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AP to Charge Members to Post Content Online

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the sing-for-your-supper dept.

oboreruhito writes "The Associated Press has announced that, effective Jan. 1 2006, it 'will begin charging newspapers and broadcasters to post its stories, photos and other content online.' The article says online portals that are already subscribed to an online service won't be affected; the change is that newspapers and broadcasters, which have had the privilege of posting online at no extra charge over their usual licensing fees for print or TV, now have to pay extra. How will this affect sites like Google News and Fark?"

14 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Fark? by iCEBaLM · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why would it affect fark? They just link to em...

    OMG F1R57 P057!

  2. Google and Fark? by justforaday · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How will this affect sites like Google News and Fark?

    My guess is not much at all. It's the sites that Google and Fark link to that will need to pay the AP. If the number of AP newswire sites drops, it will most likely be made up for by homebrewed stories citing the AP newsfeed as a source.

    --
    I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
    1. Re:Google and Fark? by nacturation · · Score: 4, Informative
      This is a non-story. These two paragraphs FTA sum it up well:
      About 300 commercial Web sites, including popular destinations such as Yahoo, AOL and MSN, already have been buying AP content, said Jane Seagrave, the news cooperative's director of new media markets.

      But price increases are often a prickly issue for the AP because it's a not-for-profit cooperative that is owned by its customers _ the traditional media that form its membership.
      So it's like the RIAA charging member bands a bit more to allow websites to post sound clips. What's the big deal here? Hundreds of websites already pay to have it online. All this does is end the free ride for traditional print publications to stick it on their site as well.
      --
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    2. Re:Google and Fark? by B3ryllium · · Score: 4, Funny

      You Asked For It.

  3. hmmm.. by TrippTDF · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Google might be affected a little, but anyone that is paying the AP to carry the story will still have it posted, and google (or fark) could get to it that way.

    Depending on how much they are charging, though it might force other sites to start charging online subscruption fees, as a large amount of free news will not be there anymore...

  4. Fark! by Scrameustache · · Score: 5, Funny

    How will this affect sites like Google News and Fark?"

    More boobies links!
    Thanks, AP! : )

    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

    1. Re:Fark! by Rude+Turnip · · Score: 5, Funny

      Who cares, I submitted this with a much funnier headline!

      --
      Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
  5. FARK doesn't repost stories... by stonedonkey · · Score: 4, Informative

    It just links to them. Same with Google News. Google posts a blurb, but its length is short enough to avoid copyright infringement (i.e., less than 100 words). The images in Google News link directly back to the domain where the story was posted. Sounds like the AP is asking everyone to prioritize Rueters over them, inadvertently. It also sounds like the AP is starting to recognize the Internet as a very influential source of information. It's not nearly ubiquitous as radio and TV, but it reaches a powerful demographic.

  6. Sites will just use Reuters for the time being by Syncdata · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Still, this has been a long time in coming. Popular sites like drudge/google news linking pictures from the AP wires, AFP, and other sources are:
    #1: Not liscencing the content, which is exactly what the AP's et alls standard business practice is,
    #2: Actually costing money due to bandwidth.

    I don't think it's going to be long untill the major wires actually close their content to subscribers only. It would be a sad day for me, as I love getting my news hot off the wire, but I can understand why the AP/Reuters/AFP/UPI would do it.

    --
    "Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
  7. I read The Onion by smittyoneeach · · Score: 5, Funny

    How does this affect me?

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  8. Why these useless questions? by lysander · · Score: 5, Insightful
    How will this affect sites like Google News and Fark?

    Why do slashdot articles end with inane questions that obviously aren't interesting or useful? They just drive discussion away from actual article. Instead, we have a whole page of people agreeing that this almost has almost no impact on Google or Fark.

    (Yeah, yeah, offtopic.)

    --
    GET YOUR WEAPONS READY! --DR.LIGHT
  9. Google/Fark by The+Barking+Dog · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This decision won't affect Google and Fark at all, since they simply link to other sites that post the AP's content. It will affect Yahoo! News, since they do post original AP content.

    BTW, it's a PITA to use the AP's content. I used their feed to add headlines to the site for a TV station. They can't just have an XML feed; noooo, they have to post XML-formatted articles to a usenet server, adding an extra layer of complexity. You have to fetch the most recent post from the headline group, parse it for the links to the articles, then fetch the articles, then parse them for links to the image content, then fetch those articles, then parse them for the image content, which has to then be watermarked with the AP logo (or labeled directly underneath the picture; running it through ImageMagick to add the watermark was easier). (And to make matters worse, I had to write the stuff to do this in Perl running on Windows.)

  10. New Slogan:) by 4of12 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Maybe the AP will have explicit notifications in each story proudly proclaiming that

    This News was sponsored by Someone Who Can Afford to Bring it to You and Who Wants You to See This.

    [It's just about that way already anyway.]

    --
    "Provided by the management for your protection."
  11. Mod Parent Up. -- Insightful by Tsiangkun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Mod Parent Up.

    If the wires are pay per view, the only news reported will be news that someone wants you to see, paid for by the interest the news best serves.

    Poster might be going for funny, but I think there is lots of insight into that statement.