The Associated Press decides it's time to take on the Internet

Politics and religion
1

Good luck with that.

Copyright: 2008 Associated Press
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2

You’re fucking kidding me.

5 or more words? Doesn’t anything qualify as fair use these days?

This reminds me of the time CNet or is it ZDNet asked us to pay for quoting articles (and we’re good, usually keeping it to a paragraph), or to quote only the top teaser.

Yeah. They stopped getting links real fast.

3

Go Reuters!

4

Do you have to pay them for quoting their pricing structure too?

5

They’re not taking on the internet, they’re taking on the Fair Use doctrine.

6

So disappointing.

7

I can kinda see it, considering there are plenty of news websites (SFGate.com comes to mind off the top of my head) that use quite a few AP stories, and are making money via online advertising. So, in that regard, I can understand.

But 5 words? gimme a break.

8

I’m not holding my breath waiting for a pro-blogger with limited resources to challenge the AP’s terms of use in court.

9

Maybe some major contributing newspapers will cut the AP off and the AP will take a noticeable quality hit as a result?

10

Cut off how?

The major newspapers own AP and those that use AP in print allready pays.

I understand where AP is coming from, since they only provide content for others and not for their own publications - more than other news organisations their content is their business and of course it seems strange that some pay while other just takes for free.

But the pricelist is taking it too far, because they’re trying to overrule fair use - but unless US copyright is very different in this matter Fair USe is not a hard and fast measure. What’s fair use from a 5000 word NYT article isn’t the same as a 100 word telegram.

11

Fair use always has been and should remain a flexible notion.

12

Kos has already pledged to step up.

Boing Boing has decided to play along as well:

From the Associated Press:

In response, the AP

From the Associated Press:

It's about the size

From the Associated Press:

essentially declared a war

From the Associated Press:

since the Great Depression

From the Associated Press:

from the sound-bite culture.

They’ve asked for clarification on the hyphen issue.

13

Boing Boing’s thing was hilarious. Though Daily Kos is threatening litigation after pointing out that the AP is already reconsidering the move.

I agree that the way they’re going about it is heavy-handed, but I see the merit of their complaint.