 |
The AP Gets Overzealous With the DMCA |
 |
On Friday, the Associated Press got a little overzealous with its DMCA notices, filing seven against the Drudge Retort:
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.
It’s pretty clear what the Drudge Retort does falls into the category of fair use. Bloggers of all stripes fired back and organized a boycott of the AP (which I’m now taking part in).
Today, it seems the AP is feeling the heat:
On Saturday, The A.P. retreated. Jim Kennedy, vice president and strategy director of The A.P., said in an interview that the news organization had decided that its letter to the Drudge Retort was “heavy-handed†and that The A.P. was going to rethink its policies toward bloggers.
However, I’m not sure the AP really gets it here:
Still, Mr. Kennedy said that the organization has not withdrawn its request that Drudge Retort remove the seven items. And he said that he still believes that it is more appropriate for blogs to use short summaries of A.P. articles rather than direct quotations, even short ones.
“Cutting and pasting a lot of content into a blog is not what we want to see,†he said. “It is more consistent with the spirit of the Internet to link to content so people can read the whole thing in context.â€
Even if The A.P. sets standards, bloggers could choose to use more content than its standards permit, and then The A.P. would have to decide whether to take legal action against them. One important legal test of whether an excerpt exceeds fair use is if it causes financial harm to the copyright owner.
Quotation in blogging is standard. Bloggers use quotes to provide much needed context to stories and to make sure no comments are misstated. It’s silly to ask bloggers to produce their own summaries of AP stories just to satisfy their narrow view of copyright.
Beyond that, the AP shouldn’t be setting standards by which its content can be used. Giving the content creator that kind of control over how their content is quoted would step all over fair use and greatly expand copyright protections, stifling innovation.
Of course, the AP has already backed down a bit, and they may be forced to back down further. The fact that it called an emergency meeting on Father’s Day weekend means the organization is at least a bit scared of the blogger boycott. And they should be. Bloggers source most of their writing through the mainstream media. Though nobody has access to the actual statistics, it can’t be hard to imagine blogger links contribute to the AP’s traffic in significant ways, be it through direct visitors or links that help with Google rankings. Bloggers switching the wire service they use for sourcing to Reuters or Bloomberg and boycotting the AP clearly worries some in the organization.
This fight isn’t over, nor should it be. The AP should not be allowed to get off with a half-retreat. They are asserting that nobody on the web can directly quote what they print. That is wrong, and contrary to the spirit of the Internet. We’ll be fighting back, and proving along the way how out of touch the old media really is.
I personally haven’t used quotes from their material, or linked to them for years due to their pointy haired boss understanding of the internet. There are plenty of other good sources BBC, NPR, National Geographic, Washington Post… Thankfully the New York Times seems to get the web now. It did take them awhile though.
I disagree and think that the boycott is completely counter-productive.
Critics of the Associated Press’ policies are correct in their assertions, and their watchdog vigilance serves us all well. However, such cyberactivists ought to realize that, to protect open communication, loud public criticism serves them better than a boycott of the very information they are trying to defend.
http://thenerfherder.blogspot.com/2008/06/online-boycott-of-associated -press.html
I’m not sure I agree with you here. From the article you’re linking to:
First, I hardly hold the AP in high regard, and I certainly don’t see it as somehow more or less worthy than other news sources. Most of what the AP puts out over their wire is duplicated in another form by the two other wire services, Reuters or Bloomberg. I don’t think I’ll be missing much if I cut out the AP, honestly.
Second, nobody is saying cut of dialogue with the AP. That would in fact be a mistake. Certainly, if the AP pulls back its DMCA takedown notices and promises to stop going after bloggers for this kind of thing, I’m happy to pull my boycott. Just because there is a boycott doesn’t mean dialogue stops.
There’s always Reuters…
I think AP is just looking out for their own writers, photographers… For the most part Quoting for commentary is a common practice on the Internet/journalism. AP does not have much of a case against anybody unless they copy and distribute one of their entire stories/photographs…
Maybe a few Bloggers should get together and put AP on the spot and ask them WTF?