AP declares war

This could get interesting - eventually. The Associated Press said today it will take legal action against Web sites that use news stories without permission. Some sort of system will be developed to track articles online and determine whether they were being used legally, AP said in a statement. (Will be developed? Don't tell me they're first digging into the required technology.) From the NYT:

The statement did not mention Google or any other adversary by name, but many newspaper executives have spoken recently about their concern that Google and other major aggregators and Web portals are making money from the newspapers' work, by selling ads on news pages that turn up their articles. News organizations have been loath to take on Google, whose search engine drives much of the traffic to their own sites. But at a time when newspaper revenue is collapsing and some papers are closing, the prospect of getting a share of Google's revenue is more tempting than ever.