
Is AP Run By Idiots? - wheels
http://industry.bnet.com/technology/10002794/is-ap-run-by-idiots/
======
mechanical_fish
It's hard to come up with a plausible alternative to the "idiot" theory.

I suppose that, given that the only way the AP is likely to survive is by
government fiat, this could be a perverse form of lobbying. It's a publicity
stunt.

Step A: Try to demonstrate that all the headlines on the web were originally
written by you.

Step B: Argue that this makes your organization indispensable -- when you go
out of business, trains and buses will stop running, the sun will stand still
in the sky, cancer will never be cured.

Step C: To draw attention to your argument: Scream, shout, jump on chairs, sue
everyone in sight. When none of this works: Decry the lawlessness of society,
demand protection.

Step D: ???

Step E: Government action!

The smartest members of the music industry (but not, alas, the influential
ones) have said for years that the realistic way forward is a blanket
licensing scheme: Each of us gets the right to download and play whatever we
want, and in return we're legally obligated to pay an annual fee to some
ASCAP-like organization that divides the money up among music publishers. Now,
I like this idea, but the obvious downside is: Who is a music publisher, and
how do we figure out how to divide the money? You've got to come up with some
kind of ground rules. There's going to be a lot of people working the refs.
Perhaps the AP has concluded that such a scheme is their only hope and is
trying to make sure they're positioned to argue that the ground rules should
favor them.

Or, you know, there's the idiot theory. Still might be the best one, really.
Occam's Razor and all that.

The thing which really makes AP sound like a mental patient is all this raving
about the "wrapper" technology that will magically track down uses of their
content on the web. But I'm not necessarily convinced they they really believe
in the Easter Bunny, phlogiston, or digital watermarks for _plain text_.
Perhaps this talk about magical "wrappers" is just a face-saving attempt to
say "we will find you if you quote our material" _without_ having to say
"...and we will use Google to do it, of course, just like everyone else does.
Of course, our publicly-stated belief is that Google is an unethical leech and
that they should be paying us money every time they return a search containing
some of our writing. But of course _we_ won't be paying anyone _else_ for the
writing that _we_ find using Google, because we're special and besides we
don't have any money."

Actually, that explanation still sounds like the raving of a mental patient.
It all keeps coming back to the idiot theory.

~~~
thwarted
_"Each of us gets the right to download and play whatever we want, and in
return we're legally obligated to pay an annual fee to some ASCAP-like
organization that divides the money up among music publishers. Now, I like
this idea, but the obvious downside is: Who is a music publisher, and how do
we figure out how to divide the money?"_

I don't like this idea at all. Why should I, as a non-artist, have to find a
way to provide a work product or service that people are willing to pay me for
and artists are allowed to create stuff that no one is willing to pay for? Or
artists are allowed to create something which can not be marketed and an
income stream can naturally be built around? If no one is willing (or able) to
pay for your service, there is no market for it. And without a market, there's
no way to determine which is the "good art" and which is the "bad art" and
which artists should be encouraged and which should stop making art and get
jobs flipping burgers. The very fact that it is massively gamable (as we've
seen in other industries), as you point out, is reason enough, for me, to
avoid even attempting it.

~~~
mechanical_fish
Keep in mind that systems like this have been working for years. Composers get
paid royalties via ASCAP and BMI, for example.

And I believe all the schemes, both existing and proposed, divvy up the money
based on the number of times certain compositions are played. Artists can't
compose unlistenable music and then claim a check. It's a game, but it's not
_entirely_ unlike a market.

The fact that it might be gamable doesn't seem like much of a scandal. What's
our gold standard here? An imaginary fairyland? The existing, supposedly free
market for music is not merely gamable... it's been corrupt since it was
invented. Just try to get your tune on the radio without paying bribes.

------
mustpax
“If someone can build multibillion-dollar businesses out of keywords, we can
build multihundred-million businesses out of headlines.”

Wow, what a truly epic misunderstanding of what search engines do.

The thinking goes: Google is just a business built out of keywords. They come
up with the best keywords, and we fork over cash to them for that. AP has got
some slick headlines which are even better than keywords, because they have
_more words._ Also, we produce them, not steal them from other people like
Google, which must be an even better business!

