The AP’s clamping down on writers using AP content on their blogs. Well, “clamping down” is putting it conservatively, I’d go as far as to say they’re trying to stop blog quoting altogether.
Basically, they’re trying to bully blogs into stopping the practice of block quoting which (sorry AP) isn’t going to happen. They picked up a fight with the “Drudge Retort” which started as a Drudge Report spoof site, but now includes a lot of user-submitted content. First off, what a nasty place to pick a fight – where users submit content and moderators have a lack of control. Why not pick on some of the real offenders, who copy entire articles and operate their own blogs?
But it does go way beyond that. They’ve demanded the Retort to eliminate 7 cases of quotes from the use of 39-79 words. 39 words! Now, they’ve back tracked a bit and called that policy “heavy handed” suggesting they need to rethink it, yet they are still demanding the quotes be taken down.
On my blog, I discussed more about what’s fair practice for bloggers in terms of using newspaper content, and basically deduced 3 paragraphs in total. That’s a standard for academic papers; I fail to see why blogs should be treated any differently.
In fact, people have to be paid to read them!
<
p>Blogs, OTOH, accept advertising and are of far greater circulation than an academic paper, which travels from a student’s computer to a professor’s in-box.
<
p>AP is worried that if enough people cherry-pick stories off of Drudge, then smaller papers won’t subscribe to their feed. I agree with your conclusions, but understand their dilmemna.
<
p>How do you charge for something that’s out there for free as well?
How many blogs out there are actually profitable, to the point where bloggers can actually blog professionally? A couple dozen?
<
p>Sure, I toss ads on my site, but they don’t even cover all of the gas I use to go to the occasional event or hearing. Regardless of standards on academic papers, there’s already-defined “fair use” standards, which the AP was trying to maintain they had the legal right to go above and beyond. They don’t. I think even they realize it now.
It seems alot of copyright laws have not caught up to the Internet age. If I were to quote a news article here, I would not be selling it or otherwise making money off of it. That, I believe, should be the question that is asked. The same goes for all these recording companies going after college students. The law needs to allow for sharing what is in our possession, just as we might let a friend borrow a book or CD.
Did you buy it? Or did a friend burn it for you, and you loaned it to someone else?
<
p>That’s the AP’s problem. Ryan – I agree they went too far, but it’s a real question. If AP content is available for free from a blog or web site, how do they maintain their paid subscription base? If they don’t then how will they pay the Glen Johnson’s to sit on the floor and be rude…oh…hey…wait…never mind…
In the hypothetical I could have bought the CD/book, or I could have received it as a gift. I would assume that it was legitimately paid for at some point. What I am trying to say is once it becomes my property I should be able to do what I want with it except make copies for sale. Credit should be given where credit is due, but I can’t see a way to enforce this online without resorting to tactics that would feel like a police state. On the prevention side, is there a way to make something uncopiable so it doesn’t happen in the first place?