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Censorship Your Rights Online

AP Files 7 DMCA Takedowns Against Drudge Retort 177

Posted by kdawson from the not-getting-this-whole-blogging-thing dept.
mytrip points out a blog posting by Rogers Cadenhead, author of the Drudge Retort blog, who says: "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 Millennium Copyright Act takedown requests this week demanding the removal of blog entries and another for a user comment. The AP material they object to consists of snippets of from 33 to 79 words. Cadenhead claims his lawyer believes that all fall squarely within the province of fair use.
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AP Files 7 DMCA Takedowns Against Drudge Retort More

AP Files 7 DMCA Takedowns Against Drudge Retort

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  • My first suggestion (Score:5, Funny)

    by deft ( 253558 ) on Monday June 16, 2008 @10:03PM (#23818309) Homepage
    Is to figure out if it's six or 7.... article says 7, summary says 6.

    • Re:My first suggestion (Score:5, Funny)

      by deft ( 253558 ) on Monday June 16, 2008 @10:06PM (#23818335) Homepage
      In other news, I'll go ahead and try to figure out of it's 6 or six.

    • Re:My first suggestion (Score:5, Informative)

      by wizardforce ( 1005805 ) on Monday June 16, 2008 @10:08PM (#23818361) Journal

      An AP attorney filed six Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown requests this week demanding the removal of blog entries and another for a user comment.
      six for blog entries plus one more making seven.

    • DUPE (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      AP Targets Blog Excerpts With DMCA Notices [slashdot.org]

    • Interesting quote from the AP (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 16, 2008 @11:03PM (#23818709)
      One of the problems with the AP is that their whole business model isn't so different from providing an RSS feed these days. Fair use here may be an interesting case, because blogging might well cut down on their (obsolete) business model and because there's no limit to how little you can quote while being fair use. In fact, because this would seem to impact upon their business, the fair use case may be harder to make.

      That said, they have an interesting way of justifying things [nytimes.com]. Pay attention to those last few lines:

      Mr. Kennedy argued, however, that The Associated Press believes that in some cases, the essence of an article can be encapsulated in very few words.

      "As content creators, we firmly believe that everything we create, from video footage all the way down to a structured headline, is creative content that has value," he said.

      But he also said that the association hopes that it will not have to test this theory in court.

      "We are not trying to sue bloggers," Mr. Kennedy said. "That would be the rough equivalent of suing grandma and the kids for stealing music. That is not what we are trying to do."

      That's right. They're saying at least we're not as bad as the RIAA. Where's NYCL? :-)

      • Re:Interesting quote from the AP (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Maxmin ( 921568 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2008 @04:18AM (#23820469)

        One of the problems with the AP is that their whole business model isn't so different from providing an RSS feed these days.

        An RSS feed delivers summaries of news stories. To create those stories, somebody was paid to go out (outside - you know, leave the computer and keyboard behind?) and gather news and photos. That's qualitatively different than delivering an XML feed, wouldn't you say?

        blogging might well cut down on their (obsolete) business model

        The blogosphere is largely an echo chamber, with no voice (i.e. reportage) of its own. No voice, no echo, no blogosphere... get it? Original news reporting happens outside that sphere, then it gets repeated, via RSS feeds, copy-n-paste etc., within it.

        Without actual news stories to quote and make fair-use copies from, bloggers would be left to writing about taking their dog to the vet, or how the baby barfed on grandma's shoes, or whatever.

        I mean, look at /. - with no stories to link to, we'd all be talking about Linus's latest kernel module, now wouldn't we?

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by colganc ( 581174 )
          Without normal news stories and the AP, the blogosphere will place a greater value on bloggers doing original reporting leading to a greater number of bloggers doing original reporting.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Maxmin ( 921568 )

            And that would be great! That *should* be the natural progression, towards more independent media. You'd think we're there, technically, and ad-wise.

            I mean, would Google or Yahoo or one of the blog ad networks be more likely, or less likely, to pull ads because you're writing a story that might piss off some advertisers? I'd think it'd be less likely, which would be the ideal outcome anyways.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Lodragandraoidh ( 639696 )

        One of the problems with the AP is that their whole business model isn't so different from providing an RSS feed these days.

