"If someone can build multibillion-dollar businesses out of keywords, we can build multihundred-million businesses out of headlines, and we're going to do that," Mr. Curley said. The goal, he said, was not to have less use of the news articles, but to be paid for any use.
As usual, Scott Rosenberg has smart things to say on the subject, and he points to an illuminating piece by Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab, which features an interview with The New York Times Co.'s general counsel, Ken Richieri, by UCLA law professor Doug Lichtman.
This is a completely misguided and self-immolating idea, in my opinion. Remember the NY Times paywall fiasco? If the AP requires me to pay to use a headline or pull-quote from one of their stories, I (and many other bloggers) will just seek out other versions of the news stories I want to feature - or feature other stories altogether. And if Google decides to simply eliminate all AP content from their feeds, the Associated Press will simply become invisible - and therefore irrelevant - to wide swaths of their potential readers.
