I realize that Associated Press writers are “professionals”, but I don’t think it matters – published material is published material, including on a blog. So imagine if I had to pay $2.50 per word for every blockquote I use, and that every blogger who blockquoted me had to pay me the same. It’d been an endless circle-jerk of paying. Not to mention ridiculous, seeing as how there is something called Fair Use.
Anyway. It’s fascinating to watch this unfold and if you have no idea what I’m talking about, here:
Last week, whoever’s in charge of the AP apparently got very drunk and possibly high, and of copyright violation for using very short excerpts from AP articles, which were linked back to the original AP story.
In response, some huge sites like TechCrunch the AP. No linky traffic for you!
Some blogs the rank hypocrisy of the AP, seeing as how the AP quotes bloggers without credit ALL THE TIME. how massively idiotic the AP is, because blogs send them a shitload of traffic and help them earn ad revenue.
In what can only be described as one of the most foolish moves I have ever heard of in my entire life, the AP now has “pulled back” by withdrawing their insistence that bloggers stop quoting them…as long as the bloggers .
Where the group had previously invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and sent cease-and-desist orders to at least one blogger, seeking the removal of excerpted content (in some cases as few as 17 words in length), now the press service has attached an “Excerpt for Web Use” charge for passages as short as five words in length.
The pricing scale for excerpting AP content begins at $12.50 for 5-25 words and goes as high as $100 for 251 words and up.
This is pure comedy, folks. As Malkin , if we’re going to play that game then the AP owes her over $130,000.
has my favorite idea for a counter-offer:
I will limit the the words actually quoted from AP stories, limiting myself to paraphrase and direct quotes of relevant officials. (AP can’t copyright someone else’s words — at best, they can pitch an unfair trade practices beef, but that’s a harder case to make.)
Furthermore, I will no longer provide any links to any AP stories anywhere, and in fact may not even bother to mention the story comes from AP. I will cite instead a “news organization.”
If AP wants a link, it can begin paying me $25.00 per link. I charge for advertising.
Bam. Sounds good to me, although I probably couldn’t charge quite that much.
Really though, what kind of crack is the AP smoking? We bloggers quote a bit of an article and we link to the AP story. What could they possibly think they’re losing in that deal? Even my lame-ass blog probably sends several hundred visitors to each article I link to. I am sending traffic to those morons and I truly don’t know what’s so difficult to grasp about that, or how it could possibly be considered a bad thing.
In any case…
The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author’s observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.”
Anyone want to place bets on how long before the AP completely backpedals and drops the whole thing? I say by the end of this week.
Rachel,
I commented on your blog.
You now owe me eighteen kajillion billion dollars.
PayPal will be fine.
kthxbye!
(edited 30 seconds later to fix an idiotic typo)
Crap!
I’m guessing they’ll back down, but what if they don’t? Look at the RIAA mess!
Some of us commenters are pretty fast and loose with the block quote button — would you be liable for comment area content as well?
Effing MSM!
The AP are morons. They don’t know how the internet or copyright works. I hope Ace’s idea spreads far and wide so these douchebags lose their internet traffic.
I think this is something all bloggers, regardless of political affiliation, should get in on. Fuck the AP. Right in the nose.
I don’t see how Rachel would have to pay for your quote as it would not be her original material using the quote as a reference.
They’re just pissed that they have lost power and credibility. They don’t know how to stop the hemorrhaging of their bottom line due to subscription cancellations of papers, which to me is environmentally unfriendly anyway. They also don;t understand the internet or it’s advertising model. I think Michelle and others should bill them, they don’t pay up, sue them for intellectual material and copyright infringement.
The irony is that if they continue down this path they will succeed in becoming completely irrelevant. AFP and Reuters pump out the same bullshit AP does.
You can tell old media is on the ropes when they resort to this kind of extortion.
The ass wipe rag known as The Des Moines Register has tried this with several Iowa bloggers, haven’t seen any lawsuits filed yet.
They know the doctrine of fair use has them cooked. This is just bluff and bluster.
The need to spend less time with this stuff and more time perfecting their moves for performing self-intercourse with a low-yield thermonuclear weapon.
It’s extortion. Basically, they’re rattling their sabers to see if/how well it works. Unfortunately (for them) they’re inciting a rather nasty backlash…
If you get one of those “demand” notices, just tell them to shit in one hand and demand in the other and see which one fills up faster.
