I don’t see how this can possibly pass First Amendment rights to free discussion of issues. If the AP puts information into the public domain, the public should have a right to address what it has said. How do you do that without quoting more than four words.
What the A.P. seems to want is a society where it and only it can desminate ‘truth’, and if anyone dares object, they deserve a fine based on how boldly they take it to task.
If you disagree with just one issue, you can’t even address it without breaking A.P.’s rules. And if you have issues with five or six things within an article (which isn’t all that infrequent), there’s no way you could address them without mentioning what A.P. said in the first place. Chaching! Chaching! Chaching!
You can’t even quote a headline that’s longer than four words.
Screw that nose. To hell with them. Papers pick up what they have published. We’ll address the issues from there.
Heaven only knows what this SCOTUS would rule on an issue like this, with their heads so firmly implanted.
We can have better threads posting what was left out of the AP report. That’s the part I always liked best anyway.