AP to halt use of web content without permission

The Associated Press is leading a “newspaper industry initiative” that will begin fighting to stop web sites from using newspaper content without permission, according to The New York Times.

In a statement, The A.P. said it would develop a system to track news articles online and determine whether they were being used legally.
The statement did not mention Google or any other adversary by name, but many newspaper executives have spoken recently about their concern that Google and other major aggregators and Web portals are making money from the newspapers’ work, by selling ads on news pages that turn up their articles.

Google, which owns one of the biggest sites that make use of newspaper content in Google News, has argued in the past that the snippets of information it uses fall under fair use laws.
The company started displaying advertising on its Google News service earlier this year.

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