The Associated Press has stirred up controversy this week by essentially spewing on open conversations and information sharing on the Internet.
The hullabaloo began yesterday when the AP sent a cease-and-desist letter to Rogers Cadenhead, owner of the Drudge Retort, for excerpting parts of its articles, calling it a copyright infringement (despite his proper use of links, attribution, kudos, etc.).
Today, it was pointed out that the AP is charging a fee for "quotation licenses." These licenses start at $12.50 and afford buyers the rights to quote five to 25 words of an article. Also, according to its Terms of Use, the AP forbids paying customers from criticizing the AP when quoting them -- and it bribes people with a reward of "up to one million dollars" to report pirates. Arrgh.
Now, copyright infringement and plagiarism are one thing, but quoting another article, with a proper link and attribution, that's what we non-archaic types call "the Internet" (heard of it?), the blogosphere, the new wave of journalism, and life. To rebut that with hissy fits and hissy fees will prove to be futile for the old AP.
On the phone today with Internet Evolution, Chris Tolles, CEO of Topix, said this effort to charge the blogosphere for snippets won't get the AP very far. Moreover, he said, the fact that the AP is even concerned about links and quotes points to a larger problem.
"The nature of the Internet is to in fact link to other things and engage with that content," he said. "If you lose all value by the very nature of people doing that, then you don't have a business on the Internet."
Topix, said Tolles, has a signed licensing agreement with the AP, as do Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and other news organizations. He calls it fair for the AP to require this of bigger companies but thinks charging the blogosphere for snippets won't be the right long-term solution for the AP.
"The AP was built in age where sharing content made a lot of sense because everything was owned by the local monopoly... Now everybody's in the same business all the time," he said. "If you want to be on the Internet, everyone gets to link to you. Hey, your business model might have been outmoded by technology. I'm sorry, thank you for playing."
By aggravating the blogosphere, the AP is mainly damaging its online rep by removing itself from the very important conversations we're having on this here Web. The Internet is territory for both active and reactive conversations, and by only affording big, paying media companies access to its dialogue, the AP is on its way to becoming a tired source, at least according to the online masses.
Recently the New York Times has expressed their support towards the AP, in several articles, as reported by TechCrunch's Michael Arrington. There are some issues of conflict of interest (NYT is part-owner of AP).
Clearly the AP is standing its ground, but I doubt they can match it with actions.
Well, the AP obviously doesn't understand this new thing called the internet...They want to be a presence on the internet, but they don't want to be referenced...wait, they don't mind being referenced, but they want to be paid for being quoted, even when referenced and linked properly. Maybe they should protect themselves by staying off of the information super highway. Seems like the safest thing to me. But wait - maybe we can all get richer by deciding to quote some snippets, having our friends report us, and splitting the millions and millions of reward dollars. Heehee a new business model! Bring it on AP!
When I'm famous, I will charge AP a fee if they quote me. If they do not pay, yet still print my quoted words, then I'll sue them. You can quote me on that.
I'm glad that such controversy erupted at a time like this. It just goes to show that even organizations like the AP are failing or ignoring the new realities. What has become of the principle of fair Use? Or do the AP wants to re-define 'Fair Use' base on it s terms? Ap should realized that blogs are generating huge traffic for them and it's sad that they have allowed greed to clog their reasoning and choose to pitch tent against the Internet. What is 'cut and paste' which this AP official is referring to:
"AP wants to fill in some facts and perspective on its recent actions with the Drudge Retort, and also reassure those in the blogosphere about AP’s view of these situations. Yes, indeed, we are trying to protect our intellectual property online, as most news and content creators are around the world. But our interests in that regard extend only to instances that go beyond brief references and direct links to our coverage.
The Associated Press encourages the engagement of bloggers -- large and small -- in the news conversation of the day. Some of the largest blogs are licensed to display AP stories in full on a regular basis. We genuinely value and encourage referring links to our coverage, and even offer RSS feeds from www.ap.org, as do many of our licensed customers".
We get concerned, however, when we feel the use is more reproduction than reference, or when others are encouraged to cut and paste. That’s not good for original content creators; nor is it consistent with the link-based culture of the Internet that bloggers have cultivated so well.
In this particular case, we have had direct and helpful communication with the site in question, focusing only on these issues.
I support the stance taken by Micheal Carrington of Techcrunch that Bloggers should not accept these new AP terms and to boycott all their stories until they come to their senses:
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