AP Wants To Become The ASCAP Of News
from the can't-think-of-many-worse-ideas dept
Remember the Associated Press’s bizarre and unworkable idea to DRM the news. Well, reader crcb alerts us to the news that the AP is now filling in more details, about how it effectively wants to become the ASCAP of news. Yeah, you read that right. Talk about bad ideas. I’m sure being like ASCAP is appealing from the AP’s side, but it makes no sense at all from the publisher side — especially given the details where the AP gets to keep a 20% cut of any revenue collected this way. As you read through the details, it’s as if the folks behind it at the AP don’t quite understand the very basic economics of content and the internet:
Curley indicated that the clearinghouse’s biggest moneymaking opportunity is likely to be the licensing of copyright-protected content to mobile phones and an array of computer tablets such as Apple Inc.’s iPad and emerging competitors.
Huh? You license content to website or apps, not to platforms… This seems to have absolute disaster written all over it.
Filed Under: drm, journalism, news
Companies: a&p, ascap
Comments on “AP Wants To Become The ASCAP Of News”
Blazing Saddles
This is like the desert tollbooth in Blazing Saddles. It will only work if people are stupid enough to go through it.
Re: Blazing Saddles
Above comment is mine
Re: Re: Blazing Saddles
(The comment above this one is not mine.)
I’m sure Reuters is cheering AP on and goading them towards their most ludicrous goal…
Re: Re: Re: Blazing Saddles
What we need is an ASSCAP for farting cowboys
Re: Blazing Saddles
This is like the desert tollbooth in Blazing Saddles. It will only work if people are stupid enough to go through it.
All you have to do is shoot the ones that try to go around it. That’s where government enforcement comes in.
Imagine every single blog and news outlet out there having to pay to tell the news 🙂
New APASCAP rallying cry:
Won’t somebody please think of the artists?
The reporters?
The Children of the Reporters?
The Great-grand-sixth-cousin-of-the-children-of-the-reporters?????
Go to Congress with that mouthful.
False Value Creation
A common thread with many of the posts on TechDirt is the attempt of companies to establish tollbooths to extort revenue. Richard has pointed out, that it would be easy to get around these tollbooths. My concern, these tollbooths add nothing of value to our overall economy. They actually are a source of “friction” that is destructive to the economy.
Re: False Value Creation
Yeah, the only possible benefit of giving money to these people is the protection from their lawsuits, non-unlike giving protection money to mobsters.
It just adds to the cost of business and makes corruption seem commonplace and therefore necessary and acceptable.
It also seems that everyone who argues for such a right to extract payments as a matter of law and practice from anyone who might use their content or service always speaks as if they have confused themselves with the content or the service itself. It’s a modern version of “I am the state.” The AP thinks that if it disappeared tomorrow, so would the news. The RIAA thinks that if it disappeared tomorrow, musicians and artists would just quit making music. Same for the MPAA and movies.
Okay, I don’t think they actually think that. They know better, but that won’t stop them from arguing that perspective because they want it codified into law that that is the case. If you think the parasite and the host are the same, you’re not likely to kill the parasite to cure the host.
Blazing ASCAP
Yeah, if their concept is anything like ASCAP, the idea is doomed. I commented before about ASCAP’s complete cluelessness, having personally dealt with them.
I can see the big AP business meeting now…. some bozo in the marketing department just bought his first IPhone, he’s all excited because he has this Great Idea. Hey, what if we charge every IPhone user who reads AP stuff. OH! He just read an article about these other cool new devices – he wrote down all their names, because if we charge every one of them, too, it’s Even More Money! Wow! I can save publishing AND get a big bonus! Then I’ll be able to score even more crack!
Re: Blazing ASCAP
Yeah, if their concept is anything like ASCAP, the idea is doomed. I commented before about ASCAP’s complete cluelessness, having personally dealt with them.
If you measure success by wealth, it seems to be working pretty well for ASCAP.
hanging their hopes on the latest fad
Making money off mobile is the current fad. It is pretty late in the cycle, and by the time AP gets anything in place the platform will have been milked dry and consumers will have moved on. Major players always seem to base their plans on the assumption that the current market conditiions will last forever. They are like hopeful goldminers that showed up in 1850 instead of 1849. By the time they got there it was too late. AP should be trying to position itself to be there at the start of the new opportunities, not at the end of the current one.
Besides, the proposal would itself probably kill off mobile as a news platform or at least encourage consumers to find a way around AP sources.
And the porn companies want to create an iTunes for their stuff ….
And the movie Studios want 30 days windows before netflix rents the films …
And the record labels want to … etc etc etc
Its really funny how correct David Wong is …
FARTS–Forced ARTificial Scarcity
They have this delusion that people really want to pay for news. Also that everyone listening has to pay. FRAK THEM. We go underground.
Lost in the wasteland
“Curley indicated…”
Now all we need is Larrey and Moee, and we’ll have something worth watching.
Re: Lost in the wasteland
Like this from T-shirt Hell?
http://tinyurl.com/27bfuqu
At first, I didn’t read the title correctly and thought it said, “AP Wants To Become The ASSHAT Of News”…. after reading the article, I think my first version was more accurate.
End State
Of course, this is where this discussion is heading. Don’t use, discuss, or refer to my IP without a license. Again, a fundamental lack of understanding how them tubes work.
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AP Really Wants To Be Like ASCAP
AP doesn’t pay the news creators, either. In other words, they just want to collect royalties without paying the creators. That’s also a lot like ASCAP, isn’t it?
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