The Associated Press has declared war on the Internet, or at least news aggregators, and I am torn. I want to side with the Associated Press -- I do work for a member news organization, after all -- but I also sympathize deeply with the people that AP is trying to shut down.
I do believe that AP has a right to defend it's own intellectual property. Their reporters went out and found, reported and produced that content and AP paid them good money, but not THAT good of money, to go and get those stories. AP has every right to the money that is made from that content. However, things are never that simple. There is a history of AP showing a lack of understanding toward the basic mechanics of the Internet -- calling simply linking to a story, an act central to the functioning of the Internet, a criminal act of piracy.
My sympathies for the aggregators are few, but meaningful. Aggregators fall into two classes when it comes to other's content: the linkers and the thieves. If an aggregator simply links to an AP story, such as Digg does, then that aggregator is performing a service to AP, namely, distributing it's content to more users and directing them to the AP pages where they can then be served ads. These aggregators are terrific for the source of the original content because they drive up traffic on stories that might have otherwise been overlooked. The thieves are a different matter. These aggregators copy and paste the AP stories, even if they attribute them, without paying AP a royalty. This redirects the money that should have gone to AP into the thief's pocket. As a content originator I despise these sort of aggregators and see no reason why they should be defended.
The difficulty for AP will be, and has been, going after the thieves without alienating the average user who does not draw so stark a distinction as I have drawn here.
The Internet is a vast echo-chamber and AP is making a lot of very loud people very nervous.
Note to classmates:
I am sorry this post did not get up sooner so that you could make your required comments. I spent the weekend with family in Wichita and just checked my email half an hour ago. My apologies.
AP seems to be in a bad shape right now. This is clearly a desperate way to get more money from “invisible” people not paying for AP’s news. Going after people like this, especially on the Internet, and try to gain something of it is almost mission impossible. I don’t think that AP is really going to do anything about this thing and that they’re just trying to scare people. Who knows? Maybe somebody will “come clean” and pay after reading AP’s statement.
I do not see the AP gaining (in terms of dollar signs) right now, in regards to this. The AP needs to further look into all of this (not use scare tactics as much) and find a reasonable way to better profit off of published work. This will take time, especially with the current state of the economy. Long term, however, the AP should be able to find a way to increase revenue.
I agree with your stance. I think that AP plays a large part in the news organization and people need to be sympathetic, but I also see the side of the people caught in the cross fire. The internet provides a large portion of news, and how people recieve their news. AP needs to be updated with the basic fundamentals of the internet in order to fit in with changing times. However, people also need to be sympathetic toward AP and realize that they work hard to provide the news for the people.