Associated Press rallies news industry to fight Google, et al

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 20 October 2010 12:16

IT Industry - Strategy

The Associated Press, the 164 year old news agency, is aiming to play a key role in helping news organisations make more money from the use of their content in digital form by organisations such as Google, and others that deliver content to multiple devices over the Internet.

In a rather dry and understated press release, the organisation said it was "working with news providers to create a new rights clearinghouse that will enable broader and better access to original news reporting."

According to AP president and CEO, Tom Curley, "The clearinghouse will answer a need we heard from multiple businesses for an efficient mechanism to access content from a range of news providers for a variety of uses. This extends to the news industry an approach that has worked successfully in other industries with similar challenges around digital usage."

AP said it was also "expanding its development of white label apps and content modules for the growing array of handheld devices."

All this does not sound exactly earth-shattering. However, in a news item issued by AP and written by two of its own journalists, the organisation's aims were set out much more clearly. The report said that AP was "overseeing the creation of an organisation to help newspapers and broadcasters make more money as more people get their news from mobile phones and other wireless devices," and that the move "signals that the AP'¦hopes to play a leadership role as long-established media try to reverse several years of decline brought on by their inability to capitalise on the Internet."

Under the rights clearinghouse plan, AP and other, unspecified, news organisations would set up a separate entity that would provide: rights clearance and privacy tools; a variety of ways to license content from publishers; and media intelligence services that would give insights to businesses about consumption of news content.

The clearinghouse would build on the capabilities of the AP News Registry, which allows participants to tag, track and measure use of their content online and to which almost 1,000 newspapers have signed up to participate. This registry is also reported to be designed to detect plagiarised usage of AP members' news content.

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