According to a recent New York Times article, the Associated Press says it will start suing websites that use its content without paying for it. AP executives are concerned with engines like Google and Yahoo that link to sites which reproduce AP's articles whole or in part.
According to an article by Mike Masnick at Techdirt.com the AP said, "We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories," to which Masnick questioned what these 'misguided theories' were and said that "search engines aggregating info and sending people to your site has been ruled fair use before"
The AP says this isn't about fair use, "its about a bigger economic issue at stake." The real issue seems to be an old business model meeting head to head with a changing world of technology. But the AP isn't alone in its concerns:
In a related story at InfoWorld.com, the French news agency, Agence France Presse, is being removed from Google's news service. The AFP had filed a lawsuit against Google because of a copyright infringement due to the Google's inclusion of AFP stories and content in its Google News. Having won, AFP's content is being removed, but many think separating itself from such a powerful search engine will only hurt it in the long run.
- Is Google's usage of, and linking to, stories produced by the AP and AFP fair use? Which of the 4 tests for fair use would hurt or help Google's case?
- Is it reasonable for services like the AP or AFP to submit stories on the web and expect people to not link and share that information, or to expect people to pay for it when someone, somewhere will always be passing it along for free?
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