Jeff Jarvis has posted more of his thoughts on the continuing saga of the AP and how they are trying to find a path to charging for their content that gets excerpted and quoted on the Internet. This all started with the AP filing DMCA notices against the Drudge Retort, and has gotten a bit more passionate since the posting of the AP’s price structure that puts the cost of a 5 word excerpt at $12.50. Jarvis argues that this may in fact be the real beginning of the decline of the AP because if they don’t see the light, it will in many ways put the power back in the hands of the writers on a local level.
Fair enough and I agree. Intriguingly though I also believe that as good as the AP is, and by and large it is really good, it in fact has been one of the contributing factors in the decline of traditional newspapers. As margins and profits have fallen, more and more smaller (and even some larger) papers have used the AP far too much for material, eschewing local writers who cost more to employ.
This is a fascinatingly complex issue that will be worth watching as it works out. Or doesn’t.
