A study of the use of US newspaper stories on the Web has found that more than 75,000 websites reused content from newspapers without authorization during a 30-day period.

AFP reports:

The study, found that during a 30-day period ending on November 15, 2009, a total of 75,195 unlicensed websites reused at least one US newspaper article.

It comes as US newspaper owners grapple with declining print advertising revenue, falling circulation and free news on the Web and amid moves by News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch to begin charging online readers of his newspapers.

The unlicensed websites published some 112,000 "near-exact" copies of an original article and, on average, each article was reused at least in part 4.4 times, it said. While blog sites are most frequently accused of using content without authorization, blogs made up less than 10 percent of the top reusing sites during the period under review. READ MORE