AP to Impose Online Licensing Fees

[DoYouEverWonder]

April 18, 2005, 1:55 PM EDT

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Associated Press will begin charging newspapers and broadcasters to post its stories, photos and other content online, a pricing shift that reflects the growing power of the Internet to lure audiences and advertisers from more established media.

Tom Curley, AP president and CEO, announced the change Monday at the annual meeting of the 156-year-old news cooperative.

Most of the 15,000 news outlets that buy AP's news, sports, business and entertainment coverage have been allowed to "re-purpose" the same material online at no extra cost since 1995. At that time, graphical Web browsers were just beginning to transform the Internet from an esoteric computer network to a mass medium.

The new pricing policy, effective Jan. 1, begins to shift some of the funding of AP to the growing online market, as technological advances and digital devices are making it ever easier for people to get their news whenever and however they want it.

"The need for online licensing is clear," Curley said during a speech at the meeting in the Masonic Auditorium, attended by member publishers, editors and broadcasters. "For The Associated Press to endure during this digital transition, we must be able to preserve the value and enforce the rights of our intellectual property across the media spectrum."

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-ap-annual-meeting,0,5638917.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

[democracyindanger]

1. Goodbye, non-registration newspaper sites

Gah. This is gonna get annoying.

bugmenot.com

[Kagemusha]

2. No one's thought about what if AP asks for fees from DU yet?

Because the AP hasn't forced this issue in the past, a lot of court fighting never had to happen over this sort of thing, like with Free Republic and a few papers...