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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
AP declares WAR!!!
Gene Blevins, Photographer
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Woodland Hills | CA | USA | Posted: 5:26 PM on 04.06.09 |
->> AP declares war
This could get interesting - eventually. The Associated Press said today it will take legal action against Web sites that use news stories without permission. Some sort of system will be developed to track articles online and determine whether they were being used legally, AP said in a statement. (Will be developed? Don't tell me they're first digging into the required technology.) From the NYT: |
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Kevin Martin, Photo Editor, Photographer
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Baton Rouge | LA | United States | Posted: 5:59 PM on 04.06.09 |
->> Gene,
Can you post a link to this story?
Thanks
-Kevin Martin |
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Gene Blevins, Photographer
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Mike Brice, Photographer
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Toledo | OH | USA | Posted: 9:25 PM on 04.06.09 |
->> It is about time newspapers and news agencies start protecting their intellectual property.
So many online news sources are nothing but thieves, stealing the content from others.
It might be a little too little, a little too late, but I think it is a great idea. Make online news sites generate their own content. |
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Jean Finley, Photo Editor, Photographer
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Iowa City | IA | USA | Posted: 12:02 AM on 04.07.09 |
| ->> So let me see if I understand. AP doesn't know exactly what it is going to do or how they're going to do it, but they are going to do something? |
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Louis Lopez, Photographer
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Fontana | CA | USA | Posted: 4:17 AM on 04.07.09 |
->> Just so I understand the current stand this week, you all love the AP now?
You love them, you hate them which one is it?
You love they protect their "property" but you hate how they got the "property" with rights grabbing contracts, at least that was the latest version a few AP threads ago.
These AP threads flip flop as bad as the media... |
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Joe Cavaretta, Photographer
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Ft Lauderdale | FL | USA | Posted: 8:21 AM on 04.07.09 |
->> Luis,
You are comparing apples to oranges. This is a good thing. This is not about the contract, etc., this is about member newspapers (who are the owners of the AP, BTW) going out of business because their stories are being distributed all over the world on the net by AP while the readers no longer get the product "because it's free."
This is not so much about photos. This is more about copy which probably only about 30 percent of which at any local bureau is generated by actual AP employees or stringers.
Someone is going to have to pay for that reporter who sits in the city council meeting and discovers that the electric company is going to build a high power line through your neighborhood or sit through the court case waiting for the verdict. I think it is only fair that when the AP picks these stories up and they get wide looks at Huff Post or Google News, especially now that they are generating revenue with each click, that the company that paid for the coverage should reap some of the benefits.
Remember the story of the goose that laid the golden egg? Well, the goose is on life support.
Of course, Huff Post or Google News can always go out and hire writers and shooters all over the country, right? |
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David Harpe, Photographer
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Louisville | KY | USA | Posted: 9:35 AM on 04.07.09 |
->> AP
After providing nearly unrestricted free access to their content online for over a decade, it's a little late in the game to play the victim card.
The RIAA tried the lawyer approach. Hasn't really worked too well (the RIAA all but shut down their lawyer strike force a few months ago). But lots of lawyers made lots of money.
At the same time another company was taking a more customer-friendly approach. Apple cut through the noise and figured out a way to strike a middle ground between piracy and compensation. Yeah the music companies griped, and it might not be the best deal for artists compared to the old school record company system. But customers spent billions of dollars on downloads in response...money that would have never seen it's way into the system. Not completely ideal, and there are problems, but customers overwhelmingly like iTunes, and nobody likes record companies anymore.
If AP sticks with large-scale offenders in this "war", it will probably be okay. But if they start going after every small or mid-tier blogger who posts an AP snippet from an RSS feed, it'll be RIAA all over again and they'll end up looking like Satan.
A far more Apple-like approach would be for AP to develop a friendly model for aggregators. Provide a tiered access model that a site operator could afford to pay and still make money: One rate for photoless snippets, another rate for snippets with photos, an expensive premium rate for whole feeds.
The key to making this kind of thing work is to cut deals with Dreamhost, Godaddy, Wordpress hosting, etc. and make them resellers. All of the hosting providers have one-click installs for blog software, and they already have systems in place for add-ons to accounts..."click here for an SSL certificate", "click here for private registration". Godaddy is the king of this kind of stuff. Have AP feed access as an add-on for a couple of bucks a month...the hosting provider takes a small cut, the rest goes to AP.
People will pay for stuff if you make it easy, and make it a good value. If a site operator could easily pay a few bucks a month for a nice tidy legit RSS feed of AP headlines, they'd do it. |
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Mark Loundy, Photo Editor
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 1:47 AM on 04.08.09 |
->> The AP is no stranger to online revenue. I don't know if it's still the case, but a couple of years ago, the AP's largest client was Yahoo.
--Mark |
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David Harpe, Photographer
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Louisville | KY | USA | Posted: 8:03 AM on 04.08.09 |
| ->> I figured AP and Google paid, but the big deal is second-tier. AP, Google and the rest provide full RSS feeds to anyone at no charge. AP sees no revenue from that. They should either adjust rates accordingly, or change the TOS to prevent the practice. |
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Geoff Miller, Photographer
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Portage | MI | USA | Posted: 8:43 AM on 04.08.09 |
->> In an interesting side note to this battle, the AP is also demanding that a TN radio station take YouTube videos from AP's YouTube account off of the station's web site. In their defense, the station has suggested that AP read the terms of their YouTube account.
http://blogs.knoxnews.com/knx/silence/archives/2009/04/ap_lowers_the_h.shtm... |
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Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer
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Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 7:36 AM on 04.09.09 |
->> "You are comparing apples to oranges. This is a good thing. This is not about the contract, etc., this is about member newspapers (who are the owners of the AP, BTW) going out of business because their stories are being distributed all over the world on the net by AP while the readers no longer get the product 'because it's free.'"
I'm sorry Joe, but that's just plain silly.
It's always about the money. The AP, and its member papers, are simply trying to pull back in as much revenue as possible, from both ends of the chain. They are grabbing as much revenue as they can from their content suppliers (i.e., photographers) and consumers (i.e., aggregators).
Assuming they manage to return to reasonable profitability through this strategy, do you think the AP's contract will get any better? You're kidding yourself. Neither will newspapers hire many more shooters. The cat's out of the bag. Even if they can recapture some of their lost advertising revenue, newspapers are going to keep relying on "citizen journalist" photos or PR shots just as they are increasingly doing now. When you're supplying a product for mass consumption, "good enough" is the standard, not "good." |
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David Harpe, Photographer
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Louisville | KY | USA | Posted: 9:52 AM on 04.09.09 |
->> http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2009/tc2009047_310532.htm...
"The Associated Press is hopping mad over what it calls "misappropriation" of its content online. But the news service isn't just complaining about it or threatening legal action against Web sites that it says unlawfully reproduce its news stories.
In a largely overlooked aspect of its battle with Google (GOOG) and other aggregators of news content, the AP plans to build an online destination where it hopes Web users can easily find and read its news stories and those of other content creators." |
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Gene Blevins, Photographer
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Woodland Hills | CA | USA | Posted: 6:59 PM on 04.11.09 |
->> One battle won for AP
The Associated Press has won the NFL commercial photography contract, which has been the territory of Getty Images for the last five years.
In 2004 the NFL deal helped propel Getty’s ascent in the commercial sports licensing business. The contract deals with licensing NFL photos for commercial use, which is separate from the photo agencies’ wire service coverage of NFL events.
The deal was disclosed in an April 6 speech at the AP’s Annual Meeting
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/editorial/e3i8b27df... |
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David Harpe, Photographer
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Geoff Miller, Photographer
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