Can Associated Press control the blogosphere

MSNBC ^ | June. 17, 2008 | By Helen A.S. Popkin

[Jim Robinson]

Face it, blogs exist so we don't have to read the news for comprehension

The Associated Press took a grandiose Facebook-style faceplant last week when it attempted to impose strict guidelines on the blogosphere.

Now, just like Facebook’s initial unapologetic enthusiasm for its privacy-violating Beacon program followed by Facebook’s effusive apology for its privacy-violating Beacon program, the AP is bowing to the will of the angry Internet masses and backing off. Sort of.

As part of the big mea culpa, the AP's Jim Kennedy pledged to meet this week with Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association (which is, you know, kind of like meeting with the United Organization of Anarchists), and work up some sort of AP/Blogger Accord.

So mark the date kids, this is yet another moment in Internet history we’ll someday look back on in Wikipedia when we scratch our heads and try and figure out how cyber rights and responsibilities got to wherever this whole World Wide Web thing is going.

It all started with a letter from AP (a national news organization that pays the rent by selling news reports to other media, including msnbc.com) to the Drudge Retort (a news aggregator site named in parody for the muckraking site, Drudge Report). AP requested that the Drudge Retort remove seven posts featuring quotes from AP stories. From there, it blew up into yet another full-on Internet conflict between Big Business and the Little Guys.

[Jim Robinson]

"the AP is bowing to the will of the angry Internet masses and backing off. Sort of."

Oh yeah?

Read on:

Associated Press expects you to pay to license 5-word quotations [barred if damages AP reputation]

I say it's time to boycott AP!

[ShadowAce]

[livius]

Then AP should pay rights on any quote or words they pick up here or on any other site.

[WakeUpAndVote]

AP’s a piece of *THE REST OF THIS MESSAGE HAS BEEN DELETE AS TO NOT DAMAGE THE ACCOSIATED PRESSES REPUTATION*

[soupcon]

The AP doesn’t have a leg to stand on. They’re purposely going after the low-fund smaller blogs to avoid litigation, which they would clearly lose. The bigger blogs would defeat the AP in any copyright lawsuit.
And the Media Bloggers Association has absolutely no juice in negotiating anything on the behalf of the blogosphere, they simply wish to feel important, which, of course, they are not.

[Brian C. Ledbetter]

Holy cow—where was the New York Times and MSNBC when the Associated Press came after me? I'm a heckuva lot smaller blog than the Retort is, and the AP were threatening me with a couple hundred thousand $$ more in damages... and all I got from the press was crickets.

Ah, investigative journalism. Nobody can ever tell for whom its bell will toll. Other than to say that it usually tolls for liberals.

Regards,
Brian/snapped shot

[mnehring]

BTT

[mnehring]

The AP doesn't have a leg to stand on. They're purposely going after the low-fund smaller blogs to avoid litigation, which they would clearly lose. The bigger blogs would defeat the AP in any copyright lawsuit.

Kind of like the RIAA going after all the college kids who downloaded one or two songs for $5k per pop. Cheaper to pay up and comply than fight it. (I'm not defending illegal downloading here, just drawing a comparison.)

[JoJo Gunn]

You beat me to it.

And why anyone wants to even acknowledge their existence, and of Gannett, and PCWorld, etc, when all we’re allowed is to link to them, is beyond me. If they don’t want publicity from such a prominent site like this, let ‘em wither on the vine.

[Eleutherios]

ALREADY DO boycott the AP - as much as possible.
Problems arise, though, because i also try to boycott terrorist-loving Reuters ... WaPo ... MSNBC ... the NY and LA Slimes ... the English-language service of Al-Jazeera (CNN).

You can feel silly gleaning news from Xinhua, Epoch Times, Australian Broadcasting, the Waziristan Post, you know.
So all such boycotts are “punctuated”.

However, i shall feel more supportive of AP’s intellectual property rights in a news story
... when the AP itself pays royalties to the persons whose words and actions they are exploiting for their own profit.
Tell me when THAT starts to happen, and i’ll start to take their bluster seriously.

Is it still on point to say that many citations of AP stories are NOT primarily about their content ...
but instead use the AP story as an exhibit of why we complain about the incessant propaganda posing as news
that issues from the Associated Press?

[soupcon]

Yeah, but there are no fair-use statutes that support illegal downloading. Fair-use statutes regarding news and information are a deeply entrenched part of our Democracy.

[weegee]

A chill wind blows. And notice even if money is paid, they can reneg on the contract if your use exposes them in ways that hurt their reputation.

That would include true exposes of their forgeries and manufacturing of “news”.

America Pravda will not tolerate criticism.

[Responsibility2nd]

At this time; AP reports are allowed to be posted without excerpts here on Free Republic, right?

Wonder how long that will last?

[Kevmo]

bmflr

[Dr.Deth]

AP’s a piece of *THE REST OF THIS MESSAGE HAS BEEN DELETED AS TO NOT DAMAGE THE ASSOCIATED PRESSES PIECE OF ____'s REPUTATION*

Fixed.

[zeugma]

And why anyone wants to even acknowledge their existence, and of Gannett, and PCWorld, etc, when all we’re allowed is to link to them, is beyond me. If they don’t want publicity from such a prominent site like this, let ‘em wither on the vine.

Yup. I never click links for those sites because of their draconian policies. I don't think we should even link to them.

[onemiddleamerican]

Associated Press expects you to pay to license 5-word quotations [barred if damages AP reputation]

AP damages their own reputation more than any of us ever could. They publish bogus/photoshopped photos, among other journalistic misdeeds, for cryin' out loud.

[JoJo Gunn]

Good deal!

You might have seen it by now, so just for cross reference, here's the link to where Jim lowered the boom on the AP.

[zeugma]

Thanks. I’ve seen it. AP(Piss be upon them) seems to have jumped the shark on the concept of “fair use”. Unfortunately, in this day and age, in order to have rights, you have to be able to afford lawyers.

[JoJo Gunn]

I thought it was “fece be upon them”? :)