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AP Shows It Knows Nothing About The Web, Little About Business

By Alan Gray, NewsBlaze

Saul Hansell, a New York Times Reporter, in a story about the heavy-handed foot of AP, notes the AP said: "We are not trying to sue bloggers," Kennedy said. "That would be the rough equivalent of suing grandma and the kids for stealing music. That is not what we are trying to do." NY Times

It seems the Associated Press is controlled by lawyers who understand something approximating ZERO about the web and only a fraction more than that about the news business.

About a year ago, these lawyers killed a business I used to work for by doing exactly what they did to the Drudge Retort. They didn't like the fact that the company paid for their stories, then allowed ... gasp ... other websites to put news headlines on their pages, to make them more interesting. The fact that the company had been doing it for years, under the terms of a contract with them made not one iota of difference.

I think it would be really good if AP had an extremely strict interpretation of "Fair Use" - perhaps a maximum of three words. That would mean, of course, that it would be rare for AP news items to garner comments and bloggers and pundits would start ignoring their news. Their stance makes perfect sense, to me, I'd definitely stick to their rules of "Fair Use" - it could work well for meaningless drivel, but not so good for useful discussion.

For example, if Hansell's story, quoted above, was from the AP, we might quote it like this:

"We ... sue bloggers," the AP executive said. "... equivalent ... suing grandma ...." and he also said "That is .. what" and also "... we ... do."

What fun the satirists would have!

Originally, I set out the reasons they wouldn't want to clamp down tight on "Fair Use," but why bother, we can just let them destroy their business on their own and they'll be wondering where all the readers have gone. Maybe they'll end up like Netscape, blaming it all on someone else, when they really just did it to themselves.

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