AP wants to be asked (and paid)

The Associated Press says it will take legal action to block websites from using the work of AP or its member papers without first obtaining permission. From the New York Times:

Associated Press executives said the policy was aimed at major search engines like Google, Yahoo and their competitors, and also at news aggregators like the Huffington Post, as well as companies that sell packaged news services. They said they do not want to stop the appearance of articles around the Web, but to exercise some control over it and to profit from it. The A.P. also said it is developing a system to track news articles online and determine whether they were used legally.

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“The A.P. is trying to assert its value to the member newspapers,” by shifting the industry discussion “from fair use to fair share,” said Ken Doctor, an analyst at Outsell, a media research firm.