Publishers unite to demand cash for stolen content

A group of news publishers that includes Reuters is calling for syndication websites to share a proportion of their ad revenues. The Fair Syndication Consortium is targeting ad-providers that serve sites which reproduce content without permission, aiming to agree a direct revenue split.

This approach saves content providers pursuing individual sites with legal action and could guarantee a sizable revenue stream at a time when publishers are under unprecedented strain.

Among the companies involved are Reuters, the Magazine Publishers of America and Politico. Associated Press (AP), which recently announced its own anti-plagiarism war, is not participating. AP intends to pursue a more conventional course, aiming to prosecute individual sites for using content without permission and taking a hard line on what constitutes ?fair use? of copyright material.

AP has targeted bloggers for merely quoting its material. In contrast, the Fair Syndication Consortium is only interested in pursuing sites that are taking ?full copies? of its members’ content.

The Fair Syndication Consortium is working with Attributor, a company that tracks text, audio and video content using an electronic fingerprinting system. Attributor will identify when the consortium's material is being reproduced illegally. The group then intends to demand revenue share from the ad providers that serve ads on offending sites.

According to Attributor data, the vast majority of offending sites have their ads served by either DoubleClick, Google’s AdSense or Yahoo!.