They put the source of the news (AP or AFP) at the end of the article, so I assume they are doing this legitimately, not just plagiarism. Does anyone know what kind of contract normally governs this kind of copying? How does it work, AP open their whole content and the newspaper can reprint any article they like? Assuming that they paid to get such right, how much do these kind of thing cost the newspaper? Is it per article, per print, per time period (free to print anything during the contract period)?
Basically, a newspaper pays for what is essentially a subscription to a wire service. It’s normally done by the year. (The AP is technically a cooperative, owned by the participating papers and stations, but that doesn’t matter much in practice.) There may be levels of use for different prices, but a paper gets to use anything within its agreed-upon level. It works in reverse. By being part of a cooperative, any paper can use the local news of any other paper. A small town paper could reprint a story from the Washington Post about politics, or the Post could reprint a local story about a murder or catastophe. Pictures and videos are commonly reprinted no matter the source.
The fees for use are pretty steep, but so are reporters, and you can fill whole sections of a paper or website with AP material. In the olden days, the costs were high enough so that smaller papers could only afford one of the many competing services. That’s probably still true, with small papers not able to afford both the AP and say Reuters.
Most columnists are distributed by specialized services, but I think the AP and others have some of their own. These usually get paid by the user. If a column isn’t used, they get nothing that day. Comics are also from specialized services. The larger the user the higher the fee for a column, so being in bigger papers is not just more prestigious but more lucrative.
All the big companies distribute world-wide today and the majority of the AP’s income comes from outside the U.S. The world really is globalized.
Thanks for the responses guys,
Exapno, thanks for the explanation, really helpful. Did you know that from experience or from reading somewhere? Do you know any good article/reading material online about this matter?
engineer_comp_geek, thanks for that, in fact I am particularly interested in the actual cost these things usually have. Do you (or anyone) has other information, possibly in different circumstances? e.g. is it more expensive if the subscriber is a bigger newspaper with more readers/income? how much cheaper would the less prestigious services (instead of AP) cost? What are the cost like for specialized subscription, like only science news, only sports news, etc?
I am new here, but I must say I am really impressed by the speed and quality of responses I get in these forums Thanks guys
Thanks guys