AP Ready To Attack All Internet Users
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In what some are saying will be an attack against ALL Internet users, it appears that the AP is ready to sue web sites that use its content without permission. In what appears as a shotgun approach to what AP sees as a problem, it is poised and ready to attack everyone, everywhere, who dares to use its content without permission. But what is confusing is how it self describes its motives for going into attack mode. In a recent news article at the N.Y. Times, the AP representatives spoke on their objectives, which seem unclear as to their purpose.
In the N.Y. Times article it states:
They said they did not want to stop the appearance of articles around the Web, but to exercise some control over the practice and to profit from it.
The group’s new stance applies to thousands of news organizations whose work is distributed by The A.P., as well as its own material, but the debate about unauthorized use has focused on newspapers, which are in serious financial trouble, and which own the A.P.
I can understand the purpose of their recent decision since it is newspapers that appear to be suffering the brunt of the economic downturn when it comes to news releases. It goes on to say this:
“This is not about defining fair use,” said Sue A. Cross, a senior vice president of the group, who added several times during an interview that news organizations want to work with the aggregators, not against them. “There’s a bigger economic issue at stake here that we’re trying to tackle.”
So the AP is not trying to define fair use. Then what is it trying to define by threatening lawsuits? It then does an about face and says this:
One goal of The A.P. and its members, she said, is to make sure that the top search engine results for news are “the original source or the most authoritative source,” not a site that copied or paraphrased the work.
So which is it? Is the AP targeting those that steal its stuff, at least in its eyes, or is it the lack of revenue it receives from search engines that do not show the original authoritative source? Or is it both?
Or it is the fact that the newspaper industry has seen its day and this is a last ditch effort to survive?
9 Comments
Dylan Combs
April 8th, 2009
at 4:23am
This kind of crap scares me. Even if we can protect ourselves, its still not good that there are people out there with nothing better to do than delete my family photos via a virus….
Can You Describe Yourself Using Only One Word? | Chris Pirillo
April 9th, 2009
at 2:57am
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Don Browne
April 9th, 2009
at 3:41am
The AP came after me when I broadcast a recent Space Shuttle landing live on my daily webcast. They claimed they owned the rights to the video which actually was a NASA feed. I disputed it and they backed away but there is still a notice of the claim on my YouTube page.
The video included my commentary as the Shuttle flew over LaBelle, Florida and made a sonic boom:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbfH5pOsOVA
(Space Shuttle Makes Sonic Boom Over LaBelle, Florida
-Don Browne
» Can You Describe Yourself Using Only One Word?
April 9th, 2009
at 6:03am
[...] Is the Associated Press going to come after you next? [...]
Rick
April 9th, 2009
at 7:56am
To me, the rules for plagurism seem pretty straight forward. Simply put, if you didn’t author the content, you need to acknowledge the author, and if the author requires payment to reuse their work, the fee needs to be paid. This applies to all intellectual property. The AP may very well price itself out of existance if it demands fees for quoted content. But that is the price any content publisher must face, from music to movies to books through newspaper and online news content. You can easily equate this to the current situation involving music and video content.
Currently, the world is in a massive wave of support and popularity for music and movie piracy. An entire generation of people is completely clueless/incredulous/dismissive about the need to pay for any content which they possess. A huge sement of society is now fully in support of the wholesale theft of intellectual property. When the majority of end users are accessing only pirated content and actively participating in the piracy of content, rather than paying their just dues for the accessing the content, there is no revenue incentive for the content producers to produce new content. It’s simple economics: nobody wants to work for free.
Eventually, the priates, who have become a very large portion of end users, will destroy the production of new content. When that day arrives, the pirates will be stuck listening to or viewing absolute crap produced by those whose works are only worthy of being distributed without a fee, rather than professionally prepared music and videos performed by tlented people, if they want new content. Which is not far from what is available now, so maybe they will be happy with that. Those of us who appreciate content made and produced by actually talented people will be left out in the cold.
ThomKing
April 9th, 2009
at 9:09am
Information wants to be FREE!
GadgetNut
April 9th, 2009
at 10:37am
Geez, maybe they’re drinking the same Kool-Aid as the MPAA and the RIAA. That “logic” has worked well for them so far…. um.. not.
Likaholix Ford ~ Windows Fanatics
April 9th, 2009
at 12:55pm
[...] the Associated Press going to come after you [...]
Kevin
April 9th, 2009
at 11:50pm
How is this going to affect the vast majority of us?
I ONLY see the AP feeds through Yahoo! News (don’t get me started on how much of a joke their service is).
Since they (Yahoo!) is the one streaming the news – THEY are the ones who are going to have to pay for this. And if they think that ANYONE would PAY Yahoo to read the news on their site – then they have their heads buried VERY deep in the sand (or perhaps some other “dar” place)
;)