The Associated Press has unveiled rate cuts to help member newspapers reeling from declining advertising revenue and said that it would sue websites that used its members’ articles without permission.
The changes the AP announced at its annual meeting in San Diego include a new $35 million in rate assessment reductions for 2010, on top of $30 million it had already instituted for 2009.
The AP further threatened to “pursue legal and legislative actions” against websites that do not properly license news content, and plans to develop a system to track its members’ news distributed online to determine whether it is being legally used.
“We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories,” Singleton said…
While the AP did not name Google, many newspapers resent the popular search website because they say it siphons away ad revenue that should be going to their own websites instead of to sites like Google’s and Yahoo’s…
Some newspapers threatened to cancel their membership, prompting the AP to try to find ways to keep them. One new option the wire service is offering is a limited service for papers “with minimal world and national coverage needs.”
Google is a primo target – though, I wonder if they’ll take the RIAA path and sue individual bloggers?
AP should crack down on all the local news outlets that provide AP licensed material free to the public. Sure the local news outlet paid the fee but the local news outlet generally provides no restricted access to the licensed material. AP should require anyone that license their material to provide restricted access to that material.
If search engines go behind restricted sites then the search engines are in the wrong.
Remind me to leave my newspaper on the bench for the next guy to read. Remind him to do the same.
I click a Google news link, I’m taken to an actual news site. A site I may never have gone to if it were never part of the Google aggregation. They win, I win. No losers – Except the people that want to try an sue.
Paddy, I heard that Mozilla makes bank off of Google ads!
I could see AP forbidding newspapers to post AP stories to the web. If they reserve the right to post content exclusively on their own website and sell ads through Google, they would retain more control of the content and possible generate more revenue.
It would certainly be more efficient and eliminate redundancies.
In todays environment, I really don’t see the point of distributing news from a single source to thousands of newspapers and then aggregating it back again on the web.
The way things are now is just plain silly.
AP could continue to sell content to newspapers, but for print only.
Outside of thre or four people, the vast majority of comments clearly show a lack of knowing what the hell they are even talking about.
AP is owned by its users. Its a cooperative. That includes newspapers, radio, and TV. Although some stories originate from member papers and stations, much comes from AP reporters. These reporters, whether AP or newspapers, do like to eat and keep a roof over their head.
Using AP content without paying them is theft. The same as when those big kids too some of Cow-Patty’s popcycles.
AP: “i’ll huff and i’ll puff and i’ll blooooowwww your house down…”
Google: “blow all you want, we’ll just copy-n-paste another..” (silly wolf)
-bah, AP is just sore because they no longer have the monopoly on shaping public opinion.
-s
AP, like Reuters collects news with stringers all over the world. They pay those stringers out of profits made from selling stories to newspapers all over the world.. .. Simple minded folks who think what they read in on-line just magically appears in text on some web site are susceptible to being led around by the nose by anyone expressing an opinion they might wish was true. .. But then, this is a forum seemingly filled with that kind of thinking.
#31, ECA,
A fact may not be copyrighted. The telling of it may though.
Although you can’t copyright a car accident, your written account and pictures are. As much as you can stop someone else from using them, you can’t use someone else’s story or pictures without paying them.