Associated press is suing blogers and anyone else who copies their content?

Apparently, the AP is cracking down on forums and blogs that link to, or copy quotes from their content. This is pretty disturbing considering thats how most bloggers and forums work. Its how most news gets around the internet. Not only that, but most news stories are linked to the AP in some way or another.

One forum I'm on has already removed all most posts that reference AP articles! Whats going on here? Can they do that? I would assume it affects ATS as well.

Originally posted by Bakane Whats going on here? Can they do that? I would assume it affects ATS as well.

I'm guessing that copyright comes into play here. There are distinct rules...here in Canada, anyway...that determine how much of somebody else's intellectual property can be copied on paper, before one must pay royalties. I assume that's part of the process in play here. Similar as well to a band sampling another's riffs in their song.

So...it follows that if a blogger is presenting a pile of somebody else's work within their own, well, you gotta pay to play.

That's my guess, anyway.

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck

So...it follows that if a blogger is presenting a pile of somebody else's work within their own, well, you gotta pay to play.

We're talking clips of the story with a link to the actual AP story. Not from the pay site, but from various free internet news sources. If that is suddenly against the law, than much of ATS is going to be in trouble. I cant think of much news that doesn't go through the AP.

Best way to deal with this, is NOT quote the papers or media at all, deny them the glory of 'reporting' what they are told to report anyway.
But what you CAN do , is mention it in another form

For example the SUN states : MAN found alive in a cave after 3 days

you should 'mention' Man has been found alive after 3 days in a cave.

Its all in the wording, But bloggers and websites like this AND many others rely on click and paste. Sheer laziness...
Learn to type people....

Besides don't the papers realise that if they place it on the WWW , then people aren't going to buy their papers, But IF they DON'T put it on the WWW then people will have to buy their papers for the news hence increased revenue.
PAPERS AND MSM , you can't have it both ways either put it on the WWW, or put it in the papers or put it on the TV.
PPS.... Imitation is the highest form of flattery , so if someone 'copies and pastes' your reports you should be proud that at least people are talking about it and using YOUR reports...

[edit on 23/1/09 by DataWraith]

Nothing new, this seems to have started sometime around June of last year with a site called The Drudge Retort. There were a few others, like Moreover, who were sued for sending full AP articles to their email recipients without paying for the rights to do so.

Google: Associated press is suing bloggers

Personally, I don't see the issue and it would seem they're sort of shooting themselves in the foot here. As long as the quoted content is limited to the title and a short blurb, to include a link to the original article, they're still getting proper recognition and increased coverage for their content.

I haven't heard of any recent instances where a site has been threatened with legal action, though I wouldn't be surprised if more pop up as time goes by.

Thats one of the reasons ATS doesn't like long quotes - apart from they're annoying it's to make sure all quoted text falls under 'fair use' we can post reasonable sections of any copyrighted work as long as its for the purpose of debating what they say -AP can't sue us.

I may be just a bit naive but how can they do that???? I would think quoting a story would be fine, but I can see their point about reproducing the whole thing, but it seems a bit stupid. Like Goliath going after David. I guess things are going to change, we all know the PTB dislike bloggers and would love nothing more than to shut the whole alternative news machine down. They cannot control it so they want it gone.

Originally posted by NatureBoy
Thats one of the reasons ATS doesn't like long quotes - apart from they're annoying it's to make sure all quoted text falls under 'fair use' we can post reasonable sections of any copyrighted work as long as its for the purpose of debating what they say -AP can't sue us.

That is all anyone is talking about though. I can sort of see why they wouldn't want whole articles posted but I don't see the problem with a quoted section with a link to the original article.