Posted on 06/17/2008 1:23:48 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
This is our Boston tea Party.
The Associated Press wants to levy a $12.50 and up license fee (aka extortion fee) on any blogger who quotes more than 4 words from one of their propaganda pieces. This is an outrageous attempt to control the blogosphere and free speech itself. To hell with their license fee and to hell with the AP. Any AP article that gets posted to FR will be jettisoned into the harbor posthaste.
Please do not post any AP material to FR excerpted or not.
Actually, that's not such a terrible idea to throw into the mix.....just sayin.
The blogosphere would be best served actually reporting news instead of just quoting mainstream media news pieces and adding commentary and calling it “journalism”.
It’s just an attempt to regroup and come up with some other way to slience free speech.
It’s not a bad idea at all...
But it really annoys me that AP is single-handedly rewriting Fair Use laws, and we're letting them get away with it. Boycotting their stuff is as much a victory for them as paying them what they've asked for.
I hope someone has deep enough pockets to get in AP's face and make them try to defend their lunacy in a court of law. This is extortion, and it's in clear violation of the intent of the Fair Use laws.
And, in the — very unlikely — event that there is a specific AP story that Freeper thinks we need to be aware of and discuss, we could post a vanity with something like “American Propagandists Reporters Say...” and then only paraphrase the heading and topic.
There are alot of blogs trying to bait the AP into filing a lawsuit against them. They welcome the challenge. These blogs have the money to fight and win.
Beats backing down.
AP...
Nothing lost by eliminating their material anyways.
No, I am calling BS on the guy that said AP is controlling free speech. They are not. Their business is to produce news stories, they want to get paid for what they do and not give it away.
Do you work for free?
Good move JR. If all the news forums and blogs would follow suit, we’d cripple AP’s traffic. BTW, glad to see you back. I hope you’re doing well.
I have for years used Yahoo’s AP section as my home page. I am now going to change it to some othere news service, and I also will send a note to Yahoo pointing this out.
Good question.
IIRC The Associated Press was originated in the late 19th Century at the direction of the most powerful Print Media giant of the time William Randolph Hearst. It consists of a news gathering organization IIRC paid for by those independent news companies membership that wish to obtain news articles from around the World from that source. IIRC there are over 1500 individual news organization members subscribing to AP propaganda.
IMO as so many entities we have grown up with, and accept as standards in our lives, the AP has been compromised by Leftist interests to the point it is hardly of any news and information value anymore whatsoever. Cleverly written text in most all of their articles is designed to direct thought, thus create conclusions their Leftist agenda desires, versus the roll of factual reporting of events etc.
Simply due the size and extent of that organization, there could be IMO a basis in free speech to contest this recent action by the AP in the court of law. But not with content from my meager pocketbook.
According to U.S. Copyright Law, it is “fair use” to quote portions of a published article for critical review.
AP is just angry that bloggers are fact-checking their rear ends all to hell.
I’m wondering that too...
you got balls just like grandpa and great grandpa had....
Who’s AP?
Guess they are some folks that believe they have a monopoly on news or something. Oh well, I can let them live in their delusion. No AP for me, please.
DO YOU WORK FOR AP?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.