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Google Reveals Payment Deal with AP

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the good-old-ap dept.

mytrip writes to mention a ZDNet article concerning a deal Google has struck with the Associated Press. The search company has ended a dispute between the two organizations by agreeing to pay for the articles and content it delivers via its Google News service. From the article: "Financial terms were not disclosed. Consequently, it's unclear whether the deal involves a flat fee or paying AP according to traffic statistics. On the surface, paying the Associated Press seems to conflict with the stance Google has traditionally taken regarding its Google News service. Because Google News is an aggregator, the company has argued, Google is not obliged to reimburse news outlets for linking to their content. But Wednesday's announcement said the AP content will be the foundation for a new product that will merely complement Google News. Thus Google maintains that the deal supports its original stance on fair use."

59 comments

  1. Monopoly play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Anybody else thinking of running a news aggrigator will eventually have to lay out the cash. This is how capitalism works, you take something availiable to everybody and put a fence around it. In the case of computing, the fence is simply a barrier to entry, see also software patents.

    1. Re:Monopoly play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes it works very well for the NY Times too, 1) we ignore NY Times articles or 2) we find a way around it.

    2. Re:Monopoly play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Yes it works very well for the NY Times too, 1) we ignore NY Times articles or 2) we find a way around it.
      For now!
    3. Re:Monopoly play by amrust · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I myself have never understood why news sites wouldn't want a popular aggregator like Google News pointing visitors to their news articles. Some of said articles would likely never have been viewed in the first place by some readers, had it not been for an aggregator. They appear to be cutting off their arm to spite their finger.

      --
      VOTE!
    4. Re:Monopoly play by aquaepulse · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm not sure that's really a fair analogy. The AP is actively creating content that Google and others simply regurgitate, they are not trying to replicate the work of the AP. That is, the AP is not trying to stop Google from hiring reporters and setting up its own wire service. Unlike software patents which seek to prevent any party from examing the patented technology and then reimplementing it. Truly more despicable.

    5. Re:Monopoly play by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      AP arent 'putting a fence' around anything, the 'news' still exists in a format available to anyone willing to experience it. AP simply add their own value to their interpretation of events and sell that, theres nothing stopping you from getting that same news from other sources or straight from the original source.

    6. Re:Monopoly play by LaughingCoder · · Score: 1

      This is how capitalism works, you take something availiable to everybody and put a fence around it.

      Yeah, I much prefer how news is handled in a communist system. They don't put a fence around it, they just shoot the messenger, or put him in prison for the rest of his life.

      --
      The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
    7. Re:Monopoly play by LordLucless · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You do know that disliking capitalism does not necessarily mean you endorse communism, yes?

      --
      Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
    8. Re:Monopoly play by LaughingCoder · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think it is always important to remind people of the tried-and-true *alternatives* to capitalism. These boards are highly critical of capitalism, and I agree it has its share of "warts", but, as Churchill so eloquently said:

      "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."

      Choose your poison.

      --
      The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
    9. Re:Monopoly play by stubear · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If Google is allowed to cal litself a news aggregator and link freely to AP articles, then why shouldn't the NYT or the Washington Post be able to do the same? You don't think they write all their own stories do you? Many news agencies utilize AP stories because the AP has people around the world already in place and who write stories about events in their locales. Google got caught with its pants down and tried to play the "shiny new intarweb" card and the AP didn't blink. If you want to utilize AP stories you have to pay for their service, period. There's nothing wrong or nefarious about this practice whatsoever.

    10. Re:Monopoly play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful
      Yeah, I much prefer how news is handled in a communist system. They don't put a fence around it, they just shoot the messenger, or put him in prison for the rest of his life.

      What you're describing is not a direct consequence of an economic system, try...


      Yeah, I much prefer how news is handled in a totalitarian regime. They don't put a fence around it, they just shoot the messenger, or put him in prison for the rest of his life.

      The problem is that this has absolutely nothing to do with what the OP said, thus the only logical conclusion we can draw from your comment is that you are an idiot.

    11. Re:Monopoly play by Fishead · · Score: 3, Funny

      He he he, exactly.

      I wonder how this will play out? My theory:

      1) AP forces Google to sign a contract based on traffic
      2) Google puts AP articles last.
      3) AP traffic drops to 3%.
      4) AP crawls back to google and apologises.
      5) ???
      6) Profit.

