AP and 28 News Groups To Collect Fees From Aggregators 303
jjp9999 writes "The Associated Press is launching the NewsRight project to make aggregators pay for content. Some of the top names in the news industry are currently on board, including New York Times Co. and Washington Post Co, and they're currently negotiating with Gannett, Tribune, Cox and News Corp. The project will license original news from the media companies and collect royalties from aggregators. The use of lawsuits and threats of lawsuits are already on the agenda. NewsRight's first salesperson starts work this week."
RightHaven (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure they will have worked out the bugs that RightHaven have, and continue down that same road..
SOPA (Score:3, Interesting)
I bet this ties in to SOPA ..
Let them keep their content, and their ad revenue. Screw them.
Here's how the first call will go down.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Newsright Salesdroid: Hello Google? I'm from Newsright, and I'm calling to set up your payment plan for aggregation of AP/Gannett news on your website..
Google: Say WHAT?? You've GOT to be kidding... We are NOT going to pay YOU!! In fact, YOU should be paying US to publicise YOU..
Newsright Salesdroid: If you don't pay, we sue..
Google: (sound of lots of laughter) Tell ya what.. Why don't we just NOT aggregate your content, that way we're happy/you're happy...
Newsright Salesdroid: Ummm... I guess that would be ok...
FAST FORWARD A MONTH..
Newsright CEO at management meeting to salesdroid on Google account: WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO??? Traffic to our clients is down 85%, and they are
PISSED... You're FIRED!!!!
Re:RightHaven (Score:5, Interesting)
slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
seems like Google et. al. should charge them (Score:1, Interesting)
The news sites are getting add'l advertising from folks steered to their sites from Google, Digg, /., etc.
That is a valuable service that generates revenue for the news organizations.
Re:Here's how the first call will go down.... (Score:4, Interesting)
There are more news sources besides the members of AP, but there aren't any real competitors to Google Search.
Re:First post (Score:5, Interesting)
Eh, not at all. The aggregators are using their right of fair use to aggregate news. They are not re-posting the original articles under their own name.
That is another example how cooperations are greedy and try to extend copyright at all costs. It depends on what NewsRight will actually do, because TFA doesn't know yet. But maybe then even Slashdot will be required to pay.
It's just beyond me, why the "... 28 co-investors, 30 additional companies taking part, and 800 news websites" are not coming together and start their own news aggregator web site. But than they have to produce something instead to resort to "lawsuits and threats of lawsuits".
Re:First post (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How a bout we try a little tenderness? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't contribute to the NPR. Mainly because it's not my NPR.
I did use to get bills for SVT when I had a TV, though, and the public service broadcasters SVT (here in Sweden) or YLE (in finland), like the BBC (I'd imagine) are in a whole other dimension of journalism compaired to any of the commercial offerings, being politically and commercially independent.
I'm not saying your points of 1 or 2 are wrong, but that the solution to a copyright economy which is/{should be} dying is for people with the means to pay for it, as in from each according to their abilities etc., because we all want information and an informed public and not to be playing silly ownership games with bits, don't we?
"Nationalise" or more appropriately "globalise" the AP.
We (as in people in general) should pay a fraction of a cent or whatever for the AP journalists to keep doing their job, IMO.
I'm not going to try to force it, but I just think it would be a sensible thing to do. We all benefit from the AP and the likes, don't we?
clam up or stand up? (Score:4, Interesting)
Reporters: pay a license to NewsRight or don't write silly programs to auto review our content.
Doctors: go through AMA accredited medical school and certification or forget about giving flu shots.
Lawyers go through private (!!!) Bar association with its arbitrary rules to get into the profession or forget about practicing law
Actors: no more than 2 SAG appearances without joining the SAG or you are in violation of the law.
Programmers: all software should be free. Everyone should give away the secret sauce which makes their software run or they are acting immorally. For some added injury, let's invite hundreds of thousands indentured workers on H1 visas, to compete with professional programmers on wages and work conditions. Let's not call them immigrants (with all the rights of green card holders). Let's make them depend on their employer for 5-10 years to get a green card.
Yes, there are top programmers who make what a doctor makes. But top doctors, lawyers and actors make 100 fold. I wonder why that is. I wonder what lawyers would cost if most lawyers thought that legal services were a right that must be given away as much as possible. You might think that I am trolling, but the pattern is unmistakable. Professions which do not give up control over results of their labor have higher wages.
Needs more clarification (Score:4, Interesting)
It sounds like this is an attempt to create the MPAA of news. On one hand, I feel like this won't really affect the casual reader since most folks get their news through a source that would not have problems with this (e.g. local channels, newspapers, Google News,e tc.) On the other hand, I feel like it's an immoral attempt to control the flow of information.
Google+ Appears to Mitigate This (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I think this is absolutely necessary (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:RSS as Fair Use (Score:5, Interesting)
You know one of the reasons the rest of the world thinks you suck?
Yeah, that's it right there, only US citizens have rights in your eyes.
How you derived that nonsense from what the GP said is beyond me. Besides, we're in the process of criticizing ourselves in this thread and we don't need irrational comments from the foreign peanut gallery.
Re:RSS as Fair Use (Score:4, Interesting)
The Federal government does lots of good things:
1) FDA: keeps our food relatively safe. Go read "The Jungle" to see what it was like before the FDA.
2) FAA: keeps our aviation safe by regulating air travel, licensing pilots, setting standards, etc.
3) National Parks: we have some of the best parks in the world. Grand Canyon is an amazing place, and thanks to the Federal government it isn't filled with a bunch of shitty hotels, McDonald's, development, and mining.
4) Interstate Highway System: you want to go back to the days when roads were windy and you had to stop in every podunk town when you wanted to drive someplace several states away? Do you have any idea what the IHS has done for transportation and trade within the US?
5) NASA. Not only has this yielded immense scientific knowledge for mankind, but sources I've read said that for every dollar invested in the Apollo program, the US economy benefited by $42, because of spin-off technologies.
I've probably missed a few other good examples, but this should give you an idea. The bad thing is that all of the above (plus any other similar programs/agencies I've missed) add up to a tiny fraction of what today's Federal government spends, between no-strings bailouts for mismanaged banks, needless wars on the other side of the planet, military bases in 100+ countries worldwide, and on and on. However, even if we finally did get a Pres and Congress in there that cut all that crap out (but leaving my list above alone), we'd still need to keep tax revenue up to pay down the debt and get the country financially solvent again. This is when taxes should be hiked on the 1%, since they're mostly to blame in getting us into this mess to begin with, with all their financial shenanigans, bags of money to politicians, SOPA, etc.
Re:RightHaven (Score:5, Interesting)
"If we leave this market untouched, then all we are going to hear about, is whatever advertisers are willing to pay for.... think about it."
Uh... I hate to be the one to break this to you, but that has been the way TV has always worked -- and newspapers, too, for a couple of hundred years, at least.
So you think that suddenly this is an insufficient model for making a profit? Or what?
Agregators are not doing anything wrong, if all they are doing is giving a summary, and a link to the original source. It is EXTREMELY clear that this constitutes "fair use".