A.P. Seeks to Rein in Sites Using Its Content

NYT ^ | April 7, 2009 | Richard Perez-Pena

[Schnucki]

Taking aim at the way news is spread across the Internet, The Associated Press said on Monday that Web sites that used the work of news organizations must obtain permission and share revenue with them, and that it would take legal action against those that did not.

A.P. executives said they were concerned about a variety of news forums around the Web, including major search engines like Google and Yahoo and aggregators like the Drudge Report that link to news articles, smaller sites that sometimes reproduce articles whole, and companies that sell packaged news feeds.

They said they did not want to stop the appearance of articles around the Web, but to exercise some control over the practice and to profit from it.

The group’s new stance applies to thousands of news organizations whose work is distributed by The A.P., as well as its own material, but the debate about unauthorized use has focused on newspapers, which are in serious financial trouble, and which own The A.P. The policies were adopted by the A.P. board, composed mostly of newspaper industry executives.

The A.P. will “work with portals and other partners who legally license our content” and will “seek legal and legislative remedies against those who don’t,” the A.P. chairman, William Dean Singleton, said Monday in a speech at the group’s annual meeting, in San Diego. “We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories.”

News aggregators and search companies have long asserted that collecting snippets of articles — usually headlines and a sentence or two — is allowed under the legal doctrine of “fair use.” News organizations have been reluctant to test that idea in court, and it is still not clear whether The A.P. is willing to test the fair

[a fool in paradise]

Anything with an AP byline would be restricted. You will also note that AP and other agencies also paraphrase OTHER periodicals’ articles at time. You’d be advised to go to the originating source and avoid the AP article.

This nonsense came up awhile back when AP raised a stink. Jim Robinson put a blackout on AP stories for awhile. There were other backlashes against AP and they quited down on this matter.

If they are going to push for this again, then they can expect to be boycotted.

[a fool in paradise]

Most AP content is junk, anyway. Why would anyone want to use it?

For the same reason that George Orwell was not opposed to the publication of the Socialist Worker or Pravda. You can challenge your political enemy when you have their mistruths that you can quote and expose.