More often than not, today’s news from traditional publishing industries bring the picture of a hapless dodo bird in front of my eyes. No surprise there – difficult economic times usually expedite the natural selection process. Recent announcement from the Board of Associated Press however reminds me also about Xerxes, the king of Persia, who ordered the Hellespont waves to be whipped just because the storm destroyed his papyrus bridge over the strait.
NEW YORK — The Associated Press Board of Directors today announced it would launch an industry initiative to protect news content from misappropriation online.
AP Chairman Dean Singleton said the news cooperative would work with portals and other partners who properly license content – and would pursue legal and legislative actions against those who don‘t.
“We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories,“ Singleton said at the AP annual meeting, in San Diego.
As part of the initiative, AP will develop a system to track content distributed online to determine if it is being legally used. AP President Tom Curley said the initiative would also include the development of new search pages that point users to the latest and most authoritative sources of breaking news.
While no details are available on those new exciting online initiatives that AP is working on, it is easier to guess who the AP’s executives have in mind when talking about “misappropriation”.
Quoting WSJ editor Robert Thomson “Companies that aggregate mainstream media content without paying a fee are the »parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet« and will soon be challenged”. He specifically pointed his finger at Google, which BTW is hard to understand, as Google apparently
has a deal with AP since 2007. But that’s not only Google, although it would make sense for news publishers to go after the big guys who actually make a profit. It is
easy to understand why they don’t like Google News but does this “misappropriation” extend to Digg, FriendFeed, Twitter or similar content sharing services? Are they supposed to be responsible or me? It’s me who posts the links, after all.
Just reading the news today I came across this story via Google News. But since I found it interesting, I visited articles on the topic in
LA Times (I don’t remember if I have ever been there before),
NY Times and
The Australian (I never knew it existed, sorry). I generated my share of traffic to their websites. I created bookmarks to these articles on Digg and FriendFeed. Now, is it good or bad for the news industry?
Is it just because these guys don’t get it? Or is it to cover inability to reinvent their business model and putting a blame on somebody else?
iSearchlight 