Associated Press Plans To Crack Down On Bloggers

New York Times:

The Associated Press, one of the nation's largest news organizations, said that it will, for the first time, attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without infringing on The A.P.'s copyright.

The A.P.'s effort to impose some guidelines on the free-wheeling blogosphere, where extensive quoting and even copying of entire news articles is common, may offer a prominent definition of the important but vague doctrine of "fair use," which holds that copyright owners cannot ban others from using small bits of their works under some circumstances. For example, a book reviewer is allowed to quote passages from the work without permission from the publisher.

Fair use has become an essential concept to many bloggers, who often quote portions of articles before discussing them. The A.P., a cooperative owned by 1,500 daily newspapers, including The New York Times, provides written articles and broadcast material to thousands of news organizations and Web sites that pay to use them.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[Rockwell]

It's the AP reporters getting shot at in the war zones. Its the AP reporter eating crappy food and sleeping in some godforsaken hotel to get the story we the people are looking for. Its AP that has to pay for their travel and salaries to gather the stories. If we want to keep that information flowing to us someone has to pay the bills. If bloggers are ripping off the articles and everyone can get the info for free then the information we need drops in quantity and quality.

Fair use is legit. AP has to tread carefully. But we shouldn't have a knee-jerk reaction that "The Man" is trying to stick it to the blogsphere. Even bloggers have responsibilities.

[RTIII]

"The Associated Press, one of the nation's largest news organizations, said that it will, for the first time, attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without infringing on The A.P.'s copyright."

NO THIS IS WRONG.

They cannot do that. The COURTS decide when something is or isn't "fair use."

What they can do is provide guidelines about what they will or won't sue over.

[larry278]

Look at today's, 6/16/08, CARPETBAGGER REPORT, if you have MEGO, My Eyes Glaze Over, from the NYT's short but turgid story & want to know what AP is trying to do, how AP plans(?) to do it & AP's chance of doing anything [save breed contempt for AP] with this attempt to establish a policy & enforce what AP calls a policy. AP's statement of its attempt at articulating a policy is word salad. The NYT's story on AP's policy is also word salad. The NYT, like W, manages to use a lot of words to say nothing.
larry lynch

[eugenegerard]

Little steps have started in the destruction of a FREE internet.

[exxonmobil4prez]

I am just concerned that this is only the beginning. Blogging has been incredibly important information for others to see truth through the crappy yellow journalism out there.. The news itself CONSTANTLY takes things out of context.. and uses it for points that have nothing to do with the original content. Sounds just a little suspicious to me. Sure I can appreciate the whole copyright bit but I think there is more that meets the eye here and we should pay particular attention. They start making rules about blogging and there will be items that you did not even know reflect what you can discuss. Reeks a little of cutting in to freedom of speech, yet again. Don't trust em.

[nicciaugust]

I can see both sides of this issue. I fully support a copyright holder's rights to control their material. However, there are a lot of people holding discussions of news, and they will be hindered at having to obtain permission to quote from those news items before they respond to a blog post or comment. A great deal is going to depend on how much the AP deems within the bounds of fair use before they bring in the attorneys and the cease and desist letters.

[wmholt]

I wonder if they realize how much "buzz" they will lose by being heavy-handed? Those few sentences at the Drudge Retort are far more likely to drive people to follow the link and read the whole article than having people say that those few words on the blog take the place of the entire article.

If seven words can provide sufficient content as to make the full AP article irrelevant, then either writers or editors, or both, have some some serious explaining to do.

[Marlyn]

As long as a link is provided to the source of the quote, I don't see why there is a problem.

[Orikinla]

Bloggers should ask for permission before using copyrighted news materials or they should register to use syndicated news and features.

When I blog what I have read on the Huffington Post, I simply link to the title and address it with my own original content.

The terms of service for the Associated Press is published on their website and every reasonable blogger should read the terms and privacy policy before using content from the AP.

I wrote to the AP for permission before posting references from their news reports and I wrote photo agencies before using their photographs like newscom.

Most of the millions of bloggers are ignorant of the simple rules of copyrights and they are like bulls in a china shop. But many professional bloggers and blogging journalists do not abuse the terms of service of news websites and other sources.