Posted on 06/20/2008 2:39:21 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
No money changed hands but Rogers Cadenhead, who owns the Retort, evidently agreed to tweak the offending posts to bring them into compliance with the AP’s guidelines. And what might those guidelines be? He’s not saying. Yet.
I spent around two hours yesterday talking to AP attorneys about their specific objections to the user blog entries in dispute, going line by line through the text to pinpoint exactly where they have intellectual property concerns in the short excerpts that were posted. I won’t reveal the details of this discussion until AP releases the guidelines for bloggers that it promised on Monday…
If AP’s guidelines end up like the ones they shared with me, we’re headed for a Napster-style battle on the issue of fair use…
Although AP will be releasing guidelines, I don’t think the news service will be able to concede any ground to the blogosphere. AP sells headline and lead-only services to customers. Asking the company to concede there’s a way people can share this information for free is like asking the RIAA to pick its favorite file-sharing client.
The post on the settlement at the Media Bloggers Association corroborates that the AP drew the line at excerpting the headline and the lede paragraph, since “a large percentage of the value of what they deliver is carefully packaged in that content and so the publishing of that information without permission was a copyright violation.” If that’s the main guideline, plus whatever reasonable excerpt length they suggest (two or three paragraphs?), it won’t be terribly burdensome for bloggers, but like Cadenhead suggests, they’re going to end up in court anyway thanks to the thousands of user-driven bulletin board news-sharing sites online. AP headlines and ledes are probably copied verbatim a few dozen times a day at Free Republic and Democratic Underground alone. Add in Digg, Reddit, etc etc etc, and you’re looking at a galaxy of lawsuit opportunities. Exit question: Which lucky website will find itself the bearer of the golden ticket to federal district court?
Since we post AP articles indirectly via other sources, how does that effect us ‘posters’ here on FR?
Tell us what you want us to do JimRob. If we want to post an AP story, what kind of guidelines do you want us to follow. And if there is a place where you have a list of which media sources need to be treated in any specific way, please post that link as well.
Don’t want to do something which will get you in trouble and threaten FR.
It’s just the dinosaur media, having no idea how to re-make themselves to embrace the new media, taking steps to quicken their demise.
More from Cadenhead here:
http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/news/3372/ap-settles-dispute-drudge-retort
Nice website...bookmarking now
I’ve actually kind of enjoyed not seeing the AP for the past few days.
Maybe we should simply refuse to publish anything from AP, and let the places to which they syndicate this stuff know that syndication with AP means the death of their story.
If AP wants to be print media only, let it pay for it. We can live without it. Believe me, if bloggers and sites all over the world refuse to accept AP stories, the shoe will be on the other foot.
Reference Ping
We are boycotting AP. Please do not post any of their material regardless of source. The mods are pulling any AP material they see.
Thanks,
Jim
We're not going to pay AP's extortion fees and we're not going to allow them to control free speech!
CBS News sinks to new low; publishes crackpot global warming story, attributes it to AP, kills it
Another effort in the CBS Tradition ....Fake but accurate....
A response to Allahpundit regarding the FR policy might be useful.
Failed to ping you for the link to the excellent posting regarding the CBS Story...see # 14.
BOL, you bitter old white guy!:)
I remember a Freeper suggesting years ago (with a similar lawsuit) that we just post the headlines, tell all not to go with the link and just use imagination about the story and author. Just to have fun with the libs and when the thread is silent, someone email the thread to the paper.
We have been boycotting the AP? Haven’t missed them this week!
$crew AP!
Boycott them like an illegal alien with murder, rape and armed robbery charges with AIDS, TB and a dozen more communicable diseases.
It has been nice not to see any of AP’s left wing lies, spins and DNC spew posing as news since Jim banned the posting of any AP articles posing as news.
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