The marketplace for news content is growing. More people in more places seek out news more often than ever. Yet we, the creators of that content, don’t get paid appropriately for our hard work and the risks we take.

“Free riders” and pirates are claiming they’re entitled to our property. And we face challenges in adapting to a world where our former customers—consumers of news—easily can help produce or report the news. Whether you live in west Texas or west China, news can come from tweets even before agencies such as The Associated Press (AP) or Xinhua have begun their reporting.

Rather than offer another speech on the pitfalls and potential of the Internet, I’d like to present one concept. We call it the game-changer. In 1986, an organization known for its intransigence made a small change to a very popular game that it governed for the universities in the United States. The organization, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), painted an arc on the basketball courts, a semicircular line radiating 19 feet 9 inches from a ten-foot high basket.

The game changed immediately. Teams were rewarded with three points for successes behind the new arc. Strategies changed. Teams recruited players with an array of skills to counterbalance opponents with one very tall player who dominated scoring from a very short distance. Premium scoring was taking place from a new frontier.

As we imagine a future for media, this simple basketball metaphor seems to resonate. It suggests the value of avoiding the trap of looking for something big enough to change the big picture. In fact, the small changes drive real innovation.

In the next couple years, all news organizations face the same mission—get all the way across the burning bridge, from analog to digital journalism, and make the difficult choices that this crossing presents.

The choices are harder than ever. The culture and the economy have changed along with the technology of the digital age. The changes are so radical and pervasive that after nearly 15 years of doing business on the Internet, news organizations are still testing long-held assumptions about what the other side of the digital bridge actually looks like.

From all visible signs, it’s not a place where a news organization can survive by just doing business as usual. Indeed, it often appears as if the more our content is distributed, the more revenues decline. The biggest names in journalism are working to find their place in this new game, much as the ponderous big men under the hoop struggled to compete with the smaller, more fleet-footed outside shooters from the three-point arc in basketball. A simple change disrupted—and improved—that game. The smart players and coaches adapted.

We content creators have been too slow to react to the exploitation of news content by third parties without input or permission. Random distribution of traffic by aggregators such as search engines directs audiences and revenues away from those who invest in original news reports. And randomness assures the aggregators and their ad networks a stream of revenue based on the aggregation and indexing of published news content. The content creators must act quickly and decisively to take back control.

To turn the tide, we at AP are creating a News Registry—a way to identify, record, and track content that AP and other members make available digitally, and thereby enable new business opportunities.

Participation in the News Registry would discourage unauthorized exploitation of news content by third parties and promote uses that benefit participating news publishers. We will implement digital protocols outlining the access and use of published news content, enabling publishers to pursue individual and collective licensing opportunities.

We also intend to create a new set of products and distribution opportunities across various digital customer segments. We must act to raise the value of news content overall.

AP’s member newspapers already have agreed to participate in a NewsMap— or a constantly updated index of original news content submitted to the News Registry. The goal is to steer aggregator traffic, including traffic from search engines, to the Web sites of participating publishers, benefiting the publishers in terms of audience and revenue.

Finally, AP is creating a NewsGuide: an aggregated body of unique news content curated by news editors. The NewsGuide would enable news publishers to work together to create a preferred Web destination for consumers of breaking news. The NewsGuide would also serve as a conduit to related content displayed on the publisher Web sites.

We want to offer news consumers the opportunity for a better news search experience by directing them to the news organization that breaks the news.

We call this effort AP3P or Protect, Point and Pay. Step one is to protect published news content against unauthorized exploitation. Step two is to aggregate and index published news content so that aggregators can better point their users to the originally sourced content. Step three is to enable new content licensing models for the use of published content, with support for payment models that individual publishers may adopt.

AP would manage these activities under a governance structure that complies with applicable antitrust and competition laws. We offer to extend AP3P to all original news content providers.

The strength of AP3P lies in its news registry–based governance structure, its core principles of mutual cooperation and benefit, and the new content-licensing models that it can enable in the marketplace.

The News Registry will use a common taxonomy and format around intellectual property rights and licensing rules. It will reflect common understanding around the aggregation and indexing of published news content and will enable participating publishers to share mutually in new licensing opportunities, whether based on subscriptions or advertising.

AP also is creating a new editing desk to work with social media. The new desk is called the nerve center. We’re changing our filing protocols to drive traffic through social media.

There also is one more P that’s important. Going forward, AP will license only those who agree to the principles of Protect, Point and Pay.

We will no longer tolerate the disconnect between the people who devote themselves—at great human and economic cost—to gathering the news of public interest and those who profit from it without supporting it.

The public must have broad access to the news, and digital distribution can enhance that access. That distribution must occur in such a way that it supports newsgathering in the public interest—for those engaged in the resource-intensive work of reporting on government actions to those who risk their lives covering global conflicts to all the news coverage that has the potential to help people improve their lives.

The NCAA painted a line on the court. We content providers must understand the changing game of distribution and take action to support the future of newsgathering that serves the public interest.

This article is adapted from remarks given by Tom Curley, CEO of The Associated Press, at the World Media Summit in Beijing, on October 9, 2009.

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