        You hit the nail squarely on the head. This is yet another example of a pre-internet business model running aground on the new technology.

        AP could do some really cool things to get a better return on their investment - but that would take creativity and effort, which is usually in short supply in an entrenched corporate bureaucracy. Much easier to release the lawyers to drive the 'competition' out of business.

        We are in the midst of a sea-change. When are the suits going to get it?

      • Prepare to feel the wrath of the AP for your 107 word quote.

    • summary says 6.

      Summary says six... plus one. You may have missed the memo, but six plus one now equals seven.

  • Prepare to see "fair-use" to be vindicated, and AP running with it's tail between it's legs...

    • Prepare to see "fair-use" to be vindicated
      Fair use still exists? K3wl.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by RichMan ( 8097 )
        > Fair use still exists? K3wl.

        Wait for the news sites to post their news with DRM protection. A simple html tag is all that is needed. It does not need to be functional with any systems.

        Then anyone copying information from the site is clearly breaking the DRM technology implemented by the page and is open to liabilities for possessing and using DRM breaking technologies.

        • Wait for the news sites to post their news with DRM protection. A simple html tag is all that is needed. It does not need to be functional with any systems.

          So wait... If I just put tags on my site it will make it be uncopyable? And if it isn't readable by at least IE, no one will read the posting so I guess that could mean that it is uncopyable if no one reads it to copy it... But as for it being a simple HTML tag, that is impossible, perhaps with JavaScript, PHP, or Flash it would be possible but there is nothing in HTML that would prevent me from just going to the source and copying and pasting that text either. And either way, if this gets main strea

          • It's a joke dude. The DMCA outlaws circumventing a copy protection system (no matter how weak it is, re adobe and its rot13).

            Well actually, that doesn't sound like a very funny joke.

  • And in other news.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cutie Pi ( 588366 ) on Monday June 16, 2008 @10:06PM (#23818343)
    SourceForge, Inc. files 32,819 DMCA notices against its daughter site, Slashdot.org, for blatantly reproducing its own stories, such as this [slashdot.org] one.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      SourceForge, Inc. files 32,819 DMCA notices against its daughter site, Slashdot.org, for blatantly reproducing its own stories, such as this [slashdot.org] one.
      You mean "SourceForge, Inc. files -51 DMCA notices against its daughter site, Slashdot.org, for blatantly reproducing its own stories, such as this [slashdot.org] one." ...

  • The length of the quot e not important in absolute (Score:3, Insightful)

    by aepervius ( 535155 ) on Monday June 16, 2008 @10:14PM (#23818387)
    All will agree that this is fair use if drudge retort quote 79 words out of 790. But this is less defensible if the quote is 79 words out of say, 91.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jedidiah ( 1196 )
      If you've only got 91 words of content then you shouldn't get any copyright protection for mere journalism.

      A work of journalism that short just isn't going to inventive enough.

      It's exposition, not poetry.

  • The AP Has Retracted Its Complaint (Score:5, Informative)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Monday June 16, 2008 @10:14PM (#23818389) Homepage Journal
    Under heavy criticism from people who actually know how the Internet works [dailykos.com], the AP has retracted its DMCA complaints:

    Last week, The A.P. took an unusually strict position against quotation of its work, sending a letter to the Drudge Retort asking it to remove seven items that contained quotations from A.P. articles ranging from 39 to 79 words.

    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.

    The quick about-face came, he said, because a number of well-known bloggers started criticizing its policy, claiming it would undercut the active discussion of the news that rages on sites, big and small, across the Internet [...]


    But the AP still doesn't really get it (if it can get away with destroying it, where "it" is "fair use"):

    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."

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by michaelmalak ( 91262 )

      "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."

      That would be fine if controversial news didn't disappear off websites.

      I had several such examples on my underreported.com blog where I had to take screenshots because I knew it would soon get "disappeared" (or I just happened to still have it open in one of the 20 browser windows I had open and when s

      • Re:The AP Has Retracted Its Complaint (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Monday June 16, 2008 @10:40PM (#23818567) Homepage Journal
        Yes, IFRAMEs don't serve to let the publisher of the external content control the integrity of what they're "pointing to".

