AP pleads with Google, let us live.
REUTERS — The Associated Press unveiled rate cuts on Monday to help member newspapers reeling from declining advertising revenue and said that it would sue websites that used its members’ articles without permission.
The changes the AP announced at its annual meeting in San Diego include a new $35 million in rate assessment reductions for 2010, on top of $30 million it had already instituted for 2009.
The 163-year-old newswire service also will allow member newspapers to cancel their membership with one year’s notice instead of two. It will offer a discount to papers that stay on a two-year cancellation notice.
“We feel it is critical to help our members during these extremely difficult times, and these numbers show our deep commitment to doing that,” said Dean Singleton, AP chairman and chief executive of Denver-based publisher MediaNews Group.
The AP further threatened to “pursue legal and legislative actions” against websites that do not properly license news content, and plans to develop a system to track its members’ news distributed online to determine whether it is being legally used.
“We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories,” Singleton said.
The announcement comes a day before Google Inc Chief Executive Eric Schmidt speaks at the Newspaper Association of America’s annual conference, also in San Diego.
While the AP did not name Google, many newspapers resent the popular search website because they say it siphons away ad revenue that should be going to their own websites instead of to sites like Google’s and Yahoo Inc’s.
The AP’s rate changes come as newspapers lay off staff, file for bankruptcy and, increasingly, shut down as their ad revenue falls and losses mount.
Last October, the AP suspended plans for a new pricing structure because of complaints from member papers, who said they could not afford it.
Some newspapers threatened to cancel their membership, prompting the AP to try to find ways to keep them. One new option the wire service is offering is a limited service for papers “with minimal world and national coverage needs.”
The reductions come at a price. The AP, a nonprofit cooperative formed by its member papers, estimates that its revenue from U.S. papers will fall by about a third between 2008 and 2010.
In 2007, 25 percent of its $710 million in revenue came from U.S. newspapers.
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