Today the AP came out swinging against web sites that post its content without authorization. According to the New York Times, the AP is especially concerned about search engines and aggregators, and the fact that somebody else — primarily Google, it seems — is making money off their material. The AP doesn’t so much want to shut it down, says the Times, but instead to control it and make money off it. They put out a press release, but it’s short on information about exactly how they intend to do this.
In a similar blow-up over bloggers last summer, the AP “pulled a Metallica,” in the words of the LA Times — that is, it proved its “cluelessness about the internet.” But the resulting black eye moved it to back down pretty quickly. Now the AP is at it again, but it’s gunning for bigger targets this time.
To quote the LA Times once more: “After all, the problem for most news sources isn’t that too many people misappropriate their work online, it’s that too few see it at all.”