        If HTTP included content signing that could at least let the publisher of the link help readers clicking it to see that the target content has changed. Eventually there will probably be a "distributed archiving" system that points at URIs, "content names", rather than URLs, which point at "content location", regardless of whether the content changes.

        In the meantime, "fair use" quoting isn't just fair. It's more fair than the content publishers who bait & switch when their original content brings blowback pressure they don't like. AP has to get with the 20th Century laws if it's going to survive in the 21st Century. That's why it's trying to change the laws in the 21st Century, so it can drag us back to 19th Century yellow journalism that pays, but doesn't inform.

        • Yellow is better (Score:5, Insightful)

          by michaelmalak ( 91262 ) <michael@michaelmalak.com> on Monday June 16, 2008 @10:48PM (#23818627) Homepage
          In case you haven't noticed, we're better informed now in the 21st century thanks to yellow blogs. It's the 20th century supposedly unbiased news sources that kept us dumbed down -- the populace places too much trust in the mass media and consequently the mass media has become a puppet of the power elite.

          The so-called "neutral point of view" came out of the Progressive Era, and like so many things of that era sold as a way to help the little guy, ended up being an instrument of The Man. Give me bias -- explicitly stated bias -- any day. It's a lot easier to understand that way.

          • Re:Yellow is better (Score:4, Insightful)

            by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2008 @12:16AM (#23819093) Journal

            In case you haven't noticed, we're better informed now in the 21st century thanks to yellow blogs.
            Better informed. Heh.

            Yellow journalism is a pejorative reference to journalism that features sex scandals, scandal-mongering, sensationalism, or other unethical or unprofessional practices by news media organizations or journalists. It has been loosely defined as "not quite libel".
            If you think the blogging version of ^that^ has produced a more informed populace...
            Then you must be using a different definition.

            I don't disagree with the premise that blogs have allowed for more information (some of it even manages to be factual)
            But don't forget that a wide swath of blogs are just echo chambers for misinformation.

            Example: Barack Obama is a muslim [google.com]
            As of this posting, about half on the front page say he is and half say he isn't

            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              by michaelmalak ( 91262 )

              Yellow journalism is a pejorative reference to journalism that features sex scandals, scandal-mongering, sensationalism, or other unethical or unprofessional practices by news media organizations or journalists. It has been loosely defined as "not quite libel".

              If you think the blogging version of ^that^ has produced a more informed populace... Then you must be using a different definition.

              No, that's pretty much it. The difference is the need to read blogs from opposite ends of the spectrum, rather than ju

              • Example: Barack Obama is a muslim

                As of this posting, about half on the front page say he is and half say he isn't

                Good example. Because of blogs and chain e-mail, 1) the issue has been brought to the forefront, and 2) we can gather needed facts from those with an agenda to bring those facts to light (from each side) and then draw our own conclusions.

                No, it's a good example of how yellow blog journalism fails to inform properly, but does a good job of misinforming. When half the people believe a lie, that i

                • I wonder, though, how many of those people who think he's a Muslim, got that from blogs. I think a lot of them just jumped to the conclusion that Barack Hussien Obama must be Muslim. Though, I'm mystified about why they think a Muslim has a loud-mouthed Reverend.
                  • I'm sure the endless rounds of crazy "Hussein Obama secret Muslim" emails, amplified on blogs, had its effect.

                    As well as the further blowing up in outlets like Fox News (and CNN, and CBS, and nearly everyone else). The people who work at those TV news orgs are among the biggest consumers of blogs, and don't just consume blogs in proportion to the blogs's general popularity. The Drudge Report has totally disproportionate influence on news producers' context, even more than its crazily large general popularit

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by jedidiah ( 1196 )
              > Example: Barack Obama is a muslim [google.com]
              > As of this posting, about half on the front page say he is and half say he isn't

              You could execute every blogger on the planet and you still wouldn't get rid of this sort of thing.

              This kind of shenanigan goes way back. It even goes back much further than even the "journalists" who were gunning for Clinton during his entire term.

