In an attempt to monetize every pixel their crack teams of reports produce, major media sites including the AP, Washington Post, New York Times and, closer to home, the Media General chain of fish wraps, has created NewsRight a site that, according to TechCruch, appears to be:
…an attempt to get bloggers and aggregators to pay up for “profiting” off the work of the AP or the other newspaper partners of NewsRight (including the NYT, McClatchy and others).
In short, they want folks who link to, and reprint portions of, their content to buy a license to do so. Otherwise, they will sic their lawyers on you.
This game works both ways. Everyone who has blogged long enough in Virginia has, at one time or another, had their stories swiped, in whole or in part, by the same major outlets who are behind NewsRight. Usually, these takings are done without the slightest attribution.
Maybe it’s the websites who need to be issuing reprint licenses to the press…
