Rich Fiscus
2 Mar 2010 13:43
The Associated Press plans to release an app for the Apple iPad. It will be an extension of their new AP Gateway service which is intended to be a clearing house for licensing content from AP and any member companies that choose to participate.
Although short on specifics about the app, last week's announcement did mention that it "incorporates a paid subscription model and offers AP members the opportunity to participate."
Their may be a market for paid news subscriptions if it can deliver an experience superior to existing internet sources. Unfortunately that's not what AP seems to be focusing on.
The key pieces of AP's plan will be "using some [content] to attract a broad audience while saving other content for custom experiences," and allowing AP members to "set the rights" for content they contribute.
Both of these propositions are problematic. Let's start with "saving content." What they're really talking about is limiting consumer access to certain news items unless they pay.
That may seem appealing if you're a newspaper editor, but unless there's no alternate source for a story it's also impossible. It's also a good way to send readers to a competitor.
So is "setting the rights" on news stories. Despite what AP claims, most rights to news stories are already set by copyright law. In fact what they're really talking about is DRM.
So far this looks like just another case of creating a service designed to make content owners happy while annoying consumers. Whether there's an unserved market for paid news is debatable.
The public's aversion to DRM is much clearer.