As a blogger, I give my opinion on various news stories are appear throughout the day.  Most of these news stories come from either CNN and Fox News, those are the two sites that I prefer.  Occasionally I grab a story from a local news station or the Associated Press.

However, the Associated Press no longer wishes to be quoted in blogs:

They do not want people quoting their stories, despite the fact that such activity very clearly falls within the fair use exception to copyright law. They claim that the activity is an infringement.

A.P. vice president Jim Kennedy says they will issue guidelines telling bloggers what is acceptable and what isn’t, over and above what the law says is acceptable. They will “attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without infringing on The A.P.’s copyright.”

Link: Here’s Our New Policy on A.P. stories: They’re Banned

Those who quote the A.P. risk being sued.  It seems like this whole fiasco is similar to the RIAA; in that, if you illegally download music you risk being sued by them.  However, I do not believe that the A.P. can tell me that I cannot quote their articles.  I do not believe that the property laws they are claiming to hide behind exist.

One thing is clear - the A.P. is not happy being quoted in blogs.  The article above made a great statement: “So here’s our new policy on A.P. stories: they don’t exist. We don’t see them, we don’t quote them, we don’t link to them.”  I have a feeling that in a few weeks, their policy will become a lot less strict; because no one is going to b reading A.P. stories until then.

I would love to hear some comments from the law experts out there - is the A.P. within their rights to do this?  Comments from all are always welcome,

Justin Capasso