I also have to say, the whole rights-managed link framework sounds like the
biggest pie-in-the-sky project I've ever heard. Some consultant really sold
them on something that is going to be quite lucrative (for the consultant
obviously).

~~~
eli
The thing is, there already is a Google for news. It's called Google News.

...and it _already pays AP_ license fees to use their content. What, exactly,
do they thing this new program is going to accomplish?

------
jrwoodruff
It's a move of desperation. Papers sign multi-year, mutli-thousand (or hundred
thousand, depending on the paper's size) contracts to use AP content, and many
of them have been considering canceling their contracts to save money.

[http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/star-tribune-ditches-
ap-o...](http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/star-tribune-ditches-ap-others-
expected-to-follow.html)

The AP has to do something or will find itself completely irrelevant. While
they produce graphics and quite a bit of the foreign news published in this
country, most domestic stories come from their member papers. Fewer member
papers = less value for members = death spiral for AP.

They have to do something to add value for their member papers. Leading the
charge to an industry-wide pay wall actually makes some sense, as they are in
the unique position to unify the 1,400 papers that belong to the organization.

That's not to say it will work. Technologically, it seems retarded on its
face. Economically, I have no idea how they'll enforce it. But suing users has
kept the music industry in business - for now at least - so who knows, maybe
suing aggregators and bloggers will keep the AP in business.

RIAA - Meet the Associated Press.

------
volkergrabsch
The author concluded: "I think it would make sense for bloggers right now to
start posting AP headlines and links along with a small amount of discussion
on each, to keep it all within fair use, after all."

However, why not simply avoid AP? If they want to be outside the interlinked
web, just let them go there. Don't link to them. Consequently, the search
engines also shouldn't link to them. If they want to be in an empty room -
just leave them there.

It won't take long and they'll _beg_ to become noticed. In a few years, maybe
they'll turn the corner, maybe they'll sink into insignificance. Who cares?

~~~
wheels
Because these decisions are made in pieces by a society, not by a few
idealists in binary. That's just like saying, "Why not stop listening to ASCAP
music?" It's almost impossible to avoid AP content at the moment and will
remain so for the near future. And that's the problem with behemoths in many
cases -- they're not nearly as sensitive to market pressures and so often end
up being idiotic while society changes around them.

~~~
volkergrabsch
"It's almost impossible to avoid AP content at the moment"

I don't see any problem for a blogger to stop linking to AP. Not wanting to be
linked to is a very stupid wish, so instead of trying to "educate" AP it's
much simpler and more appropriate to fullfill their wish.

~~~
InnocentB
The problem isn't with getting some individuals to act on this. The problem is
getting society as a whole to do so. This is a general problem with trying to
incite a boycott of something that has very widespread usage: the dent you can
make is often too small to be noticed, because society is too hard to
organize.

~~~
volkergrabsch
It wan't meant as a boycott.

I just think that the author's recommendation for bloggers is ill-advised. It
would be better to ignore AP rather than to pay extra attention to them.

------
jimfl
The microformat the AP are talking about is described in a little more detail
on the AP Labs Wiki:

<http://labs.ap.org/wiki/hNews>

~~~
eli
Seems rather pointless. How does this microformat describing rights stop me
from copy/pasting an article onto my blog?

But I suppose I should be happy they didn't decide that I need to install a
Silverlight player to read their articles.

~~~
cabalamat
> I suppose I should be happy they didn't decide that I need to install a
> Silverlight player to read their articles.

Maybe that idea just hasn't occurred to them yet. After all, we're all gagging
for their news, so much so that we're not only willing to pay for it, we're
happy to install special software (which only runs on Windows, naturally) to
view it!

My prediction: AP will waste about $50 million on this, then quietly forget
the whole idea. The idiot responsible for it won't get sacked, they'll get a
big bonus and pension.

~~~
jrwoodruff
You forgot to mention all the foreign bureaus that will get closed and the
reporters and photographers who will get laid off without benefits or
severance...

[http://gannettblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/commentary-
transitio...](http://gannettblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/commentary-transitional-
pay-101-in.html)

------
lionhearted
When I see moves like this, I think about a wonderful small, white, fluffy dog
my girlfriend had. After a while, I sort of co-adopted him as my dog, and I'd
walk him to a big fenced schoolyard every night before bed so he could do his
business.

Now, I could run around with him and have a nice time and play and exercise.
But if I let him off his leash, it'd be HELL trying to get him back on. He'd
go pat-pat-pat-VROOOOOMMMMMMMM past me when I'd try to grab him. It'd take
like forever.

So it is industries like newspapers. The dog is off the leash. Pandora's Box
is opened. Horses are escaped from barn. The time to try something like this
was a long time ago, proactively, with lots of value-add.