    12. Re:Monopoly play by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 1

      The point is that there is a vast middle ground between communism, in which a tiny cabal of government officials make economic decisions for everybody, and abstractions such as "the people" are idolized while real people are screwed; and the current form of hypercapitalism, in which a tiny cabal of corporate officials make economic decisions for everybody, and abstractions such as "intellectual property" are idolized while real property accumulates in the hands of oligarchs. False dichotomies such as those you present -- speaking of "alternatives" as though we had to make a clear choice between one system and another -- are precisely equivalent to the way communist leaders managed to get and keep power throughout much of the last century (and tyrants of various stripes have held onto power for far longer throughout history) by convincing their subjects that they were the only alternative to chaos and starvation.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    13. Re:Monopoly play by donaldrobertson · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I bet they actually like getting linked, but they see it as something that they might be able to extract money from. Why get only free advertizing when you could get google to pay you for it? It's actually a pretty popular business plan. Like the telcos and net neutrality. Why get only free content that makes my service actually worth having when I can get google to pay for it? new patented business model: get something for free from google, then force them to pay me for it.

    14. Re:Monopoly play by morcego · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I myself have never understood why news sites wouldn't want a popular aggregator like Google News pointing visitors to their news articles.


      Because then you will only access their sites when there is an article that interests you, and you will go directly to the article, missing all the ads/offers/surveys (etc) on the rest of the site.

      Take Slashdot, for example. I can't remember the last time I visited its main page. I simply look the the RSS Feed to see if there is something interesting. Same for NYT and many others.
      --
      morcego
    15. Re:Monopoly play by amrust · · Score: 1

      Excellent point. And I'm quite sure that's their line of thinking.

      In way of explanation, here's mine...

      X >> Y

      Where:

      X = # People viewing story deeplinked via news aggregator
      Y = # People who randomly found said website, and navigated to page manually.

      I may be completely wrong in my base assumption, though.

      --
      VOTE!
    16. Re:Monopoly play by LaughingCoder · · Score: 1

      Typical. Ad hominem attacks. Why am I not surprised that when I say something bad about communism around here I am immediately called disparaging names.

      For the record, Communism is an economic system, as is Capitalism. The comment was about how Capitalism works, specifically as it applies to the dissemination of the news. My comment merely pointed out how every country that uses communism as its economic system uses a different, much less desirable technique, for distributing news. True, those countries also tend to be totolitarian regimes -- pretty much they have to be to keep people from leaving such a bankrupt economic system. The fact that you are unable to connect those dots suggests perhaps an intelligence deficit on your part, I'm afraid. The fact that you posted anonymously shows that you might also realize this and did not want it well known.

      --
      The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
    17. Re:Monopoly play by LaughingCoder · · Score: 1

      And my point is ... as bad as capitalism is, communism is much worse. Sure, there are shades of gray between those two extremes (unfettered property rights versus no property rights [the state owns everything]), but the OP was not being subtle in his/her criticism of capitalism. The comment was meant to reflect negatively on capitalism in general (whatever socialistic flavor one practices) because it criticized the notion of property rights, the fundamental underpinning of any capitalistic system.

      --
      The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
    18. Re:Monopoly play by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 1

      Typical. Ad hominem attacks. Why am I not surprised that when I say something bad about communism around here I am immediately called disparaging names.

      People who have a fetish or an axe to grind about something like to wander off topic and try to turn every conversation into one about whatever it is they are obsessed with. This is bad enough even when they know what they are talking about.

      When they hijack worthwhile threads in order to parrot the same nonsensical stereotype-driven propaganda we can already hear on mass media all around us, they can rightly expect to be called disparaging names as this crap does not add to the conversation in a meaningful way. Sorry.

    19. Re:Monopoly play by LaughingCoder · · Score: 1

      When they hijack worthwhile threads in order to parrot the same nonsensical stereotype-driven propaganda

      I know just what you mean. That is why I had to say something to him. Thanks for backing me up, though. Appreciate it.

      --
      The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
    20. Re:Monopoly play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The comment was about how Capitalism works, specifically as it applies to the dissemination of the news. My comment merely pointed out how every country that uses communism as its economic system uses a different, much less desirable technique, for distributing news. True, those countries also tend to be totolitarian regimes -- pretty much they have to be to keep people from leaving such a bankrupt economic system.

      Would "bankrupt economic systems" include those that cannot afford to repay their 8 trillion dollar foreign debt? Capitalism and communism are methods for redistribution of wealth in industrialized societies, neither have anything to do with the distribution of news. China; from a communist totalitarian dictatorship to a capitalist totalitarian dictatorship in under 20 years.

    21. Re:Monopoly play by LaughingCoder · · Score: 1

      Mark my words - totalitarianism and capitalism do not mix; one or the other will disappear. And it is almost always the former. Once people get a taste of property rights and property ownership, they never want to go back.

