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

Boing Boing ^ | June 17, 2008 | Cory Doctorow

[Mike Fieschko]

In the name of "defin[ing] clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt" the Associated Press is now selling "quotation licenses" that allow bloggers, journallers, and people who forward quotations from articles to co-workers to quote their articles. The licenses start at $12.50 for quotations of 5-25 words. The licensing system exhorts you to snitch on people who publish without paying the blood-money, offering up to $1 million in reward money (they also think that "fair use" -- the right to copy without permission -- means "Contact the owner of the work to be sure you are covered under fair use.").

It gets better! If you pay to quote the AP, but you offend the AP in so doing, the AP "reserves the right to terminate this Agreement at any time if Publisher or its agents finds Your use of the licensed Content to be offensive and/or damaging to Publisher's reputation."

Over on Making Light, Patrick Nielsen Hayden nails it:

The New York Times, an AP member organization, refers to this as an “attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt.” I suggest it’s better described as yet another attempt by a big media company to replace the established legal and social order with with a system of private law (the very definition of the word “privilege”) in which a few private organizations get to dictate to the rest of society what the rules will be. See also Virgin Media claiming the right to dictate to private citizens in Britain how they’re allowed to configure their home routers, or the new copyright bill being introduced in Canada, under which the international entertainment industry, rather than democratically-accountable representatives of the Canadian people, will get to define what does and doesn’t amount to proscribed “circumvention.” Hey, why have laws? Let’s just ask established businesses what kinds of behaviors they find inconvenient, and then send the police around to shut those behaviors down. Imagine the effort we’ll save.

Welcome to a world in which you won’t be able to effectively criticize the press, because you’ll be required to pay to quote as few as five words from what they publish.

Welcome to a world in which you won’t own any of your technology or your music or your books, because ensuring that someone makes their profit margins will justify depriving you of the even the most basic, commonsensical rights in your personal, hand-level household goods.

The people pushing for this stuff are not well-meaning, and they are not interested in making life better for artists, writers, or any other kind of individual creators. They are would-be aristocrats who fully intend to return us to a society of orders and classes, and they’re using so-called “intellectual property” law as a tool with which to do it. Whether or not you have ever personally taped a TV show or written a blog post, if you think you’re going to wind up on top in the sort of world these people are working to build, you are out of your mind.

Link

[Mike Fieschko]

I guess the first 4 words are free.

[underground]

At first I thought market evolution was killing off the lamestream media. These days, I’m convinced the MSM is determined to commit suicide as quickly as possible.

[happinesswithoutpeace]

And I Will Lay To Rest My Ghosts
And Cover My Footsteps
And I Will Stand Up Straight And Walk Away
Leaving Them Far Behind

[TLI]

...the Associated Press is now selling "quotation licenses" that allow bloggers, journallers, and people who forward quotations from articles to co-workers to quote their articles. The licenses start at $12.50 for quotations of 5-25 words.

BUWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

One word.

[stevio]

I guess we’ll have to start talking like Yoda to get around this.

[stevio]

I’m actually thinking of two words for them.

[snowrip]

Good luck collecting, AP. If it were in fact illegal, you would have made a stink about it a very long time ago... but it isn’t, so you didn’t.

I will continue to excerpt the AP as often as I like, and in whatever quantity I deem appropriate. I suspect the rest of the blogosphere will, as well.

[GOPJ]

Welcome to a world in which you won’t be able to effectively criticize the press, because you’ll be required to pay to quote as few as five words from what they publish.

AP's envy is showing and it's not pretty.

[Moose4]

Hell, they can quote two fingers from me for free.

}:-)4

[TomGuy]

This will go to court.

It will be interesting to see how the judiciary decides the ‘fair use’ privilege.

AP may try to charge for 5+ words, but .....

[atomic conspiracy]

I have said for some time that the media-industrial complex (of which AP is at the very heart) is not the free press of the Founding Fathers. It is, rather, an unelected, unaccountable shadow government.

This attempt by AP to create and enforce its own laws is a prime example.

[atomic conspiracy]

I have five words for them:

“AP, you can kiss my....”

AP is not a government, it has no legislative or enforcement power other than the threat that its swinish gestapo of lawyers can find a jury that will buy their claims. This is a monstrous and flagrant abuse of the First Amendment and the legal system.

The real purpose of this effort is not to protect copyright, it is to blunt criticism and review, which have been taking an increasingly heavy toll on media credibility since the internet and new media started to undermine their monopoly on public discourse.

We will not have progress or even freedom in this country until the media-industrial complex is overthrown, and the authentic free press restored to its rightful position.

[DManA]

Interesting business strategy - Boycott us please.

[DManA]

Why stop with print. Charge people if you read the article to your wife at the breakfast table. Also people whose lips move as they read - why should def lip readers not have to pay.

[DManA]

Excellent insight:

it is to blunt criticism and review, which have been taking an increasingly heavy toll on media credibility

Most postings of AP stories are in the "Can you believe they print this junk" vein.

[laotzu]

I guess the first 4 words are free

AP - Washington
Bush is to blame.....(link)

[Mike Fieschko]

Interesting business strategy - Boycott us please.

Comments at the original blog post The Associated Press wants to charge you $12.50 to quote five words from them say that the LA and NY Times both dropped AP's headline ticker in the past 12 months or so, and also, that the AP used to do book reviews but has not done any in the past year or so:

I guess that explains why AP news has disappeared from the NY Times online. There used to be a news "ticker" column with a page that had AP and a page that had Reuters -- now they have only Reuters on their website. I wondered about that.

#17 ::: Ginger ::: (view all by) ::: June 16, 2008, 05:32 PM:

Also what may have happened to the 'AP wire' section on the LA Times site. I noticed it was gone, but didn't know what was going on behind the scenes.

#19 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: June 16, 2008, 05:47 PM:

Xopher -- actually, I did a quick search right after I posted that, and as far as I can tell, the AP used to do book reviews, but they stopped over a year ago. Hmmm...

#40 ::: Evan Goer ::: (view all by) ::: June 16, 2008, 08:36 PM:.

[Rebelbase]

The AP adopts the RIAA business model.

[Miss Didi]

RUSH:...The Associated Press sets the agenda and the narrative, along with the New York Times. The New York Times sets the agenda for network television coverage. The Associated Press, think of it as a massive gazillion-times-larger enterprise than Media Matters for America, which is nothing more than a liberal hatchet job website that exists to take members of the New Media out of context and to besmirch their character and credibility and honor. The Associated Press has no competition. Whatever they write about Iraq, whatever they write about me, whatever they write about domestic oil drilling; gets printed in 4,000 or whatever number of newspapers there are. And American citizens, who may not even like the Drive-By Media that they watch on cable TV, read their local papers, see the little thing, "(AP)", many of their stories not even bylined and it is accepted because nobody really takes on the AP. We just take on "the media" in general. But who feeds the media? Who feeds these people? In large part, they're not reporters anymore.

The AP is just an enlarged fax machine that sends out talking points disguised as news stories. Now, last Wednesday or Thursday, there was one of these stories, and it involved me. And I'm not bringing it up because it involved me. I'm bringing it up because it's just a recent and good example because of what's happened since. (cont.)

How the AP Used Rush to Start Narrative on the Whitey Rumor

[EdReform]

BTTT