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Google renews Associated Press deal |
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Google has renewed its licensing deal with the Associated Press to allow it to publish AP articles in full across its sites.
The deal, first signed in 2006, comes after months of negotiations during which Google excluded AP stories from appearing in Google News searches.
Although financial details haven’t been disclosed, the deal is understood to be significant enough to help bolster AP’s declining revenues. Last year its revenues dropped by 10% to $676m and it has laid off staff to cut costs.
Jane Seagrave, AP’s chief revenue officer, said, “We think this is a good deal for both sides. We’ve had a long relationship with Google and are pleased we could work out our differences.”
It echoes similar deals with other international news organisations, such as the Press Association and Agence France-Presse.
Google results also show snippets of stories from other sites, including subscription-based sites, which many, including News Corp head Rupert Murdoch, have criticised it for, saying it’s damaging the publishing industry by giving content away for free.
As such, despite the deal, the relationship between Google and AP hasn’t always been smooth, with AP publicly supporting other publishers it says are struggling against news aggregators.
In April last year, AP chairman Dean Singleton said the organisation wanted to lead a collaborative offensive with the newspaper industry against unauthorised sites that aggregate news content free of charge (nma.co.uk 7 April 2009).
“We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories,” he said. “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it any more.”
But Google CEO Eric Schmidt responded by saying he was “confused” at the attack. “With respect to the Associated Press, we have a multi-million-dollar deal with the AP not only to distribute its content but also to host it at our servers,” he said.
In the last few months, News International has made The Times and Sunday Times sites subscription only, with News of the World set to follow. |