Trying to force people to pay for something they've been getting free, with no
new add-value, and new restrictions and inconveniences, when there's
alternative sources... well, it ain't gonna work. Pat-pat-pat-VROOOOMMM. "Dog!
Come back here. RIGHT NOW! I mean it! I mean it! Come back! ... Seriously!
It's cold, I'm sick of being out here! ... Right now! ... I mean it!"

~~~
caffeine
"Dog! I will sue you."

I think someone at the AP had drinks with someone at the RIAA and they decided
the best idea would be to leap off a bridge, together.

------
eli
To quote John Gruber,

 _They have no idea what they’re talking about. Seriously, look at this
gibberish [<http://www.ap.org/media/images/APnewsregistry.jpg>]. Someone just
sold the Associated Press a bag of magic beans._

~~~
thwarted
Yeah, that graphic is a great example of the ability to turn any crap idea
into a flashy graphic. The stage that is missing on this flowchart is "and a
miracle occurs", although putting the word "container" and "beacon" in quotes
kind of says that. Magic beans indeed.

I keep seeing this meme pop up though:

 _"Format protects content everywhere and enables RSS syndication, enhanced
search, mobile apps and pay content models"_

The only thing it _potentially_ "enables" is "pay content models", Big Media
always throws in the other "benefits" as if those things don't currently exist
("finally, RSS syndication will be ENABLED by this!") or don't currently work.

RIAA tried this one too: if only we can sprinkle this magic pixie dust over
our dying industry, all these things that we already have will be provided to
us. I at first had typed that as "magic pixel dust", which is a good name for
DRM.

And this appears as a technical solution, but then the usage of iconography
like a gavel for "enforcement" reveals that they either know this is an
unworkable solution and they need expanded legal support, or they think that
using this needs to be legally mandated, neither of which will actually work
in the end.

------
helveticaman
Wouldn't this imply news aggregators like HN would have to pay to post links?

~~~
eli
According to the AP, yes.

But not really. Linking to an article to discuss it is not copyright
infringement. And therefore they would have no legal right to tell you what to
do.

I suppose they could have all their licensees check Referrer headers and
reject hits for unapproved sources, if they were serious about this... but I
can't imagine why anyone would go along with that. And it doesn't change the
fact that posting content on the Internet and asking people not to link to it,
will never really be a good plan.

------
lallysingh
There's a pretty good story to be told here, combined with the Death of
Popular Music and the RIAA.

In both cases, it looks like people stopped taking any risks. The music
industry (at least the Popular Music Industry) started putting out more and
more formulaic garbage, b/c it was low risk. The AP stopped doing journalism
and moved to a press-release transcription agency. Eventually both started
dying. They started looking around for _external_ causes, and found The
Internet.

Now they're trying to undo the effects of internet in hopes that they'll
return to where they were before. Of course, what they have to do is realize
that where they were before was due to their risk-taking predecessors'
legacies, and where they are now are the results of their own cowardly
actions.

What they should do is fire themselves and admit that they're cowardly losers.

------
koepked
I guess I'm going to go a little bit activist here, but this story makes me
think that strategically, now is a good time for people who believe more
things should be in the public domain. As media companies and publishers do
what they can to hang on to the last grasps of industries which are passing
them by, they may start to do things which seem pretty ridiculous, as is seen
here. Out of this ridculousness may come a little bit more open-mindedness on
the part of the general public toward content belonging in the public domain.

~~~
lutorm
The woolly mammoth jerks again, is what I think.

------
seasoup
This is an excellent opportunity for someone to create a start up around. The
AP is basically just a news aggregation service and a monopoly. How many
organizations just get their news off of the AP and don't actually sponsor any
of their own.

A small company could have liberal reuse policies and use the APs lack of
foresight against them. Pay contributors for their content based on its
popularity.

~~~
eli
They're not a monopoly, there are several other big wire services and dozens
of smaller ones. They're just one of the best.

~~~
seasoup
They're the only one you ever hear about.

~~~
eli
Reuters and AFP would be the other two big ones.

AP is just the biggest and the best for US news.

------
bshep
"hNews can be thought of as inheriting from hAtom, since parsers and tools
that do not understand the hNews extensions can still parse the hAtom
content."

So in other words if you dont use their parser then you wont get any of their
restrictions. Are they going to FORCE us to use the parser they decide?

------
phreanix
So you AP and this guy together: [http://gawker.com/5305503/lets-screw-up-the-
entire-internet-...](http://gawker.com/5305503/lets-screw-up-the-entire-
internet-to-save-newspapers)

and what do you get?

------
kingkawn
That so many people are calling them idiots means they may be on to something.

------
eli
Does anyone actually understand how this microformat & "tracking beacon" are
supposed to work? Is it an image bug in the source?

------
theblackbox
Can news (information) be monopolised?

------
webology
Yes

------
cturner
"I make my living as a writer, editor, and photographer, and realize that
everyone creating content needs an income. "

LOL. Hence, the entire legal system needs to be horrifically twisted to meet
these people's 'needs'.

~~~
almost
That's really not what he was saying though, was it?

