Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

4 of 59 comments (clear)

  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 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.

  2. 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
  3. 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;
    }