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?
# 10 meetsy – Absolutely right. I read news from multiple sources and am getting increasingly tired of the same AP content just served up with different CSS layouts. AP news has become just licensed plagiarism. If everyone carries the same news verbatim, why do we need all the different outlets?
And do these news outlets realize they can tell the Google spider bots not to index all or portions of their sites? I do it on my personal site. But I guess they are too ignorant how the internetwebitubes work anyway…
Where does the AP get its stories?
That is what the newspaper reporters are worried about. There’s plenty of investigative reporting out there, NYT, Wash Post, Chi Trib, etc. Most large cities have papers with a bunch of reporters, out there keeping tabs on local government and more. Those people do the vast majority of the reporting and stories the Internet news sites leech from. What they do is central to our democracy…who’s going to do it if the papers fold? Will any online news organizations hire them? Will the government foxes go nuts once they realize there are no guards on the henhouse?
I hope some of you see that this is not an academic discussion, nor a pile of “I want mine free and immediate… and papers are what my dad reads.” Somebody needs to know how to file FOIAs, and hang out at police stations to get info, etc.
# 21 Olo Baggins of Bywater – also right on the money.
Speaking of which, how do you make money to pay for those employees in the New Economy the Interwebinettubes have wrought upon us?
That is the million dollar question so to speak.
People do link to newspaper articles without paying the writer.
People also do read writers web pages and blogs.
Newspapers should have listened and created their own Internet when they had a chance.
The train has already left the station.
We can search the Internet with any search engine. I started searching with Alta Vista then Dog Pile and now Google.
And so, the dinosaur does alot of thrashing about and roaring instead of evolving to meet environmental conditions, Can extinction be far?
I love the knee-jerk internet idealism in saying “THEY NEED TO EVOLVE!” Evolve to what? It’s information, not a movie or an album. Somebody makes money by researching, making mind-numbing amounts of phone calls, door-to-doors, working on contacts, and they get a piece of information that is valuable. If the method of distribution isn’t controlled and everybody has access to jump in and take it, there’s very little they can do short of placing ads in the actual text itself to continue making money. If there’s no money in an industry, that industry will vanish.
The only thing driving your conviction on this issue is your own greedy self-interest. You like not paying for shit and how dare anybody try to take that away from you?
I thought that PUBLIC knowledge, was PUBLIC and no copyright was allowed.
WONT they need to show that THEY, went out and PHYSICALLY gathered the information and that it ISNT public knowledge?
MIGHT make for better investigative newspapers..
Look this is the most important thing going on right now, but if you tell anyone I’m going to kick your butt!
#23,
Duh, they did. And news.google.com has illegally used their monopoly on search to to gain an advantage on the news feed business, in addition to dumping(they give their news feed away without paying AP association fees or sharing in the new collection activities).
This is basic anti-trust stuff. Also, the public would be ill served by all the news collection agencies going out of business, so this is a very clear example of consumers being hurt by a predatory monopoly.
For example Craigs list is not getting sued because they stayed within their market once they had a monopoly.
This is basically exactly the same reason all you freetards hate Microsoft with the giving of IE away for free etc. Only Google is giving news feeds away without paying the contributors the way the AP does.
So… If you are still holding a grudge against Microsoft you HAVE to hate Google even more.
ECA, no. Facts indeed aren’t copywritable, but a description and presentation of the facts certainly is. Heck, I recently wrote something about Ohm’s Law that’s copywritable, but it wouldn’t be easy to enforce because it’s probably impossible to write anything unique about it now.
For example, let’s say I read ten separate articles or firsthand reports about Michelle O squeezing the queen. I can probably then write an article about royal protocol that doesn’t infringe on anything, and it would be 100% legit, legally.
But, what does that approach say about me and the publisher of my article? A lot. Which is why the most “news” blogs and some “real” news organizations do just that, and they get away with it. Bylines and datelines are a way to prove you were a witness or spoke to someone who might be one, etc. They used to matter, and if you care about the legitimacy of your news, they still do.
But, if there are no reporters on the scene there is no way I’ll even know the event happened. That’s the risk of all these papers closing.
30,
You can copyright HOW a story is written.
But if a NUKE plant goes critical, THATS PUBLIC knowledge.
HOW congress votes is public knowledge.
HOW a shady deal was done by a MAJOR corp, is NEWS. It wasnt FREE to access or find the information..
We MIGHT get some NEWS thats worth reading with PUBLIC knowledge..
JUST because someone is willing to PRINT it in a newspaper, ISNT NEWS and ISNT copy protected.
#26 yeah right businesses don’t evolve, the government just needs to intervene because circumstances are so unfavorable, it just isn’t fair to these great big HUGE private interests. Idealist, sure I am, but at least I ain’t no pinko commie!
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.