Associated Press vs. Bloggers: Fair Use Fight Escalates

The AP probably had no idea it would create such a firestorm in the blogging community by telling the (aptly named) Drudge Retort to remove seven headlines and story briefs from its site.

Media commentator Jeff Jarvis tried to mediate, and then lost his temper. Michael Arrington urged a boycott of the AP (wonder how that went over at AP member the Washington Post). The AP says it plans to meet with the Media Bloggers Association this week to find a way through this thicket.

I'm sure this skirmish over links and intellectual property will sort itself out after the requisite level of shouting, breast-beating, and expressions of indignation. And nothing important will have been resolved.

Let's turn this flame war into a teaching moment.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[thepoliticalcat]

Fair use is an inherent component of freedom of speech. This affects far more than bloggers. Comedians, satirists, songwriters, filmmakers, writers of books both fictional and factual, all rely on the fair use provisions to create their own works. What AP is trying to do is ludicrous. Thanks to the mainstream media's complete lack of balance and context in its reportage, people wanting information are forced to other sources. Bloggers are currently more trusted than the MSM. When the MSM stops laying off its actual reporters and encouraging the others to actually write, rather than regurgitating press releases, people will return to the MSM.

[RTIII]

HufPo is a good example of "fair use" done right. They excerpt stories, just enough so you can get an idea if you're interested. And if you are, they point you to the full story at a place wherein your clicks help generate revenue for AP - whether it be The Washington Post, or whatever. That's a reasonable plan.

Using stories nearly in whole is where the issues lie. Fair use means excerpting and is legal without payments.

[wadenelson1]

Bottom line is bloggers are getting free mileage out of AP's content. Bloggers need AP to survive as much as AP does. A win:win solution including sharing of ad revenue or whatever needs to be found.

[ibsteve2u]

Maybe the news organizations would be better served by attempting to regain their individual reputations as "fair and balanced" (in the pre-Fox sense of the phrase) so that America didn't have to turn to news "aggregators" and search engines in order to first identify and then eliminate the shadings and omissions that reflect the biases of their owners and editors.