Bloggers are starting to boycott the AP

[Joanne98]

This is not just about Drudge. I'm not posting any more links to them until this gets straightened out!

By Cernig

Bloggers beware, Associated Press are on the warpath, starting bogus copryright suits against those linking and quoting even the merest fraction of an AP news report. Roger Cadenhead of the Drudge Retort:

I'm currently engaged in a legal disagreement with the Associated Press, which claims that Drudge Retort users linking to its stories are violating its copyright and committing "'hot news' misappropriation under New York state law." An AP attorney filed six Digital Millenium Copyright Act takedown requests this week demanding the removal of blog entries and another for a user comment.

The Retort is a community site comparable in function to Digg, Reddit and Mixx. The 8,500 users of the site contribute blog entries of their own authorship and links to interesting news articles on the web, which appear immediately on the site. None of the six entries challenged by AP, which include two that I posted myself, contains the full text of an AP story or anything close to it. They reproduce short excerpts of the articles -- ranging in length from 33 to 79 words -- and five of the six have a user-created headline.

...In a June 3 letter, AP's Intellectual Property Governance Coordinator Irene Keselman told me:

... you purport that the Drudge Retort's users reproduce and display AP headlines and leads under a fair use defense. Please note that contrary to your assertion, AP considers that the Drudge Retort users' use of AP content does not fall within the parameters of fair use. The use is not fair use simply because the work copied happened to be a news article and that the use is of the headline and the first few sentences only. This is a misunderstanding of the doctrine of "fair use." AP considers taking the headline and lede of a story without a proper license to be an infringement of its copyrights, and additionally constitutes "hot news" misappropriation.

But six of the seven blog entries have their own headlines, not the AP's one. One blog entry quotes 18 words from the story and a 32-word quote by Hillary Clinton under a user-written headline. Another reproduced the last two paragraphs from a linked Fox News article written by AP.

Some AP member sites encourage this kind of reuse. Yahoo News, the source for two disputed stories, invites bloggers to use items from its RSS feeds. USA Today, the source for two others, includes a browser widget alongside articles that facilitates their submission to Digg, Mixx and other sites.

It's pretty clear AP is just using its status as a big dog to bark at poor bloggers it believes cannot afford litigation costs. Unfortunately, the onus of proof is on the blogger to prove "fair use".

Well, that's kind of bullying needs some pushback. Effective immediately, Newshoggers is boycotting AP's content, including that from other sites that syndicate their stuff. We will find other sources - Reuters usually has the same stories and syndicates our BlogBurst feed on its websites without a problem - or we simply will find a different story to blog about. We urge you to join us in boycotting these bullies.

Update: Jeff Jarvis: "bloggers, unless the AP recants and apologizes to Cadenhead, I urge you to avoid linking to the AP and to link to reporting at its source."

An AP apparatchik appears in Jarvis' comments offering lame excuses - " our interests in that regard extend only to instances that go beyond brief references and direct links to our coverage" - that nowhere near approach the truth of the AP's DMCA takedowns of 33 word excerpts at the Drudge Retort.

And Scott Rosenberg's got the same apparatchik, Jim Kennedy, VP and Director of Strategy for AP, emailing him exactly the same rubbish - word for word. Do you think that AP might be considering the old adage "act in haste, repent at leisure"?

Update 2: Thanks to Atrios for the link, as he names AP his "Wankers of the Day".

Others are saying a boycott is in order too. AP can't bully bloggers with spurious fair use complaints if no-ones linking to them. Among those refusing to be bullied are: Newshoggers, Jeff Jarvis' Buzz Machine and of course The Drudge Retort. And:

Culture Kitchen

Reno And Its Discontents

West Virginia Blue

Kyle at Comments From Left Field

The Impolitic

Green Mountain Daily

Greatscat!

Afarensis

Update 3: The list continues here with UnAssociated Press

http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/2008/06/fair-use-and-th.html

[KamaAina]

1. This is not Drudge. This is the Drudge *Retort*.

They're the good guys. Try it and see.

http://www.drudge.com

"Red Meat for Yellow Dogs"! :rofl:

edit: it even links to DU, so you know it's gotta be good!

[rpannier]

2. My contempt for the media grows daily

[McCamy Taylor]

3. AP is complicit with Bush and the corporations all too often. Boycott them, I say. McClatchy and BBC

and a host of others are much more reputable.

To hell with AP. I never read an AP story without analyzing it closely for bias, looking at the name of the author and comparing it to other news sources. In my opinion, they are as suspect as the NYTs and the WaPo.

Remember, AP gave us John Solomon's absolutely atrocious story about Harry Reid a couple of years ago, the one that had to be rewritten.

Here is the thread I wrote about it at the time:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2882261&mesg_id=2882261



No reputable news organization would have ever let a story like this out of the gate. In its own way, it is as bad as "The Good Lie."

[Cirque du So-What]

4. I'm with you!

AP - DEAD to me! This is starting to look like an assault on the First Amendment. It's also funny that they decided to take on Drudge Retort, when its namesake - a conservatroid site - links to AP stories with impunity.