AP competitors  AP is competing in an increasingly saturated market  Agence France Press  Xinhua  New York Times  International Herald Tribune    Except for Reuters AP has no real Englishlanguage competition the other services you name dominate in other languages I know of no American papers that subscribe solely to the NYTimes andor Washington Post News services without also subscribing to AP AP is cheaper and far broader as far as breaking news goes   History of AP Brass Check   To a Minister of Truth I suggest Brass Check is a good book for the state of the AP at the turn of the century  theres more to it than Teletypes after all And if AP again has a monopoly on wireservicing in the animalhusbandry sense the US public just how is the UPI comment to be interpreted how that has played out in the past ought to be of interest Especially since the AP is the sole collator of election results tomorrow And if you protest Brass Check is not about the AP Ill point out the older Library of Congress catalogue entries list Associated Press as one of its categories    Nov  UTC PS count yself lucky I merely mentioned the book and didnt start rewriting the article   There are many many books about the history of US journalism that contain information about AP which might be of interest to this article but Brass Check isnt one of them It is wildly out of date especially if you think it has relevance to the current situation when it was written AP was a struggling underdog But of course you are welcome to start rewriting the article  thats the way Wikipedia works      So put some of THOSE books in fer cryin out loud wait what How can what is for years an indebted monopoly spreading completely inverted or entirely fabricated news with impunity qualify as struggling underdog Incidentally check history unless WP has discarded it for lack of space  I am not welcome even when what I write is wellsupported As a for instance Nurse Nayirah I do not contest that this is because of a certain immoderateness in my writing after the outrage Ive watched go on just the past four years  thanks in part to a US press that in what counts lies and covers up as baldly as Sinclair described  years ago  I cannot be moderate If there were moderates taking my place Id be happy but so many waste themselves on absolute breadandcircus garbage like American Idle I limit login now to when I express something thats only my opinion    Nov  UTC  Oh I forgot to mention someone thinks Brass Check interesting enough that the U of Illinois Press reprinted it about two years ago ISBN     Nov  UTC  APs television service is now known as APTN  Note The picture on the main entry page shows the APs old headquarters in Rockefeller Center The company has since moved to Manhattans West Side    Retracted Stories   If were going to list every retracted story that AP or any other wire service has run over the years were going to have to double the size of wikipedia So I removed the long rambling account of one such case since it lacked context Discussion about the merits or lack thereof of the wire service are certainly valuable additions to the article but not in the form of a rant       Explanation of AP fees  This was originally posted on the Reference Desk with the title Is news public domain  It seems from the public domain article that facts are in the public domain but reporting of them may not be  A news agency might do a lot of work to collect some news and expect just compensation  So how is it that news stories can be picked up by competing agencies eg the Associated Press picking up a story in a local newspaper  Isnt that local news story under copyright  Is there a fee involved or some sort of professional agreement  Thanks    Nov  UTC As you can see from the article on the AP its owned by its contributing newspapers  A local newspaper allows its stories to be used by the AP because it has the opportunity to use AP wire stories itself  So the answer is that the news story is certainly under copyright and the only feesprofessional arrangements involved are the money and agreements necessary to maintain the AP  UserJwrosenzweigJwrosen