      As regards distribution of the news having nothing to do with economic systems, the OP said that this whole Google-AP exchange was an example of how "capitalism works - taking things that are available to everyone and putting a fence around it". It was the OP that began this thread by bashing capitalism. I merely pointed out the obvious - as bad as capitalism can be, communism is orders of magnitude worse. And happily the example we are both using, which is the topic of this thread - news distribution - fits my argument very nicely. Unless you think the method of news dissemination in communist countries is better than that found in capitalistic countries?

      --
      The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
    22. Re:Monopoly play by rm69990 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, there's a major difference. The NYT and Washington Post reproduce entire articles, Google reproduces a short blurb and then directs people to the original news article. How can you not tell the difference? Since when is "freely linking" copyright infringement? Where in the copyright act does it make a hyperlink an infringement of copyright? Furthermore, would a short 2 or 3 sentence blurb that is designed to get people to view the original news story (and thus click on their ads) not fall under the doctrine of fair use? Google didn't get caught with their "pants down", Google has been pretty consistent with their stance that what they do falls under fair use. If it doesn't, then all search engines are doomed, because Google News does to news sites the same thing Google does to web sites.

    23. Re:Monopoly play by Lord+Flipper · · Score: 1
      If you want to utilize AP stories you have to pay for their service, period. There's nothing wrong or nefarious about this practice whatsoever.

      I agree with your wiewpoint, completely, but there is an alternative to 'paying' for the AP, and that is: to 'contribute.'

      Even a small-town paper can take advantage of AP's wide web (oops, bad word, sort of) of correspondents, by submitting their own stories of local news. When AP sees there is quality in the writing, or any bonafide utility to the stories, the small town paper can then run AP wire items.

      Google could easily take submissions from the masses and perhaps work out a 'barter' with AP. No doubt there's been consideration of that alternative, and it must be, for the time being, either a no-go issue, or on the 'back burner.' The AP terms of service, after all, are not exactly a secret.

      My very uneducated guess is that Google is simply 'eating its own cooking', via the pay-per-click mechanism (if that's the actual 'deal' with the AP). The quid pro quo being the reinforcement of the Google brand, and exposure, of other Google ads (etc), to the click-through traffic to AP. (Google wouldn't consider paying AP if there wasn't a clear shot at profiting on the deal, one almost has to assume).

    24. Re:Monopoly play by maxpublic · · Score: 1

      hypercapitalism

      Hypercapitalism? What fucking color is the sky in *your* world? The current system of economic mismanagement, in case you haven't noticed, is firmly rooted in corporate oligarchy backed, supported, and enforced by bought-and-paid-for government legislation and police power. This sure as shit isn't capitalism, by any stretch of the imagination.

      Max

      --
      My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
    25. Re:Monopoly play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sure that's their thinking... However, I think most of those who use Google or news aggregators have come to the point where they either a) disable pointless and annoying ads or b) have become blind to ads outside of their content.

      I don't block ads (although I do block Flash, because it sucks greatly). I support the concept of ad-supported content. However, after viewing countless pages with countless pointless and annoying ads (thank you foxnews.com), I have grown oblivious to ads that are on a page. Let's say I click on and article on cnn.com - I don't really see the ads around the article anymore. My eyes focus on the black and white text. For articles that plop an ad (which are almost always pointless, unrelated, and uninteresting) in the middle of my article, my eyes automatically scroll past it.

      I thank the evil advertising industry for this. Not only are they incompetent (why do I see an ad for cigaraficionado.com when I am searching for genealogy information??) but they are also polluting the Internet with their toxic waste of ads (Adobe Flash should be banned on a global scale, the Java creators should be drawn and quartered, and companies who publish flashing ads should be taxed at 275%, maybe higher).

      In summary, I hate Java the most, but Flash sucks more because it is more prevalent. Even if we could eliminate one of the technologies, life would be better.

    26. Re:Monopoly play by Magada · · Score: 1

      It should be trivial to let the google newsbot spider the actual news, but to redirect live visitors referred from news.google.com through the usual craptastic ads and registration pages. I fail to see where the difficulty is, here. I suspect the agreement is about something else entirely.

      --
      Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
  2. AP are scared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    the AP has been making a push for modernization, and now estimates that 20 percent of its revenue comes from online sources.



    Sounds like AP are scared of Google competing with them. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
    ---

    1. Re:AP are scared by kripkenstein · · Score: 2, Informative

      A minor correction concerning the 20% figure (revenue of AP from online content) - BusinessWeek say it should be 14%.

