When I first heard about Google buying rights to all Associated Press content, I thought for sure that meant Google would stop linking to all those AP stories on newspaper Web sites. After all, then they can keep millions of page views.
One year later, Google has done nothing with the AP content it purchased.
That begs the questions:
- Was Google paying off the AP so it wouldn't sue for copyright violations?
- Was Google sincerely planning to use the AP content to replace links?
- Does Google have something new up its sleeve?
Maybe the answer to one of those is yes. Or, all of the above.
Part of the reason Google paid the AP was likely fear of lawsuits. Given that Google paid large sums to pacify other media outlets, the AP posed a danger to Google if it sued and settled, or worse -- won.
I'm guessing Google did plan on using the AP content to replace outbound links. That would quickly match their rival, Yahoo, in page views. But they couldn't do it politically. Not yet. The moment Google News blatantly starts making money, they risk shocking the news business (which it feeds off of) into realizing Google News is an enemy, not an ally.
So since Google is Google, they're probably experimenting with uses for the AP content in some "lab." Nothing might ever become of the work. But they don't really care if it does.
One day, after the news business has completely capitulated to the idea that its content can be aggregated in any form or quantity, Google will start replacing outbound links with their own content and then taking the full share of AdSense revenue. At that point, newspapers will have eroded their copyright so greatly they won't have a legal leg to stand on.
Comments (1)
If Google makes its own posts with AP articles, it would mark a change in philosophy on many levels for them. Google News is primarily an aggregator of news content. Posting stories would require a different staff commitment on their part and present them with editorial decisions they never really had to make before. Would they need to decide what the news of the day is rather than letting bots do the work?.
I do think buying the rights is mostly for legal protection, though that is likely unnecessary the way Google works today.
After their YouTube purchase, I wonder if Google will launch some type of mash-up effort allowing "citizen journalists" to use AP material the same way newspaper reporters do when they localize a national story. That might pose some challenges for newspapers, but then, the most successful "crowdsourcing" experiments have been pro-am, relying on a pro to distill the reporting into useful product for mass consumption. Again, doing that might require more commitment than Google is willing to make.
Remember, Google is first and foremost a search engine. Everything they do is derivative, and that works for them. Heck, it works for us too. I don't know that they want to go head-to-head with journalists in publishing news, especially when the best of us are sometimes struggling to make much money at it ourselves. It is so much easier to be the best reference guide ever, and link to the billion other sites publishing content.
Posted by Jacob Ogles | August 17, 2007 6:33 AM
Posted on August 17, 2007 06:33