Another AP sellout hinted

MarketWatch says the Associated Press "challenged" Google about linking and abstracting AP stories in its Google News service.

But the item only alludes to the real story: Mother AP, the "cooperative" fueled by paying newspaper members and local broadcast affiliates, really just wants Google to ante up for permission to include AP items in Google News, says MarketWatch, channeling the Los Angeles Times:

"AP executives have not sued ... or even asked the Web company to remove its stories. But they did say they are in negotiations, trying to persuade Google to buy a license."

So let me get this straight:

• Newspaper members not only pay the AP for access to and permission to publish wire stories, they also contribute news to the cooperative -- a process wire editors long called "carboning AP." Many AP stories are thinly veiled rewrites of local newspaper stories that were "carboned" to the nearest bureau. Many AP photos come from local newspaper photographers.
• The AP also charges those same newspapers added fees to turn around and carry its stories online. And it insists on maintaining its own servers and packaging for those stories, though what most newspaper-based sites would really prefer is an easily reformatted XML feed they could serve themselves. (Yes, the AP offers XML, but it's priced beyond all reason.)
• Oh, and on that locally brandable AP site, the "cooperative" keeps a chunk of the ad inventory to sell for itself.
• Meanwhile, the AP sells the same wire feeds to Yahoo! and the other portals, whose own news services slice and dice those feeds and sell ads around them in direct competition with the online sites of "cooperative" members.
• Now the AP wants Google to pay just for permission to link up its stories, though Google News' links typically bring them up through the interfaces of participating local newspapers -- in effect, driving traffic to those sites.

Did I get that right? I believe so. And it's ludicrous. It makes me mad.

If you want to call me on the fact that Reuters sells its news feeds to the portals, all I can say is Reuters is a private business and can do whatever it wants.

The AP is supposed to be a cooperative. At this rate, it's gonna cooperate online newspapers out of business.