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Publishers Aim for Control of Search Results
Global publishers, in response to fears that Internet search engines such as Google are encroaching on their ability to generate revenue, plan to launch an automated system for granting permission to use their content. Encouraged by the Belgian court ruling that Google was infringing on the copyright of French and German language newspapers by reproducing article snippets in search results (see below), the publishers announced that the project, called the Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP), will launch by the end of 2006.
In one example of how ACAP could be implemented, a newspaper publisher could grant search engines permission to index its site, but only allow articles to be displayed after payment of a royalty, and only for a limited time.
Publishers involved in the ACAP project include the World Association of Newspapers, the European Newspaper Publishers’ Association, the European Publishers Council and the International Publishers Association.
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