The Associated Press Wants You to Pay!

[Sigonfile]

http://www.stlmedia.net/pix/image-apfeestructure.jpg (http://license.icopyright.net/user/offer.act?gid=3&inprocess=t&sid=36&tag=3.5721%3Ficx_id%3DD90VCFA01&urs=WEBPAGE&urt=nullit)

[Egbert Roscoe Murrow]

Who needs the AP when I just can pull news off the internet? (Dont' tell my boss!)

[Clever Login Name]

http://www.stlmedia.net/pix/image-apfeestructure.jpg (http://license.icopyright.net/user/offer.act?gid=3&inprocess=t&sid=36&tag=3.5721%3Ficx_id%3DD90VCFA01&urs=WEBPAGE&urt=nullit)

This is the result of a fight they've been having with bloggers who link to their articles. AP's getting pwned. It's especially ridiculous when you consider AP steals stuff from everyone else and pawns it off as their own ... although I vaguely remember the days of when they'd pay you $2 if they took your story and regurgitated it for the wire. That was a long, long time ago.

[Sigonfile]

Oh!, but you are wrong! You'll have to disconnect the IP sensor35 quagulator detector which monitors the words that you view online. It's located in the processor board near the power supply link. It senses if you retype a word or phrase from a copyrighted article posted online from the same workstation that you viewed it on. It's kind of like a legal "spell check". If caught you could face serious charges from the legal eagles from Microsoft.

[Spike]

This is the result of a fight they've been having with bloggers who link to their articles.

No, the bloggers were stealing the articles. They weren't merely linking them. They were cutting and pasting long excerpts and entire articles on their websites, then whined and cried when AP's lawyers sent them C&D letters.

AP's getting pwned. It's especially ridiculous when you consider AP steals stuff from everyone else and pawns it off as their own ...

Can you point to some examples of this? When have they taken material from anybody who didn't have a contract with them to share material?

[TVMattNYC]

I'm surprised it's taking people this long to realize that.

Unfortunately, the current younger generation seems to feel that everything IS free ... downloadable music, downloadable video, downloadable articles, download download DOWNLOAD!

If it's on the internet, it's all FREEEEEE!!!!

[Clever Login Name]

No, the bloggers were stealing the articles. They weren't merely linking them. They were cutting and pasting long excerpts and entire articles on their websites, then whined and cried when AP's lawyers sent them C&D letters.



Can you point to some examples of this? When have they taken material from anybody who didn't have a contract with them to share material?

The excerpts in question ranged from 39 words to 79 words, I believe. Hardly reprinted articles ... and under existing fair use law, it seems the bloggers have every right to do what they've been doing. Right now, it appears AP wants to dictate the terms of what amounts to 'fair use', regardless of what the law says. Most feel they're doing this because they're tired of having the on-line community fact-check and rip apart the content they claim to be 'news'.

As to examples, my own personal history is that, again, AP (a long time ago) used to pay for content they took from someone else. That stopped and the information started appearing on their newswires without attribution -- I've seen that many times and know it to be fact. It wasn't even a matter of re-reporting the story ... some were lifted line for line. And there was no contract to share material. I've also read where AP has regularly lifted phrases, wording and quotes from blogs without attribution.

[!]

Most feel they're doing this because they're tired of having the on-line community fact-check and rip apart the content they claim to be 'news'.
Source for the claim of "most," please.

[interloper]

AP has every right to do this.

They have a product which they sell to generate revenue. It is not fair to them for others to take that product from them to use for their own gains without paying for it.

Watch what happens to those who think they can keep taking, stealing, from AP. Lots of whining from those who think everything on the internet should be free for them to use.

Sorry kids. Stealing is stealing. I for one am happy AP has stepped up and is doing more to protect their product. It is long overdue.

[Rosenblum]

Here's a pretty good take on this from the LA Times:


AP pulls a Metallica
The news service should promote its content to bloggers instead of trying to block them from using it.
June 19, 2008

The Associated Press recently pulled a Metallica online, and no, that's not a good thing. Metallica, one of the most popular heavy-metal bands of all time, has become a symbol for cluelessness about the Internet -- witness the episode two weeks go, when the band forced music bloggers to take down reviews of its as-yet-unreleased new album after inviting them to hear it. Last week, the AP sicced its lawyers on the Drudge Retort, demanding the removal of six blog posts and a comment that included excerpts from AP stories. Each item, in fact, consisted of little more than a headline, a link to an AP story on Yahoo or an AP member's site, and a short excerpt -- less than 80 words, or about half the length of the paragraph you just read.

In a letter sent to the Retort, the AP argued that this violated its copyrights and its rights under the Supreme Court's "hot news" ruling from 1918. In that case, the court held that a rival news service owned by William Randolph Hearst misappropriated the AP's reporting by siphoning the facts out of breaking news dispatches. As Jeff Jarvis of the BuzzMachine blog observed, the complaints are painfully ironic coming from a news organization that often recycles its member newspapers' work without acknowledging or linking to the original stories.

The AP has an obvious interest in preventing its work from being used for free by outlets that compete with its paying customers, including the Los Angeles Times. But it seems to misunderstand how the Internet has changed the way people find and discuss the news. As in so many other industries, the producers of news are losing control over its dissemination. Readers decide where they want to get news -- for example, at the Drudge Retort, a liberal take-off on the conservative (and far more popular) Drudge Report -- and which stories are important. Trying to stop people from posting excerpts around the Web is akin to asking them not to talk about a story they've read. Besides, if the AP does its job well, the excerpts will whet readers' appetites for the rest of the story, leading them back to the original.

Representatives of the AP and the Media Bloggers Assn. are expected to meet today, and the AP might offer guidelines for what it considers acceptable uses of its material. But courts decide copyright disputes on a case-by-case basis, and there's a well-established fair-use defense for using excerpts for the sake of commentary. A better strategy for the AP would be to promote its work to bloggers, who can help elevate it above the online news din. After all, the problem for most news sources isn't that too many people misappropriate their work online, it's that too few see it at all.

[Roy Hobbs]

This will backfire on them.

[overthehill]

TV Matt,

Can't tell you the number of college journ students who feel it's just fine to lift stories verbatim from newspapers, without attribution, for use in their student reports and newscasts. They believe, if it's in the paper and published it's okay to use. Same goes for anything on any website. Must be true, it's on the Internet.

Hmmm...maybe the adults in our business do this too, he said with a wink and a smile. Shame.

[Bureau Chief]

Considering the quality of AP writing over the last few years...they ought to be paying ME for having to read their stuff! I used to post some of the worst offenders here and elsewhere to poke fun at them...but a letter from the legal bozos stopped that hobby.

[The Fedora]

BOOOOOOO legal bozos...

I came across one yesterday that I HAD to print out save. The story made NO sense. None.