              At least with a 19th century party rag you knew where you stood. A devil you know is better than one pretending to be the archa

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by KGIII ( 973947 )
      Yeah, it looks as if it was over before we got it here. I did some additional looking and then read down to see if anyone else had found out about their change of views. If no one had (you did) I was going to offer this link. Pretty much the same thing. [nytimes.com]

      It seems that AP didn't like being kicked around on the 'net.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by jc42 ( 318812 )
        That nytimes article [nytimes.com] started with a comment that (if true) has interesting implications:

        The Associated Press ... 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.

        So the AP has decided that defining "fair use" and what is copyrightable isn't a question for Congress or the courts. The AP is going to decide for itself what can be copyrighted and what can't.

        If this

        • If this is true, I think I'll follow the same approach. I'm going to copyright the word "the", which I've used several times in this article. If I see an AP article using "the" without my permission, I'll send them a DMCA takedown notice. If they persist, I'll take them to court.

          And that's exactly what the AP is going to do (the rest of your paragraph was rubbish and didn't seem based on any evidence but simply your wish to paint the AP as bad as possible. Which admittedly isn't hard to do thanks to this ev

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jc42 ( 318812 )
            Yah; that was the point.

            Actually, claiming copyright on "the" isn't the most extreme. The prize has long belonged to AT&T, who back in the 1980s claimed copyright ownership of a blank line. Google for "/bin/true ATT copyright" to read about it, and see several versions of the program. I once posted this program in its entirety on a newsgroup, and publicly challenged AT&T to sue me for copyright infringement. Funny thing; I didn't hear from their lawyers. But maybe they lost track of me in their

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Big Jojo ( 50231 )

      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.

      That would screw up searches based on those direct quotations. Example: AP article says mouthpiece spouts propaganda, someone covers that as The latest example is this from AP: mouthpiece spouts propaganda Notice how this directly conflicts with fact, fact, fact, but also directly contradicts what mouthpiece said last week and would, if true, br

    • I worked for the AP from 2001 thru 2004 as a software engineer. I met Jim Kennedy at that time, who recently said this:

      "It is more consistent with the spirit of the Internet to link to content so people can read the whole thing in context."

      Believe me, this guy doesn't know the tubey thing from a hole in the ground. To see him preach on the 'spirit of the Internet' is preposterous. He doesn't get it, his colleagues don't get it, and really, there are few left there to get it (trust me, most of the '
      • Excellent to hear from someone with actual qualifications and insight.

        Do you have any AP war stories that you can share? Specifically about AP's Internet savvy running contrary to what we know the Internet is for.
        • Ok, one horror story (I've got more)... I was hired by a software engineer at the AP who was doubling as manager. It was a typically nerdy group of folks in the 25-40 yr old range. There were some real brainiacs in the group, and many very nice people. Oh, and one narcissist (Gary). The president at the time, Boccardi, didn't give our senior VP, Reid, much rope, because Reid was an ex-editorial type who gained AP stardom with a few PC scripts in the mid '90s, and really didn't know the first thing about
          • It's reassuring to know that the AP is managed exactly like every other large corporation I've ever worked with (and that's hundreds).

            Have any stories that show the AP brass don't know anything about "the Internet spirit" of increasing information's value by letting others share it outside of the org's control? The kind of stuff that geeks get intuitively, but suits can't see as dollar signs, so waste more money than they gain fighting the spirit?
            • Ok, one more. It occurred to me in 2004 that the AP should offer up a public API to deliver our content, and license editorial tool vendors to use it, so they could essentially bake access to AP content right into the content composition tools. Like you, I saw value in getting our content 'out there' into as many orifices as possible. So I booked a meeting with our Strategic guy - Jim Kennedy (yes, the same one) - and gave him the 20-minute white-board presentation. He asked a few questions, made a few
  • The law doesn't allow you to keep your safe harbor if you don't take it down.
    You can put it back up after a counterclaim is made, but I don't expect the proper counterclaim to be filed.

    • You can put it back up after a counterclaim is made, but I don't expect the proper counterclaim to be filed.
      Sure, because a proper counterclaim says "Please send your lawyers to kick me in the gonads repeatedly." The counternotification process is ridiculous.