Patterico has suggested
Now there’s an image…
Since AP is (unless I’m way the heck off, here) more an aggregator than producer, it should be pretty easy to simply dodge them and continue appropriate fair use quoting through other sources, combining Rachel’s idea with Patterico’s. No?
Could be another example of the bottom feeding lawyers with nothing better to do.
The Board of Directors of the AP is comprised of newspaper and broadcast media honchos, and from personal experience I can tell you that they could give lessons in elitism to Marie Antoinette.
Hopefully, Marie’s spirit will soon be giving them lessons from beyond the grave, in not losing one’s head.
I’m the News Director at a small market radio station in Michigan. I deal with the A-P everyday. This is slightly off topic, but they are completely biased. For example the other day they had a story on the wire about Michigan Governor Jennifer Granmole…I mean Granholm…refusing to sign a bill limiting partial-birth abortion. They refer to it in their article as “a procedure opponents call partial birth-abortion”. Really…I’m not kidding. I edit it accordingly. Because, whether you are for abortion or not, partial-birth abortion is the only concise way to describe inducing labor, having all but the baby’s head come out of the mother. Then jamming a hollow spike into it’s head and sucking it’s brains out. “A procedure opponents call partial-birth abortion” is like calling welfare “a socialist system that opponents say encourages people to become slaves to the state”. Think the A-P or any media outlet will do that anytime soon?
Another minor thing the A-P does that annoys me is when they reference Hillary Clinton. It’s never consistent but, sometimes they refer to her as Hillary Rodham Clinton. WTF, is she a serial killer? It’s Hillary Clinton. When copy came from the A-P that referred to Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, I always made sure to refer to Barack as Barack Hussein Obama. If we have to know her middle then damn it, my listeners are going to know full well what his middle name is. Now, more often than not, I would just remove her middle name but, if I didn’t catch it and he was mentioned after her I would definitely refer to the husband of Obamarossa as Barack Hussein Obama.
The station owner would like to get rid of the A-P, mostly because of the cost, but also because he believes the system to be archaic. I side with him, but I’m going to wish I had it when I wake up late.
So if they were to quote you, and you were to quote them quoting you, and then someone else were to quote you quoting them quoting you, would the quoted quoter quote a price to quote their quoted quotes?
I..just..confused..myself…
The MSM is blindfolded and tied to a post, smoking its last cigarette.
The proper response to its demands is laughter.
Lemmee see … last time I linked to AP is …. hmm …. never. I only use sources I can trust. And AP and Reuters have proven they’re just mouthpieces for Islamofanatics far too many times for me to take a single word they print as reliable.
So … no linkee, no quotie …
I guess one could always just paraphase … “I read an AP fable today that claimed …” yada yada yada …. and no copyright violation.
DearRachel,
Might I respectfully and humbly suggest that Your Awesomeness require every new commenter to sign a form agreeing that you own the rights to any comments they might post on your blog? Just to keep it clean for the inevitable next step when some dillweed tries to charge for comments.
You should also charge for use of any Sunny pictures on any other blogs or motivational posters.
v/r
mike
Its death throws. They can’t catch up with the technology. This too shall pass.
Am I the only person who is hoping AP doesn’t back down? I want them to sue Michelle Malkin for $12.50, get their butts kicked in court, and be forced to pay some hundred million dollar fine in the countersuit. It would make a great movie, too.
Hi Rachel.runk ane d possibvl
high
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Hoipe youi make a mint.
thansk gort the dedit optiom!Q
Respectfillo y,
TFD
btw-
lame as bolg ? fucjk thst 1 LOVE YOUIT blofg love yuior shoe.
K?
Rachel — this would be a great topic for my proposed Daily Douchebag section.
Now I know what you’re thinking: as an environmentally concerned citizen of Gaia, you’re worried that the planet is running out of douchebags. And it hardly seems fair that while Democrats are only 37% of the population, they have 88% of the douchebags. But the real question is whether the RachelLucas Daily Douchebag is sustainable. Can the world actually produce a douchebag per day?
I know that you are skeptical, Rachel, but I’m asking you to set aside your cynicism, to put down your division, to come out of your douchebag-free isolation and dare to believe.
They should start charging people on myspace/facebook too.I know Facebook has such an easy format to quote,and add your own comments.
Ugh.And half the time the AP makes up stories too.