AP and Yahoo close to reaching deal on content use

AP has been haggling with Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo over new terms that would govern the portal's distribution of AP news content.

Google has said that it has an agreement with the AP that permits Google to host AP content on Google properties, but their contract expires around the end of January.

The AP, which has about 1,500 U.S. newspapers as members, has a unique organizing powers in a fragmented industry. It is now leading the effort to control how and where its members' material appears on the Internet, both on the portals' own news sites and in search results that send readers to AP articles on its members' Web sites. The not-for-profit news cooperative is currently testing a system to tag and track its articles and, eventually, its members' articles to assure compliance with the terms of use agreements.

The AP's objective is to correct previous agreements which gave internet portals like Yahoo access to a broad range of its online articles in a single, relatively inexpensive package. While those deals helped to make AP material ubiquitous, AP executives hold that they have diluted the value of AP news offerings by not limiting availability or distinguishing articles that were unique.

The WSJ is also reporting that the AP's negotiations with Yahoo have included the possibility of licensing the news cooperative's material in tiers, separating breaking news from more exclusive material, for example. Depending on what the final deal would look like, it could mean a higher price tag for AP

These efforts come as news publishers grapple with how to collect fees when their content is distributed online, as advertising revenues erode and readers move to accessing news on the Web.

News Corp. has been a very critical of Google and other sites that publish excerpts of its stories. The New York-based company has held discussions with Microsoft Corp. about a plan to remove the publisher's newspaper content from Google's search engine while continuing to feature it on Microsoft's online properties, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Some observers believe some internet search engines could be reluctant to sign on to a system that gives publishers so much extensive information and control over content.


Source:  The Wall Street Journal