TechCrunch Legally Challenges the AP - Updated June 21
I had to start a new post because things are heating up.
In a new twist, TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington, who banned AP (Associated Press) stories from his blog due to the latest madness (see extensive coverage on my previous entry), has now decided to call in his own attorneys because the AP has quoted his blog without paying him a dime. He has sent a takedown order to the AP based on the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
Fair Use Smackdown!
Techcrunch: The AP Has Violated My Copyright and I Demand Justice
Also today, the AP promised to meet with an unknown and rather shady group called the "Media Bloggers Association" to form new guidelines, and yet not one story has leaked from the media about it.
UPDATE: According to a blogger on The Washington Post, AP has issued a statement that this matter is now closed! You can read it at the link because I don't dare copy their sacred words:
AP Says Drudge Retort Excerpt Matter Closed ~ No Official Policy Announced
Rogers Cadenhead: Writes About His Meeting with the AP Attorneys ~
The Stanford Fair Use Project offtered to help him.
I spent around two hours yesterday talking to AP attorneys about their specific objections to the user blog entries in dispute, going line by line through the text to pinpoint exactly where they have intellectual property concerns in the short excerpts that were posted. I won't reveal the details of this discussion until AP releases the guidelines for bloggers that it promised on Monday.
On a social news site that's still manageable in size, like the 8,500-member Drudge Retort, it's possible to steer bloggers away from potential conflicts with media organizations by working directly with users. But 25 million people visited a social news site last month, and thousands of people are sharing news links in a way that's in direct conflict with AP's interpretation of fair use regarding the headlines and leads of its articles.
If AP's guidelines end up like the ones they shared with me, we're headed for a Napster-style battle on the issue of fair use.
When it appeared that I might end up in court on this issue, I got offers of help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Citizen and the Stanford Fair Use Project. My attorney Wade Duchene and I were already working up the victory speech to deliver on the steps of the Supreme Court in the landmark First Amendment decision AP v. Me (Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter, Kennedy, Lessig, Tribe and Clinton concurring). I think AP and other media organizations should focus on how to encourage bloggers to link their stories in the manner they like, rather than hoping their lawyers can rebottle the genie of social news.
Given the publicity of this dispute, the first blogger sued for excerpting a news story will have the best pro bono legal representation that massive press attention can buy.
Although AP will be releasing guidelines, I don't think the news service will be able to concede any ground to the blogosphere. AP sells headline and lead-only services to customers. Asking the company to concede there's a way people can share this information for free is like asking the RIAA to pick its favorite file-sharing client.
If an expansive view of fair use is to remain in place, it's incumbent upon bloggers and our $500-an-hour friends in the legal community to define our own guidelines and fight for them. If we don't, big media companies will eventually define them for us, just as they've gotten the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and Copyright Term Extension Act passed in Congress.
(More at LInk about how AP discovered his "infringing" quotes in the first place)
More Links:
Fester: NewsHoggers ~ Increasing the Pressure on the AP
Cernig: NewsHoggers ~ AP Says Case Closed ~ I Don't Think So
The Archcrone: Ass.Press's Desire to Re-Write Fair Use
LissaKay: Newscoma: Connecting the Dots
Rex Hammock: Rexblog ~ It's Their Content and They Can Do What They Wanna
David Burn: How to be Irrelevant Online
Doug Fisher: Common Sense Journalism ~ AP Steps In It, Continued . . .
Sandra: Blogosphere Tells AP ~ Rest In Peace
Thunder Pig: WNC Citizens Blog ~ AP vs Blogger Fight Smoldering, How You Can Fight Back
Barbara Fister: Why Bloggers are Boycotting AP
Michael Duff: AP starts copyright fight but can't handle blogger backlash