    2. Re:AP are scared by NewsWatcher · · Score: 2, Insightful

      AP are scared of Google "competing" with them? When Google hires thousands of journalists to write news for their site then they are competing with AP. What they are doing is not competition. Google is effectively the Napster of news. They take news from all over the world and let people get free access to it.
      That is fine for sites that offer free news, but AP doesn't. If you think what Google is doing is A-OK, try to imagine what it will be like when one of the world's largest news agencies goes under. This is not like music copyright infringement where a few rich bands lose money they don't need. When journalists disappear governments become less accountable.

      --
      If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
    3. Re:AP are scared by rm69990 · · Score: 1

      What you just said is utter bullshit, plain and simple. Google News only links to news that is available for free online in the first place, and furthermore, it links to the original news article, not a Google copy. Most news sites operate based on advertising income, and under the assumption that the ads will make it profitable for a news site to show those stories. Google News drives people to those news sites, increasing advertising revenue.

      Or is it your position that hyperlinks are illegal? How about Google Web search itself? Should I pay Slashdot for the right to link to one of their free web pages? Or is it too "Napster like" to link to free web pages?

      You may not view it as right, but until you actually say how exactly Google is infringing AP's copyrights, it doesn't really matter...

  3. Content, not aggregation? by Atario · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sounds like they'll actually be delivering whole AP articles, rather than snippets with links. Which might mean people wouldn't have to go to regular newspaper/TV-news sites to get those AP articles they all regurgitate.

    We may soon find out just how much those sites were "hurt" by being linked from Google News, once they lose that sweet AP article traffic...

    --
    "A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
    1. Re:Content, not aggregation? by tonyr1988 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I agree - even the summary says that Google is planning on a new service with AP stories.

      Many people will say that this drifts away from Google's main mission because it doesn't "send people off" to other websites, which is the core of web searching.

      However, this should make AP articles (and maybe Reuters + others later?) faster loading, ad-less, and centralized. Plus, it's not the first time Google has helped by not "sending people off": they've done it to Usenet, blogs, maps, and all their new content platforms (video, Base, page creator, etc.)

    2. Re:Content, not aggregation? by Breakfast+Pants · · Score: 1

      Google might finally be turning into Yahoo. With regard to your title, Google used to believe in exactly the reverse.

      --

      --

      WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
  4. Small clarification by nascarguy27 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The AP-Google deal is for a future news product not the current news content that is used in the current Google product. A reuters article explains. From the Reuters article, "'It's a licensing agreement that lets us use original AP content in new ways than we have used in the past for Google News,' Google spokeswoman Sonya Boralv said."

    --
    Funny createSig(Witty remark, Odd reference)
    {
    return (Funny)remark + (Funny)reference;
    }
    1. Re:Small clarification by argStyopa · · Score: 1

      Well....

      Logically they have to say that it's for "something else".

      If they (admit that they) are just paying to link, then they've set a precedent that would mean that they would have to pay AFP, Reuters, and every other new organization.

      --
      -Styopa
    2. Re:Small clarification by rm69990 · · Score: 1

      Yes, but why would they pay when hyperlinks aren't an infringement of copyright? To the best of my knowledge, links aren't covered under the copyright act.

    3. Re:Small clarification by cerberusss · · Score: 1
      The AP-Google deal is for a future news product
      Wow, so AP and Google discovered that, when combined, they can look into the future!
      --
      8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
  5. AFP not AP? by GTMoogle · · Score: 1

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not aware of any suit from AP... A*F*P is suing google... Which means google is paying another news agency for special features, not just regular news.

    1. Re:AFP not AP? by GTMoogle · · Score: 1

      Go me for reading a subtext in the article that wasn't even there... *cough*
      *shifty eyes* What I REALLY meant was...

      Isn't it funny that Google's paying one news agency for full news articles, whilst several other newspapers have tried to sue google for linking to their stuff with tiny excerpts. Who do you think is getting the short end of the stick here?

    2. Re:AFP not AP? by carpeweb · · Score: 2, Insightful

      ... several other newspapers have tried to sue google for linking to their stuff with tiny excerpts.

      I've never understood the "deep linking" controversy or -- more to the point -- how linkees had any cause to object. But I guess at least here the issue is "tiny excerpts". How tiny? Full text would clearly be a copyright violation. So, how tiny does an excerpt have to be in order to qualify as fair use? At least that's a reasonable basis for dispute, as opposed to linking itself.

      It seems to me that Google might be paying AP for something that stretches beyond fair use, and it certainly is claiming fair use vs. the several other newspapers.

