Major news agencies tell search engines to pay up for using free content

News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch suggests it is time for "plagiarists" and "aggregators" to stop taking advantage of free news content. The comment came as news agency web sites are struggling for readership. Many news companies agree that sites such as Google have "reaped a fortune from their articles, photos and video without fairly compensating the news organizations producing the material."

Tom Curley of The Associated Press feels that search engines and bloggers are also directing audiences and much needed revenue away from premium news content providers. The AP also claims "plagiarists" are costing them tens of millions of dollars in potential advertising revenue.

"We content creators have been too slow to react to the free exploitation of news by third parties without input or permission," Curley, the AP's chief executive, told a meeting of 300 media leaders in Beijing.

"Crowd-sourcing Web services such as Wikipedia, YouTube and Facebook have become preferred customer destinations for breaking news, displacing Web sites of traditional news publishers," Curley said. "We content creators must quickly and decisively act to take back control of our content."

The AP's revenue for this year is expected to hover around the $700 million mark, down from $748 million just over a year ago. This is due to the reduction in fees the agency charges newspapers and media broadcasters for news contents. Advertising revenue is also falling as more marketers are looking for cheaper means to market their products and services.