• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, March 15, 2012

NewsRight, a company created by a consortium of big publishers to handle online licensing of their content, has struck its first deal, making content available to news aggregator Moreover Technologies, which -- for a fee -- supplies companies with news and information relevant to their area of business.

The deal will give Moreover guaranteed access to digital articles gleaned from hundreds of newspapers represented by NewsRight, as well as online media metrics and analytics showing how that content is being consumed across the Internet, for Moreover’s category-specific news products, including Newsdesk Alert, Newsdesk Corporate, and Newsdesk Enterprise.

Building on the initial efforts of the Associated Press, NewsRight was formed in January by 29 news and information companies (representing many more publications) as an independent digital rights and content licensing organization to guard their intellectual property and business interests by policing unauthorized use.

NewsRight will track online usage of articles and demand fees where appropriate.

Companies that have invested in NewsRight include Advance Publications, The Associated Press, A.H. Belo Management Services, Hearst Newspapers, Journal Communications, The McClatchy Company, Media General, MediaNews Group, The New York Times Company, The E.W. Scripps Company and The Washington Post Company.

NewsRight will have to avoid the obstacles to content policing that confronted Righthaven, a company that tried to sue news aggregators, blogs and other Web sites for allegedly infringing on newspaper copyrights. Righthaven has been dealt several defeats in court rulings, which threw out the company’s lawsuits.

Last April, Righthaven was forced to withdraw one prominent lawsuit against the editor of a Web site because it was not able to show that it served him with the correct legal papers. More recently, the company may be forced to pay legal fees associated with some of its unsuccessful lawsuits.