Instead, the open API strategy relies on the interest and ideas of those outside the newsroom, to whom the site's content and data are attractive.