In the greatest example of cutting off one’s nose to spite their face, the AP has decided to start a war with the blogosphere by charging them to quote and link from their articles. I wrote over at rightjuris about how the AP has decided to follow other dinosaur industries like the RIAA and MPAA by using frivolous law suits in order to discourage user’s from quoting and linking to their “news” (I use the term lightly in relation to the AP) stories. They have decided to completely ignore any claims of the Fair Use Doctrine, which allows others to use small quotations (like book reviews and countless others do) in their own work. The irony of this is that the doctrine was developed in relation to the Freedom of the Press clause in the 1st Amendment. So now we have a major “news” agency essentially violating a doctrine that has worked to their advantage for decades. Their attempt to charge for content ignores the new paradigm of the Internet in its entirety. The world is changing and the way we get our news is changing. 20 years ago you had about 10 sources of news that was responsible for disseminating the goings on in the world. Now there are literally thousands. If I don’t like the New York Times, not only will I not subscribe to their print resource (do they still have a print resource), but I will probably find a news outlet that colors their reporting that is more in line with my thinking. So, the A.P. is desperately trying to hold onto their domination of the old media, the long term consequences be damned.
So, here is a screen shot of their new pricing scheme:
It seems to be that $2.50 is a pretty hefty per word charge, but what do I know. One must wonder how much traffic is driven to the AP site by bloggers around the Internet on a daily basis from this evil practice of linking and quoting? How much revenue could the AP garner from working with the bloggers instead of driving them away? There are many of blog sites that make multiple-millions per year just off advertising. One would think the AP would see those dollar signs. Instead, the AP has started a firestorm of criticism and boycotts based on their decision to bar bloggers from quoting their materials (which they can’t legally do any way). Well, as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for, you may just get it. While I do not speak for all of Rightpundits, I will be joining my fellow bloggers in a boycott of this asinine policy. If they don’t want me driving people to their “news” sites, that is fine, I surely won’t. Could someone please start playing “Taps” I think I hear the death cry of the MSM.
June 18th, 2008 at 9:06 am
Fascinating. They are supposedly trying to work out this issue with a consortium of bloggers. The “fair use” doctrine is pretty vague in that it isn’t the quantity of words that constitutes fair use, but the purpose of using them and the economic consequences of using them.
The famous case was a small quote from Gerald Ford’s book explaining why he pardoned Nixon. Ford sued and won against one of the magazines who published it because publishing that one single snippet from his book materially damaged book sales. The AP’s argument would have to be that bloggers quoting AP stories would drive down the price of subscriptions that news organizations pay to publish AP stories.
June 18th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
That is fine. There are other news organizations that can be referenced. I, for one, would vote to continue to quote them were it not for their inferior journalistic capabilities. They are worse than the NY Times.
Reuters has all of the same stories anyway. Maybe when everyone ignores them, they will come to their senses. In reality, I could care less.
June 18th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
I heard that they were already regretting taking the blogsphere on. I’ll have to go see if I can find where I read that.
The problem is, it seems to me, that the blogs are cutting into the revenue of the Old News. They are trying desperately to find a way to keep themselves relevant … and employed.
I think surely this will backfire on them. MDefl is right - the same stories in the same words are on Reuters and any number of other news services.
June 19th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Bryan, welcome to the world of intellectual property rights. These rights, wholly man-made and artificial, represent the majority of the value of everything in the United States. Weaken intellectual proprty rights and you will destroy our major corporations. Our economy will crumble.
You lust to use the intellectual property of the AP. The fact that you yearn for it does not make it legal.
June 19th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
BHR, I don’t know which law school you went to, but the one I went to they taught us about this little thing called fair use. It is perfectly acceptible to quote and cite news articles in your own work, people do it all the time in thousands of different ways. I am in no way advocating weaking IP rights, they serve a valuable purpose. However, the purpose is in no way to prohibit free discussion.
You are the only one in the entire world that could possibly stand up for what the AP is doing. Do you work for them or something?
June 19th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
[...] Press, copyright, Michael Arrington — themangle @ 2:32 am Having recently announced that it is going to charge people who cut and paste its content, Associated Press (AP) is trialling some embedded code into its syndicated content to ensure that [...]