Posted on 04/07/2009 6:58:06 AM PDT by Schnucki
Taking aim at the way news is spread across the Internet, The Associated Press said on Monday that Web sites that used the work of news organizations must obtain permission and share revenue with them, and that it would take legal action against those that did not.
A.P. executives said they were concerned about a variety of news forums around the Web, including major search engines like Google and Yahoo and aggregators like the Drudge Report that link to news articles, smaller sites that sometimes reproduce articles whole, and companies that sell packaged news feeds.
They said they did not want to stop the appearance of articles around the Web, but to exercise some control over the practice and to profit from it.
The group’s new stance applies to thousands of news organizations whose work is distributed by The A.P., as well as its own material, but the debate about unauthorized use has focused on newspapers, which are in serious financial trouble, and which own The A.P. The policies were adopted by the A.P. board, composed mostly of newspaper industry executives.
The A.P. will “work with portals and other partners who legally license our content” and will “seek legal and legislative remedies against those who don’t,” the A.P. chairman, William Dean Singleton, said Monday in a speech at the group’s annual meeting, in San Diego. “We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories.”
News aggregators and search companies have long asserted that collecting snippets of articles — usually headlines and a sentence or two — is allowed under the legal doctrine of “fair use.” News organizations have been reluctant to test that idea in court, and it is still not clear whether The A.P. is willing to test the fair
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ping
For sites like FR this opens the door to selective punitive law suits.
For sites like DU it doesn't matter because the content is mostly incoherent anyway.
People won’t pay to read advertising or propaganda. The business model they are looking for is to charge the DNC and special interest groups for spinning and advocating for them.
Wonder if we can get a list from the crAP for all of the "legal theories" they consider misguided?
IOW - we don’t like people getting together and criticizing our propaganda.
I have a question that I hope isn’t too naive.
If the AP supplies stories to other sources, like my local paper’s website, does that mean that in order to post a story from their website will be in violation?
No. probably not because it pays for the right to do that,
Ooooh! Puleeeeeze, please, please AP! Charge a whole carload of money to share your drivel. Maybe people will see a lot less of it then. Creditable news source. Pffffth!
Nothing like rescinding the publics “right to know”, huh? Of course, the AP might also be trying to hide the extaordinary bias in its “news” stories as well.
They are hurting themselves. If posters would summarize articles rather than pasting, the AP would be powerless to do anything about it.
Most AP content is junk, anyway. Why would anyone want to use it?
And in a related story, the State of Minnesota declared today that because the Mississippi river originates in Minnesota, anyone who makes any use of the Mississippi downstream must obtain the state’s permission and pay the state for its use. Minnesota immediately filed suit against the cities of St. Louis and New Orleans.
That statement is contradictory. The liability of the users for payment is dependent on the definition of "fair use". So saying they want to be paid for something the users think they can legally use for free is to say "Just go ahead and pay us without even bothering to check if you're legally required to. We're friendly guys; that's why we're threatening you."
The real story is that AP is an organization of newspapers that are in real financial trouble and they see the end of the line.
What happens to a news org that no one reads?
And in further developments, the Mayor of St. Louis City told Minnesota to come and take back their river, if they can.
New Orleans has not responded.
Instead of taking up precious bandwith that could be divided amongst non profits, they could start a newspaper, hire reporters and carrier boys, buy a newsvan, rent sidewalk space, and sell their own dang classifieds.
If they clean up their sensationalist BS, they might one day make it to the supermarket checkout stands, but they can't just expect to go from sleazeball rumors and unfathomable fabrications to the credibility the tabloids enjoy overnight.
They're going to have to really work for it this time, or they'll be right back in the same spot ~ wondering, if they shut down for awhile, would anyone notice?
The Mississippi only originates in Minnesota as long as
Odumbo the Kenyan allows it to. Soon, he will turn it around to appease his constituents (slaves) in New Orleans.
ha! this is about shutting down the discection and exposing AP bias.
Nobody is allowed to discect the AP style manual and its orwellian mandates for language.
Tough SOROS fools. A hyperlink and quote are within fair use.
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