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.
Thanks for the ping. My first thought was that this was so outrageous that it was satire. But then I saw who posted the article. This is nuts.
So, we will just use other sites that do not charge and the end result will be that the AP control will slip.
There are ways around this. We are not required to use the propaganda issued by the AP. And now that we are charged for it - we just won’t use it. There are plenty of other newsgathers around.
We can, through the internet, access foreign news sites, local news sites. So, this may just force us to go to more direct sources for our discussions.
Sorry I posted that AP article. I didn’t see this until it was too late.
Not necessarily true.
As a concrete example...
Last Tuesday, June 10th, our city had its biggest residential fire in history.
Having a police scanner going, I could report the progress of the fire, the extent, the number of alarms, etc, within seconds of their occurence on a live FR thread.
Three hours later, the AP had better check their copy and make sure they didn't have the identical 5 words, or 7 or 12 in any of their reports --- stand alone or as part of a larger paragraph.
You know, that could be fun!
The polar bear story following the front page story about Guantanamo and the poor prisoners in a 2-3 page spiel mean I am cancelling my subscription to the Ft. Worth Star Telegram
Why should I pay for that trash to come into my home. I can’t trust anything they say.
The only thing I will miss are the sale ads and I will have to access the internet shopping sites to get those.
The AP has just sent a cease and desist letter to Brian C. Ledbetter telling him to stop using their copyrighted images on his website, snappedshot.com.
Insane.
You pay the dealership that bought the car from the manufacturer.
Unless Oprah has bought the car, and wants to give it to you for free.
If a newspaper pays for an AP feed, and then puts the story on the internet free, that newspaper is doing the same thing Oprah did. Buying the product, and then giving it away.
I think AP is after blogs. I don't consider this a blog.
Just wondering how Drudge and others get around this?
I wonder what happens when the AP picks up a story from a local news source.
Now that AP has reprinted it, how much do we owe them?
AP's latest action indicates that the Fair Use law does not apply in their case. By not posting AP excerpts, you apparently concur. Isn't that true?
Bravo Zulu JR !
How are other sites like Drudge taking this new extortion effort ?
AP just nailed their coffin lid on IMO !
Stay safe , hope your feeling better Sir !
What about using their hard work? You would know nothing about the situation if you had not read it there. Are you to get it free?
It could be that soon libraries will be out of business. Wouldn’t want people reading articles for free - they might quote them in a school report or some other travesty.
Brilliant!
So do I get a refund of my licence fee?
AP New York - The Associated Press vowed to cannabalize itself today by charging money for its moronic propaganda.
Laughter could be heard throughout the blogsphere as everyone discovered they missed nothing the AP might scribble.
The AP reportedly asked a nickle for its thoughts from Jim Robinson, owner of the Free Republic. “I found none so I kept my nickle,” said Robinson.
Meanwhile, AP could be seen cavorting in the Le Brea tar pits with umbrella in hand, should the forecast of raining asteroids prove right.
Er, AP owns the rights to the following words: "just", "them", "for", "that" and "on"
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