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 Millenium Copyright Act takedown requests this week demanding the removal of blog entries and another for a user comment. Now the AP is demanding that bloggers PAY, yes, PAY for quoting exerpts from AP stories at a rate of $12.50 for 5-25 words !!! This story is sweeping the blogosphere like wildfire : Associated Press to Charge Bloggers Fee for Citing as Few as 5 Words The Associated Press to Set Guidelines for Using Its Articles in Blogs “Mad as Hell†Bloggers Urged to Boycott the Associated Press AP Files 7 DMCA Takedowns Against Drudge Retort I'd say they're morons, but that wouldn't be PC now, would it? FU AP More on the AP idiots AP's clash with bloggers, fair use I wonder if the AP will also apply these guidelines to forums and other social networking websites ??
The AP is being exceedingly stupid. Quoting 5-25 words falls within fair use. Having these sites quote small parts of an article only helps the AP, no one is going to read 5-25 words and call it good, they are going to click the link. They are just trying to squeeze money out of bloggers, and it has obviously backfired.
I looked at their Content Services page and the stupidest part is this... Please enter the web address where this excerpt will be published: They want you to submit your blog post url *before* you use their exerpts ??? Anybody using Wordpress or any other blogging platform knows that your article url is generated by the software when you hit the publish button, not beforehand. Also, what happens if an AP writer uses an exerpt from a blog?? These days blogs like TechCrunch, Mashable and others are often cited as sources in AP articles (especially in the Technology sector).