Associated Press Has A Plan So Cunning Even They Don't Know How It Works

[Commentary] Every now and then a company or organization finds itself challenged by the fact that the Internet gives people lots of interesting alternatives and thus upsets traditional business models. This prompts said company to flail around for a bit, denouncing how piracy or whatever is unfairly destroying it, then announcing some stunning new proposal or plan that lashes out at this supposed piracy. Usually, since the problem is not "piracy" but "competition," this plan makes no sense whatsoever. The Associated Press is the latest organization to jump off the deep end. AP believes that by setting up a "beacon" system for its content it can require everyone "stealing" its content to pay royalty fees. There are several problems with this scheme. First, the article does not make clear whether it tries to cover linking as "using content" for free. I'm not sure that it could, nor does it make sense given their theory of "piracy." If I link to an AP story, I haven't copied anything and clicking the link actually brings people to the content — the desired result from AP's perspective. Nor can the AP prevent me from describing an AP story even without a link. Heck, many of my local radio stations do this with my local newspapers, simply summarizing articles with an attribution. So if the object is to prevent people from linking to AP articles, or discussing AP articles (the "free ride" that so incenses the traditional news media and its defenders), this proposal really doesn't seem likely to help.