  • It really doesn't matter.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zappepcs ( 820751 ) on Monday June 16, 2008 @10:18PM (#23818429) Journal
    IMO, the fact that they could do so is evidence, and damn strong evidence that the system is broken. Not broken a little bit, but completely broken.

    The story as it goes is stupid. It would not happen if the Drudge Report was a high school newspaper. This is simply an attempt to quash competition using the DMCA. A government tool provided for their friends to squash anyone that might dissent. Canadians? Listen up... this kind of thing is on it's way to you.

    Yes, perhaps this is not about dissent, but the unintended consequences of the law are showing through, and it clearly shows that the law is not in the best interests of the public. It is a bad law. It is being used in this case to stop the freedom of thought and speech.

    Seriously, I hope that this whole mess costs them millions in the end. It is not only despicable, it is against all that is good in humanity. Sure, that sounds like a rant, but WE have to start pushing back now, not later when there is no room to do so. Please everyone stop supporting the AP in any way shape or form. They need to just go the way of buggy whip makers.

    No, this is not some plea to get you to support the latest l337 cause. This is a plea to get you to support your constitutional rights. Those of you reading this that are not Americans can also help. Make this company fail. The Brits know that what America does, Britain does at twice the speed and volume (more or less) so it is not an issue for a single country. We all need to speak out about what is wrong, always, as a single voice, whether it is Darfur, London, Washington, or Lisbon etc.

    Please

    • Re:It really doesn't matter.... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 16, 2008 @10:35PM (#23818525)

      Drudge Report
      This is not the Drudge Report. This is the Drudge *Retort*, a website that typosquats the real Drudge Report URL.

      This is simply an attempt to quash competition using the DMCA. A government tool provided for their friends to squash anyone that might dissent.
      This would never have happened if the Drudge "Retort" linked to the AP story like the real Drudge Report does.

      (The rest of the comment, which panders to emotion and has no real substance or evidence)
      'Nuff said.
      • If it was clearly a wrong thing to do, as you intimate, then there are already laws for this. They come in the form of libel and others. There was never any need of the DMCA, and it is being used wrongly, wantonly, and willful wrong. Your statements intimate that you support what has happened. Perhaps you might explain more why you feel so.

        With free speech, I'm able to link as I feel necessary. If I am not free to do so, it is not free speech. Sure, if I do so in a way that is libelous, then I'm guilty of t

        • With free speech, I'm able to link as I feel necessary. If I am not free to do so, it is not free speech
          The AC pwned you, and with your needlessly verbose and wildly innacurate response you dug yourself an even deeper hole by claiming AC has a position that the AC actually did not 'intimate' (did you mean 'insinuate?' 'intimate' means 'very close' or 'familiar').

          Libel is not plagerism and plagerism is not speech... and neither is word salad.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Dan541 ( 1032000 )
          Free Speech in the United States!!!!!!!!

          That'll be the day...

          ~Dan

          now watch some asshole mod me down to censor this post. (it'll happen)

    • No it's not. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by raehl ( 609729 )
      It's only evidence of such if it actually causes non-infringing content to be removed.

      And even then, the evidence is only anecdotal. If 7 non-infringing items get removed from the internet and 3,000,000 infringing items get removed from the internet without anybody having to go to court, that's a system that, on the whole, works pretty well. Or if the system allows service providers to let their users post whatever content they want unfiltered and at low prices because the service providers don't have to

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shark72 ( 702619 )

      "The story as it goes is stupid. It would not happen if the Drudge Report (sic) was a high school newspaper. This is simply an attempt to quash competition using the DMCA. A government tool provided for their friends to squash anyone that might dissent."

      Wire services are in the business of licensing content to newspapers and news web sites. News outlets are the AP's customers, not their competition. AP's competition is other wire services.

      "Seriously, I hope that this whole mess costs them millions in

  • Washington Post bans the AP (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sp332 ( 781207 ) on Monday June 16, 2008 @10:19PM (#23818439)
    The Washington Post is boycotting the AP over this. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/16/AR2008061600340.html [washingtonpost.com]
  • The downside possibilities for this one are huge -- AP could end up with a very strong decision denying them any control at all over linking and expanding the bounds of "fair use" quotation.

