The Associated Press (AP) recently stated it was to begin charging for the republishing of its articles, beginning at $2.50 per word. The product they are using to charge for content is called iCopyright.
The news of iCopyright has sent ripples through the blogging industry, and web-savvy individuals are reportedly concerned they’ll be caught red-handed for using any story, whether edited or in its entirety, from the AP.
However, AP has been put under pressure to calm bloggers’ nerves and explain why the charges have been brought into place.
Bloggers shouldn’t be targeted
Clarification came in the form of a statement from Jane Seagrave of the Associated Press, in the Columbia Journalism Review:
“We want to stop wholesale misappropriation of our content which does occur right now—people who are copying and pasting or taking by RSS feeds dozens or hundreds of our stories.”
As quoted by
Mashable, she added: “Are we going to worry about individuals using our stories here and there? That isn’t our intent. That’s being fueled by people who want to make us look silly. But we’re not silly.”
Licensing options from iCopyright vary greatly. These can include using the AP content for an array of uses such as email through to options including large-scale corporate reprints of excerpts, full articles and photos.
