The 800-pound Gorillas of Cyberspace

I do not think I have ever read a blog, but from what I hear about these folks they seem to be extremist on both sides that seem to feed our worsest sterotypes.

Ned,

I see a problem here that no one, not even you, has bothered to address: standard journalistic practice.

When I was involved with the news business many years ago while still in school, we were taught to use the "pyramid" writing process: tell the whole story, in the shortest amount of words possible, in the first paragraph. Then in the following paragraphs begin by giving the details, with those details becoming finer and finer as you went. That way, if an editor had to cut the story for any reason, that cut could be made at the end of any paragraph without materially hurting the integrity of the story.

Of course, some of us found ways to confound that principle at times, but that basic idea still controls. Therefore, if a blogger excerpts anything at all from the first paragraph of anyone's article, a case could be made that the entire story had been plagerized. While I don't ever want to see that happen, in theory it could. It's going to be interesting to see what comes from all this.

= 30 =

AP is attacking the Fair Use Doctrine to gain a couple of bucks. It won't work. Excerpts of stories with links increase their hits and widen AP's power. This attack by AP is both foolish and counter-productive.

As a journalist myself, I of course agree that bloggers should adhere to the same copyright laws that the rest of us use. When a blogger (or any writer for that matter) uses material that he or she did not create and does not properly credit their source - that is plagiarism, pure and simple. It's no different than downloading music and not paying for it.

Working out a clear definition of fair use is the right decision. Suing someone who runs a small blog is not--makes no sense on any level. How many visits does the Drudge Retort get? How many actual page reads? A lawsuit at this level is bullying to get an advantage without having that clear definition in place.

I hit the link and read the article.

As for the comment on all bloggers being extremists... wonderful how makes this judgment after confessing that he's never read a blog!

Jacob Russell's Barking Dog

The real heart of the matter here is this: the AP is trying to monetize blogging and create a revenue stream for themselves.

They are doing so with the blunt instrument of the threat of litigation, knowing full well that their targets cannot afford a lengthy and expensive court battle. In short, they know they will win by default because they can afford to have dozens of lawyers on retainer and almost no typical blogger can afford to do battle with them.

That is their "concern." Nothing more or nothing less.

"As a journalist myself, I of course agree that bloggers should adhere to the same copyright laws that the rest of us use." - Mike

This goes both ways, Mike.

I wish I had a dollar for every time a sportswriter has lifted ideas, sentences and in a couple of cases complete paragraphs from my blog and claimed the work as original and theirs.

Why not let nature take its course...
What we are discussing is very basic and primal. It is the natural order of things vs. man's order.
The the answer will present itself shortly, no matter how painful it is for us.

I think the news organizations would welcome bloggers driving traffic to their story/site! A line or two from the story and a link encourages a reader to click the full article link. It's often used on the internet. So here we have fair use from the law and common practice -- isn't this enough? I have seen some sites put disclaimers (mainly sports commentary sites) that any duplication of any portion of a story is not permitted. Since there's no relationship between the blogger and the site, the blogger has not "signed" away his/her rights, so it's unenforceable.

The AP wants to charge per word and, the problem is, the doctrine of Fair Use does not come with a word count.

Fair Use absolutely applies here and AP's corporate policies don't trump federal copyright statutes.

All this proves is that there is no such thing as a "free" and objective press. They are controlled by profit and will say and do anything to maximize it.

This is a tricky situation. On one hand information is much like an idea, free and should be made available to everyone. But the quality of the information is what is at stake.

I'm a mass media student and look highly upon the Associated Press because of its codes of conduct. The codes are there to ensure proper story coverage and accuracy. Bloggers can aid but also hinder both coverage and accuracy but bloggers also broaden the spectrum of what is covered and can reveal details not covered by the AP. Its hard to say who is right. One way to help is to educate those taking in stories, issues, and events is to know if the source of communication is reputable.

Information is free from public libraries if you don't have a procrastination problem in getting those hard copies back. But in terms of personal computer use, it can't be. You have to pay monthly for your ISP and a sizable amount for the computer itself. There's also a non-monetary price to pay in the way of junk e-mails, cookies, and privacy concerns. So I think it's largely a myth that information is free for us on the computer.

As far as AP copyright issues go, that's a concern most of us PC users don't need to have.

kathy
Actually you are part right. We subscribe to the NY Times because its cheaper than having it delivered and you can print out the crossword puzzles larger so that our tired old eyes can read them. If you wan't to read science papers you normally also have to subscribe so It's not free. But before I buy a paper or a subscription I wan't to know if it's woth the money, so the abstracts are free. I look at blogs the same way. Do I wan't to read through the whole article or is it a waste of time. The blogs let me know with a few sentences if it's worth the time or not.

Ned
June. 23, 2008
NEW YORK - A news discussion site and The Associated Press have resolved a dispute over an AP demand that the site remove some of the news agency's content.

Note from Ned--

Thanks, Quietman, for keeping me up to date. I'll confess I was distracted with other stories today. I did a bit of poking around, and it doesn't sound as if any AP guidelines have yet come from this dispute. But we'll see if it all leads to something.