  6. Direct vs. Indirect Access to articles by runlevel+5 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    From what I saw on the Associated Press's website (http://www.ap.org), they have no free access to their news content. I would guess that Google's aggregator has been getting its AP - and all other - content from the AP's customers, such as the New York Times and other large newspapers. The good thing about pulling from several of these sources is that a variety of sides to one issue show up in Google News. I'm worried that Google's new deal with the AP will lead to a direct pipe for AP articles in whatever the new product is. Every source has its biasses and a domination of AP content could lead to a deterioration of the level view I'm used to getting by seeing a number of articles on the same subject throgh Google news.

  7. wonder how AFP is doing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Google stopped indexing AFP content from the past agreement. I wonder how well that worked out for AFP's numbers? My guess is they took a nosedive, leading to this more of a compromise deal with AP.

    If you think about it, google could wipe out just tons of online news sites if they wanted to. Podunk and east buggywhip little news paper sites can afford to pull wire feeds. Google could do the same and just *drop* any places that are just redundant coverage of the same story once they have paid for it. They get copy and images from the feeds, so no real reason to index all those other places. Pull up any google news article, take a gander at the "all xxx-number related" links. Looks like around 99% identical to me. For that matter, they could hire freelancers by the droves around the planet and give a lot of the old established press services a thorough scare. Be a reporter, actually get looked at on the net with some numbers, stick with the old school news services, be limited to dead trees print if lucky. I bet a lot of the current freelancers that the wire news feeds use would jump ship quickly given that choice.

  8. Remove duplicates? by LS · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't know if they could do this without inking the deal, but quite often the majority of news stories in a single entry on Google News are copies of the same AP news wire article. Perhaps this will give Google an opportunity to mark articles as the same, or somehow reduce clutter.

    --
    There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
    1. Re:Remove duplicates? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I don't know if they could do this without inking the deal, but quite often the majority of news stories in a single entry on Google News are copies of the same AP news wire article. Perhaps this will give Google an opportunity to mark articles as the same, or somehow reduce clutter.

      I can see it now

      Slashdot 3.0, now with state of the art Google dupe filter!!!

    2. Re:Remove duplicates? by rm69990 · · Score: 1

      Why would Google need to pay to be able to do this exactly?

    3. Re:Remove duplicates? by jZnat · · Score: 1

      Someone who works at Google is going to have to program it, so they're paying someone regardless.

      --
      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
  9. AdSense by lwu · · Score: 1

    Then it implies that Google can run AdSense ads along side AP stories. More ad revenues!

  10. mod parent interesting-I would if I had points. by monkeyfamily · · Score: 1

    N/T

  11. I need such deal too by article+author · · Score: 1

    Would be great if i could make an deal with google too for my own articles ^^ i would write all day and night =)

    --
    I write for: oocuz article directory
  12. Nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Google makes a deal with AP, and you link to Reuters for the scoop. Classic.

  13. If AP Wants Money by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 1

    If the AP wants money, Google should just drop them from their index. Others would rush into the void with ad or other means of supported sites. I'm betting that Google is more powerful than the AP since Google is the new world emerging, while AP represents the old world fading.

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
    1. Re:If AP Wants Money by generic-man · · Score: 1

      So the new world order is "proof by intimidation"? Throwing one's marketshare around to get whatever one wants sounds pretty evil to me.

      The AP is one of the few worldwide organizations that is actually in the business of news gathering. Google News is basically a big AP/Reuters gateway considering how all the big stories are 90% wire reports. I'm glad to hear that Google is actually paying to license some of the content they shovel at you.

      --
      For more information, click here.
    2. Re:If AP Wants Money by rm69990 · · Score: 1

      You mean the content they push you off their own website to see?

      I've asked this a couple of times now. Could someone please point out specifically which section of the copyright act Google is not in compliance with by linking to other peoples' articles?

      And could you all please quit with this evil crap? Calling any company evil makes you sound like a paranoid nutcase.

  14. Not adless by cyberformer · · Score: 1

    You're right, but the articles probably won't be ad-less. Google's real mission is advertising, so they'll use the exact same text ad infrastructure as adsense, adwords, etc.

    It'll be interesting to see how news sites react. The value of AP content to them will presumably go down, as it will no longer be attracting Google clicks. (At least, I hope Google News will stop returning 200 identical hits that link to the exact same syndicated story....)

    Some might also look to strike similar deals with Google, though I think most see Google more as a competitor than customer. (The AP has always been about selling content, whereas most media companies are about selling ads.)

  15. Why Can't these Faux "Victims" by Mana+Mana · · Score: 1


    just exclude ***themselves*** from being spidered / searched / archived / cached? Why, robots.txt exists for these uses. See http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/topic .py?topic=8843


    <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOARCHIVE">

    <META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="NOARCHIVE">


    for further Google specific examples.

    Or, can someone explain to me what I am missing from their rationale?