Associated Press is expanding on its program that provides options for legal reuse of content, announced in April, to share advertising and syndication revenue with more of its subscribers, paidContent reported.

According to Mike O'Donnell, the CEO of iCopyright, which serves as AP's copyright licensing and content service monitor, the program was originally designed only for clients that host AP content, but now will be available to those that subscribe to an AP feed.

The program is designed to provide a revenue stream for members and as a means to combat plagiarism. As O'Donnell highlighted in an interview, “right now, we have a vicious circle of piracy, we want to create a virtuous circle that leads back to the member.”

Experts do not believe that this system will stop piracy because there remain simple means of copying content, for instance, simple copy/pasting to individual blogs. Furthermore, despite iCopyright's monitoring, AP still remains reluctant to take legal actions against possible copyright abusers.

Although the program has been criticised, The Tribune, Globe And Mail, and Toronto Star have already signed on. AP is also in talks with Yahoo, AOL, Comcast, and CBS about their possible participation. According to paidContent, it is also believed that Reuters and AFP may adopt the program.