New York — Renewing a longstanding link, Internet pioneer Yahoo Inc. and the Associated Press announced that they have forged a deal to keep the AP’s articles, photos and videos to appear on the Yahoo News site, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal on Monday.
“There is not much we can say, given the confidentiality of the agreement,” said Carrie Davis, a spokeswoman for Yahoo. She stressed that the company “will continue to enforce the strictest standards for AP’s licensed content.”
Jeff Chiu/Associated Press — The Associated Press and Yahoo did not disclose the terms of the deal to use A.P. articles, photos and video on Yahoo News.
The people that were quoted in the report said that Yahoo was able to make the deal by agreeing to the AP’s content distribution guidelines.
“Yahoo has been an excellent partner for 12 years and has always recognized the value and importance of original, authoritative news. We are pleased Yahoo and AP will continue that valued relationship,” AP spokesman Paul Colford said in an e-mailed statement.
“AP looks forward to cementing its partnership with Yahoo as we and our members explore new opportunities and new ways to engage with audiences,” Colford added.
It was evident for a while that the non-profit Associated Press has been suffering due to the recession and speedily declining newspaper revenues. It has blamed web companies such as YouTube and Facebook of exploiting the AP’s content.
Nevertheless, this agreement will set a new standard for how news organizations are able to profit from content being distributed over the Internet, as Web sites like Yahoo have been profiting from the media.
With this agreement, the AP will probably receive a revenue boost to help bolster its finances. In return, Yahoo will harvest the continued stream of AP stories and content that has helped it grow into one of the world’s largest websites. As a top destination for news, Yahoo definitely wanted to get this done.
Meanwhile, Yahoo said AP contents are “an important part” of its endeavor to provide Yahoo visitors with comprehensive and relevant content. “We look forward to continuing our long-standing partnership with AP for many years to come,” Yahoo spokeswoman Dana Lengkeek said via e-mail.
Also, this agreement emphasizes with the nature of similar negotiations between the AP and Google, which have apparently either stalled or not progressed according to schedule, leading Google to stop hosting AP stories on its Google News Web site.
Google protects its act of publishing headlines connected to news articles on external Web sites by asserting that the fair use principle allows it. Google also often publishes short text snippets and thumbnail images along with the linked headlines.
In fact, the AFP instituted a lawsuit against Google for copyright infringement in 2005 over Google’s practice of linking to AFP stories published by other Web sites, namely newspapers that subscribe to the AFP content.
The case was resolved out of court two years later, when Google agreed to sign a formal licensing agreement with the AFP that allows Google to post the full text of the French news agency’s stories, similar to its deal with AP.
Where does this leave Google, whose Google News has not hosted any AP content since December? In a statement received by both Mashable and Search Engine Land the company said:
“We have a licensing agreement with the Associated Press that permits us to host its content on Google properties such as Google News. Right now we are not adding new hosted content from the AP. The licensing agreement is the subject of ongoing discussion so we won’t be commenting further at this time.”
While Search Engine Land translates this to mean that the AP and Google have signed a new deal, that is far from clear. It seems just as likely that Google and the AP are still hammering out the details and will announce a deal in the near future. While Google has less to gain from the AP’s content, it’s still a valuable source of pageviews and ad revenue.
Shares of Yahoo are flat after the closing bell on Monday at $15.05.