ACAP project aims to make search engines respect publishers' rights

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A pilot project to create an automated system to allow online publishers to grant search engines like Google permission to use their content will launch early next month.

The ACAP (Automated Content Access Protocol) project is hoping to develop a platform that would allow search engines to recognise the terms and conditions of specific websites.

Developers see the project as the first step towards creating a standard business model for search engines' use of content.

London-based firm Rightscom has been commissioned by the organisations behind the initiative to act as project co-ordinator.

The World Association of Newspapers (WAN), the European Publishers Council (EPC), the International Publishers Association (IPA) and the European Newspapers Association (ENPA) are providing funding for the 12-month trial.

Speaking at an AOP briefing, Mark Bide, director of Rightscom, called the project an 'enablement mechanism not an enforcement mechanism' that would have benefit for consumers, publishers and the intermediary aggregators and search engines.

Some publishers, however, remain sceptical about the use of any ACAP platform and fear that the technology could become obsolete quickly or that large search engines would simply ignore it.

The project will initially just look at text-based content on both open and closed networks. Mr Bide said there was scope to expand the project to look at audio and video.

Six large publishers from across the globe - covering newspaper, magazine, book, information and academic publication - are likely to be involved, he said.

He also said ACAP was in talks with the world's three largest search engines and was hopeful that at least one would sign up.

Last week, at the Society of Editors conference, in Glasgow, Nathan Stoll, product manager of Google News, said that the search giant was willing to work with the ACAP proposal.

At the Beyond the Printed Word conference, also last week in Vienna, Simon Waldman, Guardian Media Group's director of digital strategy and advocate of the ACAP project, said an industry-standard approach was needed to establish a rights payment system as many companies 'on the fringes' were forming formidable advertising-based businesses using publisher's online content.

He also said that this might only come about if laws existed to force the search engines and aggregators to pay.