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?
#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.