Peter Kafka at All Things Digital got some of what AP is thinking from Jim Kennedy VP/director of strategic planning. It boils down to:

• …AP’s ire is indeed aimed at Google, and that the drum-beating has a purpose. The search engine has a deal with the AP that expires at the end of this year, and the AP is setting the table for upcoming negotiations. …
• The AP’s “stick” approach is aimed at Web aggregators: It plans on “fingerprinting” its content so it can track where its stuff is showing up and how it’s being used. If it’s being misused, it has an array of options that start with a takedown notice and end with legal remedies.
• The AP’s carrot approach is aimed at Web surfers: It will become an aggregator of its own content. Specifically, it plans on building search engine-friendly Web pages built around specific topics — say, “Fargo floods” or “Michelle Obama” — composed of links that direct readers to AP stories. The idea is to get the pages to show up high in a Google search, alongside, or higher than, similar pages from Web aggregators who are doing the same thing — like Wikipedia, Huffington Post, BusinessWeek, Mahalo, and on and on and on.

Not all blog reaction was negative when the A.P. kicked off this latest storm by laying down the law in a speech by chairman William Dean Singleton at the group’s annual meeting in San Diego. Last night Steve Buttry took on two who argued favorably; two he admires, Tim McGuire and Alan Mutter.

Buttry pushed back arguing that clinging to the past won’t save newspapers:

I think the business success equation that Chuck Peters has identified, Success = Attention x Trust x Convenience, is on the right track. And charging for content will harm each of the factors leading to success.

With that he ticks off some darned good points:

• Newspapers never made our money by charging for our content. We barely pay production and distribution costs, if that, from our circulation revenue. The costs of gathering the content have always been paid by other revenue streams, primarily from revenue we collect from businesses who want to connect with our audience.
• Newspaper companies have done an abysmal job of developing new revenue streams online from sources such as direct transactions, lead generation, marketing services, local search, email advertising and video advertising. When and if we figure that out, we will want a large audience, not an audience diminished by misguided efforts to charge Google or consumers directly for content.
• Collusion won’t work. We are not the only sources of online information. If we try to band together to force Google or direct consumers to pay for content, we will see alternate sources proliferate faster than we can imagine. And they will have a willing force of experienced journalists to gather content for them, people who lost their jobs as we were downsizing because of our inability to generate new revenue streams.
• We have tried and tried and tried to charge for content. If it worked, we would have figured out how to do it by now.
• It’s sad to see the industry that has so vigorously defended the First Amendment and freedom of expression now talking about going to court and wasting lots of attorneys’ fees trying to attack the doctrine of fair use.
• If we are banking our future on an approach that the New York Times likens to airlines charging for luggage and to the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, do you want to bet on our future. Did you even know Brittanica was online? Are you a subscriber?

RELATED: Jeff Jarvis is far more strident in his critique. He says the AP is the newspapers‘ enemy. And in his speech the NAA should hear he includes comment on Eric Schmidt at NAA yesterday, as reported by PaidContent’s Staci Kramer.