This article reads like an annoying friend kept instant messaging me while I was away from my desk to narrate a petty internet social encounter as it was happening, then I come back with my Starbucks Frappathingie and furrow my brow because I have six pages of IMs filled with condescending "can-you-believe-this-guy-is-so-stupid-ha-ha-what-a-troll" drivel in the window's scrollback history.
Agreed completely. Not only is this not even news, it's not worth caring about... it's just a squabble with TC being the loudmouth, rallying it's readers against some target we're supposed to care about because they said so.
I think how AP deals with this situation is interesting regardless. I'd take it as a nice example of how NOT to do PR work for your company.
The best thing AP could've done, would be to pay the 17.50$ with a nice gift card, buy the headphones for all their CEOs or "come clean" in some other humorous way. Instead, they behave like a little child.
The AP's position seems really silly at first, but the link they provide is actually worth reading. If what they say is true -- namely that 1) this isn't targeted at bloggers or anyone else using the content in a way that can be reasonably assumed to be fair use; and 2) this is a simple way to license content you have reason to believe may not qualify for fair-use protection -- then I think this seems fairly reasonable.
EDIT: Just want to make the logical fallacy explicit. The fact that the form allows you to pay for 5 words does not imply that the AP expects you to pay for 5 words.
Except that's disingenuous, because the AP has suggested that bloggers and Google and basically anyone else who reprints AP text should pony up the fee. They don't explicitly say so in detail, but they've had a pretty consistent campaign of FUD about it.
For example, their document on the question "Do I even need to pay to excerpt your story?" prominently notes that "the safest course is always" to pay the fee, and suggests that if you're publishing the excerpt "on the Web," that "is cause for serious reflection before assuming 'fair use'" — particularly if you are "choosing not to exercise an affordable and accessible licensing mechanism."
Think I'm reading too much into a CYA legal document? Take a look at this story, where AP president says that they want to be paid for "any use of news articles," even as little as citing a headline: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/business/media/24content.h...
Think I'm reading too much into a CYA legal document?
Definitely not, without even reading your link. If it were "How to keep Them from suing you," I'd call it a CYA document. This, on the other hand, is "How to keep Us from suing you."
It's definitely true, but in a document linked right from the payment page, it's rather self-serving. Taken in context with the rest of the document and the AP's utter silence on what might possibly count as "fair use" in its eyes, the message it sends is more than just cautious legal advice.
It's tantamount to someone running a protection racket pointing out that you're less likely to get hurt paying his fee than fighting it: He's right, but it doesn't legitimize his demands.
Were I Paul Colford, I'd have bought the headphones, sent Woot the receipt, and noted publicly that this is in no way a payment for the quote, but merely a very good deal on headphones.
Trolling they may be, but they got a snicker from me. There's something to be said for an actual, well-executed troll—as opposed to the senseless asshole tactic that most "trolls" on the internet use these days.
"We are the AP, we are a for-reals, big-timey news agency. Without us you wouldn't even know what was happening two towns over. Thus, re-using our content costs money, because our content is valuable. You, you are just some guy who runs a multi-million dollar company or some a-hole with a blog. Your content is meaningless pablum slathered on the walls of the digital romper room that is "the internet". It is valueless and thus we are able to reproduce it in any way we choose."
It seems utterly bizarre that posters here apparently belive that the AP's copyright stance is no big deal. The last time I checked, the AP still considered using headlines to be a copyright violation and the only reason they weren't going after sites like Hacker News is because they haven't yet figured out how to deal with PR fallout they experienced last year when (simultaneous with other controversies surrounding their legal attacks on sites) their board actually voted to go after news aggregators. Do note, they have already sued at least 2 news aggregators.
Certain Parties (not HN, Groklaw, Daring Fireball, etc..) have requirements that they license all the content they display (NYT, CBS, CNBC, GM, etc...) - those parties now have a mechanism to license our content. NYT and many (thousands) are already a subscriber to AP. Other parties can pay by the article and _eliminate_ any downstream liability. All others can play the fair use card.
But "we cover real news" is just a distraction from the fact that their own policy for citing the works of others is vastly different than what they expect when others cite their works.
