by Playfuls Staff |
4th August 2006
Actually, it seems that they have already signed the pact for a long time. But AP and Google have only made it public this Wednesday.[more]
According to the joint press release Google has agreed to pay a certain fee for the news it takes from the famous press agency and then posts on its news site, www.news.google.com.
But this is not all: Google will pay to use the news and the accompanying photographs in other products too. This means that the licensing agreement signed a few months ago will allow Google to use the AP information in new areas than before, said a Google spokesperson.
"It‘s a licensing agreement that lets us use original AP content in new ways than we have used in the past for Google News," Google spokeswoman Sonya Boralv said.
The financial terms of the deal were not made public, but this contract will eventually permit Google go beyond the existing system under which Google provides links to AP stories used by its subscribers through Google News.
AP spokesman Jack Stokes confirmed the licensing deal, but provided no further details.
Apparently this comes as a compensation for AP, settling down a long term and significant conflict between the two companies. Moreover, it will definitely have huge implications on another trial, this time between Google and Agence France Presse news agency. The latter sued the Mountain View giant last year and is seeking $17.5m in damages, for allegedly infringing copyrighted material published on AFP’s site.
The agreement signed by Google and AP could add some serious force to AFP’s arguments in the trial. The lawsuit, which is pending in a U.S. district court, is in procedural stages.
It is yet unclear whether traffic statistics were the criterion according to which Google has been paying AP lately or whether a non-profit news cooperation was reached between the two giants.
The agreement is expected to ensure that AP's news and photographs will be made available to more online readers and at the same time help its member newspapers benefit financially by driving traffic to their sites.
Some publishers and other media content owners have been complaining that they have lost the ability to control how their online content is consumed with the rise of Web search systems from Google and other Web companies such as Yahoo Inc.
Google has maintained that "fair use" protections and copyright law protect Google's rights to link to the news sites' content. It says publishers are free to opt out of Google News at any time.
Google senior litigation counsel Michael Kwun said his company believes that "fair use" protections and copyright law protect Google‘s rights to link to news sites‘ content. "Publishers can opt out of Google News at any time," he said.
Google News gathers news stories from more than 4,500 global sources and lets users search for them by typing relevant words into a small text box. Expanded readership can help media partners boost audiences and advertising revenue.
Online news sources have rapidly become a major threat to the 160-year-old AP, which pulls in a 10th of the revenue Google does. In response, the AP has been making a push for modernization, and now estimates 20 per cent of its revenue comes from online sources.
By contrast, Reuters, a rival of both AP and AFP, works actively with Google to promote its news stories on Google News. Google and Reuters have a partnership by which Reuters provides a variety of news, information and data to Google Finance, a separate financial site, a spokesman said.
In May, AP struck deals with blog search company Technorati, under which readers of stories on AP member Web sites see links to relevant Web log commentary, and with local news search company Topix.net, which helps promote news stories from AP publishers that are nearest to online readers.
