Publishers, search engines to unveil open standard

INTERNATIONAL: The new, non-proprietary, open standard, ACAP (Automated Content Access Protocol), developed to protect the intellectual property of anyone wishing to make content available on the worldwide web, will be unveiled and showcased for the first time on 29 November 2007 in New York after an intense and highly collaborative 12-month pilot project between publishers and search engines.

Components of the ACAP standard are currently being implemented and tested on a pilot basis by several publishers and by the search engine, Exalead (www.exalead.com). The results of these tests will be publicly presented for the first time at the November conference.

Individual access and use policies

From December 2007, publishers will be encouraged to implement ACAP which will allow publishers, broadcasters and indeed any other publisher of content on the network to express their individual access and use policies in a language that search engine robots and similar automated tools can read and understand. The ACAP draft technical framework papers for pilot testing are now available at www.the-acap.org.

Gavin O'Reilly, president of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), says: “This conference will demonstrate beyond all doubt the need for ACAP and the potential disaster for the global publishing industry should it fail to embrace new technology to protect its future.”

ACAP project manager Mark Bide of Rightscom Ltd comments, “This project has received unprecedented industry support and commitment. Key players in the publishing and online industry have been quick to appreciate the need for ACAP and have responded by lending their corporate support and technical expertise. Our challenge now will be to communicate to the widest possible audience how ACAP can be implemented.”

Conference speakers

Speakers at the conference will include Tom Curley, CEO of Associated Press; Alain Heurtebise, CEO, Exalead and WAN President Gavin O'Reilly. Delegates will leave the conference fully briefed on how to implement this new and potentially universal standard.

Delegates can register free of charge by contacting Tessa Thier at .
For more information or to register, journalists can contact Heidi Lambert at or on te: +44 (1)245 476 265 or Angela Mills Wade on tel +44 (0)1865 310 732.

For more information on ACAP, go to www.the-acap.org.

Conference programme

8:45am Registration, coffee
9:30am Welcome and introduction from the chair: Gavin O'Reilly, President, WAN
9:45am Keynote presentation: Tom Curley, CEO, AP
10:05am The book publisher's perspective: Jens Bammel, secretary general, IPA
10:25am The future of search: Alain Heurtebise, CEO, Exalead Inc
10:45am TEA/COFFEE BREAK
11:15am ACAP – the technical reality: Francis Cave, ACAP technical project manager
12:45pm LUNCH BREAK
2pm The regulatory context, Europe and the US: Angela Mills Wade, executive director, European Publishers Council
2:20pm A world without ACAP: Dominic Young, director of editorial services, News International
2:20pm Where we go from here: Mark Bide, ACAP project manager, Rightscom
3pm Conclusions from the chair
3.15pm Conference close

ACAP pilot participants:

Agence France-Presse; De Persgroep; Impresa; Independent News & Media; John Wiley & Sons; Macmillan/Holtzbrinck; Media24; Reed Elsevier; Sanoma Corporation; British Library; and Exalead.

Current ACAP members include:

Access Copyright; Associated Press; Association of American Publishers; Associazione Italiana Editori; Australian Publishers Association; Authors Licensing & Collecting Society; Copyright Agency Limited; Copyright Clearance Center; Copyright Licensing Agency; Dapper; Deutsche Presse-Agentur; EDItEUR; European Alliance of News Agencies; Express Newspapers; European Newspaper Publishers Association; Fairfax Business Media; Federation of European Publishers; Forlæggerforeningen; Gazette Communications; International Association of STM Publishers; International DOI Foundation; International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations; International Press Telecommunications Council; Mediargus; Motion Picture Association; Nederlands Uitgeversverbond; News International; News Limited Australia; Newspaper Association of America; Newspaper Licensing Agency; Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI); Ovid Technologies; PLUS Coalition; Publishers Licensing Society; Random House Group; Recording Industry Association of America; Reuters; Scholastic; Vlaamse Dagbladpers; and World Blind Union.