In ongoing efforts to deter online content infringement, the Associated Press will launch the first wave of its new content-registry website in November to manage, tag and track the use of AP and member stories, photos and videos.The system, which will cover only AP text this year, will soon expand to include photos, videos and member text next year.
Although no specific technical details have been released yet about the portal, the AP has said that it is developing a digital permissions format that will be endorsed by London-based Media Standards Trust (MST), a nonprofit research and development organization. MST expects that this portal will help regulate standards for online news format and distribution.
After completing the development process, AP expects to implement and financially support the system through 2010, at which time it predicts that the site will generate its own revenue, most likely from content owner fees and licenses.
This intellectual property management web page, part of the content protection initiative fashioned by AP's board of trustees in April 2009, is the first step in the news company's larger plan to curb infringement and offer AP members a secure and profitable location in which they can share information.
In the past two years, AP has been involved with several major lawsuits, including AP v. Shepard Fairey, concerning an artist's use of an AP image in a poster supporting Barack Obama's presidential candidacy; AP v. AHN Media, involving the sourcing of AP content for AHN news stories; and AP v. Moreover Technologies Inc. and VeriSign Inc., for unspecified misappropriation and copyright infringement. The latter two cases were settled, and the Fairey case is still on trial.