The Washington Times - A Good Guy in the Copyright Wars

Here is some GOOD NEWS - literally

We are all aware of the wars on the internet about copyright issues and SOPA like legislation. Well I was making some posts recently and one of the main stream news sources has had a major policy change...

The Washington Times

At the bottom of their articles is an option for a printable version of the story, like many news sites offer but they have added THIS

© Copyright 2012 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

So they have now made it possible for you to reprint the ENTIRE article to your own website for FREE so long as you leave THEIR ads in place

Its under iCopyright







I guess this is the Washington Times response to this mess created by AP (Associated Press)

AP Goes After Bloggers For Posting Article Headlines And Snippets

from the you're-going-to-lose,-badly dept

Last fall, the Associated Press claimed that it was ready to change to face the new internet world -- and that meant not just being a gatekeeper, but joining in the conversation. As we noted at the time, though, AP execs said all that, only to immediately follow that up with plans that looked like it was trying to become a new type of gatekeeper. It didn't help that the company had also just sued VeriSign's Moreover division for linking to AP stories along with a title and a tiny excerpt. That sort of thing is clearly fair use -- but the AP doesn't seem to think so.

And, now, it's expanding its target list. Rather than just going after the big aggregators (surprisingly, Google settled), it appears that the Associated Press is going after bloggers for merely posting a linked headline and a tiny snippet of text from the article. In this case, Rogers Cadenhead informs us that the AP sent 7 DMCA takedown notices last week to his site,

On the face of it, it's nearly impossible to see how this isn't fair use, even though an AP representative insists it's not:

The use is not fair use simply because the work copied happened to be a news article and that the use is of the headline and the first few sentences only. This is a misunderstanding of the doctrine of "fair use." AP considers taking the headline and lede of a story without a proper license to be an infringement of its copyrights, and additionally constitutes "hot news" misappropriation. - AP

Hopefully, they won't send a takedown notice for quoting that. This is pure bullying on the part of the Associated Press, and a clear overstepping of its legal rights

AP Goes After Bloggers For Posting Article Headlines And Snippets

Associated Press Digs Its Own Grave Deeper; Wants To Create Its Own Fair Use Rules

from the that's-not-how-it-works dept

On Friday, the story about the Associated Press threatening a blogger for using short snippets of AP stories with links back to the original as somehow being copyright infringement got a ton of attention. It was a clear case of the AP overstepping its bounds -- which goes against everything the organization claimed it would do. As more and more people complained, the AP figured it needed to do something to respond to the complaints -- though, it's choice of somethings proved rather ill-conceived.

Associated Press Digs Its Own Grave Deeper

iCopyright Sues AP... Saying It Didn't Promote The Pay Up To Quote 5 Words Service

from the isue dept

You may recall, a couple of years back, the Associated Press got a ton of negative attention for threatening bloggers who "quote too much" of AP articles. Soon after that, we were among those who noticed that the AP had a deal with a company called iCopyright, which seemed to suggest that "fair use" quotes were limited to four words or less. After that, rates started at $12.50 to quote five words.

iCopyright Sues AP... Saying It Didn't Promote The 'Pay Up To Quote 5 Words

So four words or less or fork over the loot

That makes just about everyone on ATS a violator

Quite ironic this, that over 90 percent of your posting was material cut and pasted from external sources.
And you didnt use iCopyright to do it.

We should never forget though, the megalomaniacal authoritarian nature of the owners of the Washington Times.
They are also the owners of the old rival of AP, UPI, United Press International.

Those owners? The Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon, professed Second Coming of Christ. Just a cautionary note.

reply to post by zorgon


Finally, some good news!

I liked this little story about the AP...

Seems this writer found himself in a ridiculous situation...Dave Datz of zatznotfunny.com ...

To quote the AP quoting me, I’m theoretically on the hook for $25.www.zatznotfunny.com...

Not so funny considering AP did not pay this guy to use snippets from his blog...
and they did not even link to it!

Send in the lawyers!

I wonder how much time would need to pass imbetween the "four words"
enough time and I'd wager a bet that even a jury would roll eyes.