    They must see these points as survival matters.

  • Two arguments... First that including an excerpt with a link reduces clicks: As anyone who has ever been linked on the front page of Slashdot or Digg or Google News can tell you, this is the diametric opposite of the truth. Unless they begin using 30 word headlines, which is impractical for a number of reasons, including the first paragraph or a summary is the best way to get readers interested in a story.

    Second... For the sake of argument, let's say the first point is in fact true. The links in question

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by julesh ( 229690 )
      The links in question on Drudge Retort point to Yahoo and Fox News pages containing syndicated AP content. While AP still owns the content on these pages, the bottom line is they were already paid for that content...in other words Yahoo and Fox News are the ones suffering directly from this alleged click reduction since they paid for the content but don't get the ad impressions.

      AP's action could be as a result of either Yahoo or Fox News making a complaint to them. Neither of these organisations would have

  • It is not Fair Use: (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thtrgremlin ( 1158085 ) on Monday June 16, 2008 @11:51PM (#23819001) Journal

    TITLE 17 CHAPTER 1 Section 102 (b)
    In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.
    and...

    International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918)
    ...
    A news article in a newspaper may be copyrighted under the Act of March 4, 1909, but news, as such, is not copyrightable. P. 248 U. S. 234

    As against the public, any special interest of the producer of uncopyrighted news matter is lost upon the first publication. Id.
    IANAL, but... isn't this, like, Journalism 101? It was their own damn case, AND THEY WON!!!

    • Re:It is not Fair Use: (Score:4, Informative)

      by raehl ( 609729 ) <raehl311@NoSpam.yahoo.com> on Tuesday June 17, 2008 @12:52AM (#23819323) Homepage
      "The news" and a particular presentation of the news are not the same thing. 30-80 words is enough to be a particular presentation.

      Whether quoting that much is fair use or not is going to depend on a lot more than just the words quoted themselves. Is the quoting commercial? Done for rebuttal purposes? Source-cited? How much of the total work is the quote?

      These are factors that may not be easy to clearly decide except at trial.

      Disclaimer: I have not seen the 7 cases cited in this story, so for all I know they could be clearly fair use, clearly not, or up for debate.
    • you unfortunately highlighted the wrong portion of that. "A news article in a newspaper may be copyrighted under the Act of March 4, 1909" is the portion you SHOULD have highlighted. Note that the AP has no problem with the posting of summaries of its news reports (at least not anymore) what it has a problem with is copy and pasting the ACTUAL news article...

      the case pretty explicitly says that it IS protected material...
    • When is the last time the AP got copyright permission from any of it's sources or subjects? Every single AP story is "stealing" some person's derivative story. How would the AP like it if some politician sued the AP for quoting the politician, for instance at a news conference? More proof that "copyright" is solely about stealing the free expression rights of others, and then profiting from eliminating that potential competition.

      What a smack down blunder for the AP. And it shows how truly out of control ins
  • If nobody is trying to take credit for the snippets of news stories they're quoting (i.e. claiming they're the original authors) then the AP can just suck it up and stop being crybabies about it. For fuck's sake, if that's the case then if my own journal was public instead of friends-only, I'd be in court for the remainder of my life fighting off dozens of news sources! More utter, complete bullshit, I say; the AP must be borrowing pages from the RIAA's playbook.
  • Witness the powerful association people have between controversial claims and Drudge. No one has yet corrected or even mentioned the ironic and Freudian misspelling of "report" in the headline.

  • You have to love the Irony (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LifesABeach ( 234436 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2008 @08:23AM (#23822237) Homepage
    The irony of this is that it is a news agency ignoring the First Amendment rights of others telling "the news of the news".
  • The AP's Terms of Service contract that their paying customers sign prohibits using AP content to criticize the AP [dailykos.com], though such contract terms are void under the Constitution, which protects such primary cases of fair use:

    [T]heir Terms of Use [icopyright.net] explicitly prohibit you, even if you've paid them, from quoting the Associated Press in order to criticize the Associated Press:

    There. Now I have quoted the AP's own content, using it to criticize AP, even criticizing the contract that would prohibit me from doing any

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