A FEDERAL judge in New York brought the debate over the future of journalism into sharper focus with his refusal to dismiss key elements of a lawsuit by The Associated Press.

AP is suing All Headline News Corp. over the practice of free riding. The online venture does no original reporting or news coverage. Instead, All Headline News was all AP, repackaging straight news copy for distribution as its own. All Headline News merely cobbles together wire-service dispatches from the Internet.