Zombie Journalism

Dispatches from the living amongst journalism's walking dead

Tag: AP

New AP plan: Taking web traffic from members?

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On August 13, 2009

In Industry News & Notes, Online Revenue Models

The Nieman Lab blog obtained a copy of the AP’s latest plan to preserve it’s aging business model. The name  – “Protect, Point, Pay — An Associated Press Plan for Reclaiming News Content Online” – sort of says it all (for better or for worse).

The plan is to withhold some of it’s content from it’s wire and other means of distribution, instead forcing member sites to link to the content on an AP site. So…the AP is seeking to compete with its member sites for online traffic? Wha?

The AP plan differentiates between “utility” content and “unique” content when deciding what to keep on this centralized site and what to distribute for member use. The AP’s lawyer seemed to define “utility” content as the AP’s usual offerings of traditional news feeds. The “unique” content, I’d think, would be their supplemental interactive graphics, galleries and non-daily news features from AP staff.

While I can appreciate that the AP is at least thinking 21st century on this latest scheme, it begs the question: What exactly are AP members paying for, anyway? Member-owners subscribe to the AP precisely because we want to use this content on our sites specifically to get page views and sell our own ads around it. If AP members have to send that traffic off site – why even pay the huge AP membership fees in the first place? We can give traffic away for free.

In addition to that obvious question, the plan prompts many more alarm bells.

Steve Buttry says the AP seems to be off on the wrong foot from the get-go with this name about the name:

[It] uses two words that reflect the dangerous thinking that plagues way too much of our industry today: The focus on protection of a declining model rather than development of a new, prosperous model and the stubborn denial of all evidence that paid content is not the path to a prosperous model.

Secondly, on this business of unique vs utility content, Buttry and others ask how this distinction will be made and if member-contributed content will be “protected” too. After all, so much of the AP’s state and local feeds seem to be from member papers’ reporting, not that of local AP staffers.

Thirdly – a Nieman commenter asks how will all of this work in terms of search engine optimization? The AP seems to be hoping these outside links will provide all the SEO they’ll need – but these stories aren’t on all the various member sites themselves – how much will the AP content fall in SEO rankings?

I’m sure there’ll be a lot more info out about this in the coming days and weeks and maybe I’ll feel better about it. Right now, despite what their people may say, the AP seems to be looking for a fight with it couldn’t possibly win.

Recommended links in brief

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On August 8, 2009

In Recommended Links

Do Newspapers Owe Google “Fair Share” Fees For Researching Stories? – Daggle has been on the case with the AP for months now. He examines the irrational fear of the likes of Google – and questions what their resources are worth if they were to start charging us for their services.

How the Old, the Young and Everyone in Between Uses Social Networks – eMarketer – Great stats on who’s using social media tools by age group. We’ve seen these before, but the numbers seem to change so fast…

AP ignores Fair Use, treads into copyright debate

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On August 1, 2009

In Recommended Links

OK, so I know I’ve been all over the Marburger thing and completely ignored the whole AP thing. In short, the AP announced a new tool they think is going to protect their stories from copyright infringement and piracy:

The microformat will essentially encapsulate AP and member content in an informational “wrapper” that includes a digital permissions framework that lets publishers specify how their content is to be used online and which also supplies the critical information needed to track and monitor its usage.

The registry also will enable content owners and publishers to more effectively manage and control digital use of their content, by providing detailed metrics on content consumption, payment services and enforcement support. It will support a variety of payment models, including pay walls.

It’d be really cool if their system actually made it any more difficult to illegally use content. They didn’t seem to have a very good idea of what this system was really about.  Not to cater to the word crowd, they also included this ridiculous graphic of the system that has been mocked everywhere.

I honestly don’t understand the AP’s DRM thing all that well (that graphic alone boggled my mind), but I do know it isn’t a solution to what might not even really be a problem and it makes them look pretty dumb for touting it so much. I’ll let the experts tell you about it instead:

What’s more disconcerting about the AP and it’s quest to protect its content is the motive behind it – which does interest me a great deal.

In a New York Times article about their copyright quest, AP President Tom Curley seemed to be even crazier about use of their content than what the Marburger plan suggests:

Tom Curley, The A.P.’s president and chief executive, said the company’s position was that even minimal use of a news article online required a licensing agreement with the news organization that produced it. In an interview, he specifically cited references that include a headline and a link to an article, a standard practice of search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo, news aggregators and blogs.

Yes, the AP wants you to have a license even to link to their content, let alone quote it or use it in any way. If you aren’t familiar with the Fair Use Doctrine – you probably wouldn’t know how much this violates the spirit behind it. Pat Thornton had a few thoughts on this – more importantly, if the AP even acknowledges the existence of Fair Use when it comes to their content. It is a new age, but so far, headlines and links have been considered Fair Use.

But what is Fair Use in the digital age? Should the law be re-examined for the culture of the Internet? I think so – at least to lay out those word-of-mouth rules that vary from site to site about content use.

C.W. Anderson has a few great ideas outlined for the revamp of Fair Use for the web that the likes of the Marburgers and the AP should take seriously. You should read it, but here’s a recap:

  1. Where you link to the original story and how you link to it matters. Link early and often – and give credit where it is due.
  2. Consider if the site appropriating the content is adding a comment function when the originator of the content did not.This is an added value on their site that only leads to more discussion and reading of the original story.
  3. What is the balance between the value added by the appropriating site and the amount of original content used?
  4. What is the purpose of the site using the content?

Are these issues sticky? Of course – but at least he’s asking the right questions. A lot of copyright law, particularly Fair Use, is about evaluating use of content to make sure we’re sharing without giving away the farm.  It’s about the open marketplace of ideas (again) – and online, that ideal is more important than ever.

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