Giving away the product for free online

I believe some papers remove their material from their free section after a day or two. But Google allows people access to these by saving them in a cache.

 

A coworker and I disagree on the pronunciation of "cached," meaning saved in the manner you describe and listed on Google searches as follows:

Cached - Similar pages - Note this

When I say it as "CASHed," he scolds me and says "cash-AID."

I say that's the pronunciation of an altogether different word.

 

The NBC shows have short ads. Each show is divided into six parts, each of which begins with a brief ad (15 seconds). Not sure about ABC...

 

I watched a Knights of Prosperity show on ABC.com once and I think it just had an ad in the beginning. Still, I'm not sure your point. It's still free to you.

 

I'm sure Playboy does pretty well on the web...that's just a guess.

 

"Then she told me some story 'bout free milk and a cowwww...."



And Frank, as much as it would be fun for AP to cut off service to non-newspaper sites, it's not gonna keep BLOGS! from linking to AP stories, unless some technology can be found with text to stop hotlinking of text, the way you can stop images from being hotlinked. Or if there were technology to deter cutting and pasting.

 

AP is also a cooperative owned by TV and radio. We use AP video, for example, and sometimes we contribute AP video. We are also AP clients. AP makes a huge chunk of change on subscriber fees from broadcast outlets. Without those subscriber fees... hmmm... I don't know if it would have the money and resources to cover the world like it does.

Michael is right.

And some of you are still thinking of successful web ventures as "words only." If there's anything we've learned from YouTube, it's that video will be a huge component of any big-revenue website.

ESPN.com has it all right now -- articles, blogs, video, photos... and I'd bet they're probably one of the most financially sound sites on the web.

I think the premium content thing will eventually die. I get e-mailed NY Times columns and ESPN Insider stuff all the time from cut-and-pasters.

Everything needs to be ad-based.

 

From AP's FAQ:

2. Who owns The Associated Press?
The Associated Press is a not-for-profit cooperative, which means it is owned by its 1,500 U.S. daily newspaper members. They elect a board of directors that directs the cooperative.

Nothing I can find includes TV and radio among the owners. You are clients.

I think that's a key distinction between traditional news organizations and Web sites like Yahoo and AOL.

 

Google News contends it merely aggregates news, but it has settled out of court when AP and others have sued over copyright infringement:

http://news.com.com/Google+reveals+payment+deal+with+AP/2100-1030_3-6102109.html

I suppose it is a matter of suing the big guys first, but when the content that forms the bulk of your site legally belongs to others, the others must be paid.

My contention is that the newspapers that own AP ought to be asking themselves whether the fees that Yahoo, AOL and ESPN pay for content is sufficient compensation to us for the business they are taking from us.

 

The millions of lawyers required to sue every BLOG! that steals AP copy would bankrupt the organization. Maybe it can do what the RIAA does, and do occasional sweeps that happen to bust a few high school students and grandmothers, to create some shock and deterrence.

 

That's all they can do. I think probably a lot of bloggers are so ignorant that they don't realize they're breaking the law, some believe they are too small to be sued, others have some kind of Sixties radical attitude that everything should be free without considering that it takes money to create the content they steal.

 

And then there are those like me, who are actually lawyers, who realize that no harm is done to a newspaper or content provider when we simply link to an article.

Whether there will be a crackdown on block-quoting is another issue altogether....