NY Times, AP, Washington Post found NewsRight

Several newspaper organizations are banding together under an organization titled NewsRight to license and profit from the spread of their content online.

A project first developed by the Associated Press and initially named the News Licensing Group, NewsRight launched Thursday with 29 investors, including the AP, New York Times Company, Washington Post Company, McClatchy Newspapers  and numerous other major newspaper corporations.

Its board includes a who's who of media executives from many of those same companies, such as Tom Curley, President and CEO of the AP, Katharine Weymouth, publisher of the Washington Post and Gary Pruitt, CEO of McClatchy. Its chair is Bob Nutting, CEO of Ogden Newspapers and the owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team.

"We are providing the easiest legal way for internet companies to gain access to quality journalism," David Westin, the CEO and president of NewsRight and the former ABC News chief, told TheWrap. "We can give them the rights under copyright to use the stuff. They don't have to be over the line, close to the line, worry about the line. It's one-stop shopping."

NewsRight puts code into every piece published by the sites it works with -- 841 newspaper sites at this point -- and that code travels with the story across the web. If someone else steals it, NewsRight's database registers it.