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- kyledeb, on 06/16/2008, -35/+205If the Associated Press is going to be hostile towards bloggers, bloggers should stop driving traffic to the Associated Press. Digg this to raise awareness about a petition to boycott the AP:
http://digg.com/politics/Boycott_the_Associated_Pr ... - TSCheredar, on 06/16/2008, -32/+187The AP is trusted news. I shutter to think about what would happen if people did start to boycott in favor of less credible sources.
Lets hope a solution presents itself soon. - greekpotato, on 06/16/2008, -35/+135AP is not in need of boycotting. Now CNN & Fox, I'm on board.
- robdiggity, on 06/16/2008, -4/+89Yes, let's hope this storm blows over, and you are able to overcome your shuttering.
- Reddog_x2000, on 06/16/2008, -3/+77Suing people for engaging in activities that do not violate your legal rights is an abuse of process. Hopefully, some judge will seriously spank AP for this.
- bincoder, on 06/16/2008, -6/+50If AP doesn't want people to see their stories maybe they should just type them on paper and hide them in the basement of their brick and mortar headquarters.
Or relocate to Beijing. - xBarnabyJonesx, on 06/17/2008, -1/+35An informative comment (#110) on the Tech Crunch blog:
Marc Blazer
June 16th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Does AP have any idea how to monetize being linked to? ap.com isn’t even their site (it belongs to a maker of audio test products) - they’re ap.org. They represent themselves to the Internet as a noncommercial organization! Their home page is not a news site, and the few headlines shown are links to other news sites that published their stories.
The current AP business model is to organize a collective of newpapers who can contribute to a pool of stories in exchange for permission to reprint stories (in their entirety) from the pool. Perhaps the collective has a membership fee or structure of reprint fees. One need not generate stories if paying enough money to the collective, e.g. Yahoo News. Money comes in through ad revenues and is partially redistributed through AP fees and reprint permissions.
Bloggers are trying to force this 162-year-old company onto a new business model of monetizing attention directly, presumably by somehow selling ads against being linked to. AP cannot do this, because it is a market maker of stories, not a distributor. Doing so would put it in direct competition with its collective members, who would cease to contribute stories. They’d have to become a buyer and reseller of stories, or archive and revenue pass-through organization. Doing any of this would be a complete rewrite of the news industry business model, where stories per se are simply a way of garnering attention to sell ads against, rather than valuable commodities in themselves. It would be like Mastercard lending money directly to cardholders rather than handling transactions for member banks.
Bloggers do understand this, in that they are also in the business of attention vs. ads, so they know that links are worth money. However, when a blog links to an AP story on, say, Yahoo News, Yahoo gets all the incremental revenue through higher ad rates. Unless AP is charging Yahoo per viewer, neither AP nor the newspaper collective is getting any incremental revenue. With their lawsuits, AP is essentially saying they want their cut and will fight to get it.
The ideal outcome for AP is probably to force bloggers to join them as members, paying in stories and fees in exchange for access to reprints. This would grow AP’s current business dramatically, leaving them in control of (and able to tax) news redistribution, without having to change their organization substantially. The problem is that bloggers don’t really want (or can’t afford) full reprint access, at least not at the current price. Blogs are happy to pay in links, which to them are valuable, but to AP are not. It’s like a farmer paying his mortgage in potatoes instead of cash and wondering why he’s getting foreclosed.
Meanwhile we see this on AP’s own site: “AP encourages all news organizations to fight for freedom of information.” Well, they asked for it! - theNthDoctor, on 06/16/2008, -17/+37Viva la revolucion! Or some such foreign spelling. The AP and old monoliths like it would have the world believe that they are the only place to get respectable reports. That's not been true for decades, and in fact independent reporting is very often of higher quality (albeit much harder to find at times). Hurt AP's money. We're the market. We're in charge.
- locojones, on 06/17/2008, -6/+24This Techcrunch article comes off as sour grapes. Go ahead you babies, boycott AP who will lose absolutely nothing by it and continue to make their money from their core business, selling news to news outlets around the world. They don't need parasitic blogs with a sense of entitlement thinking they can take and reproduce their content for free, with or without attribution.
Regardless of what Techcrunch thinks, nothing "very clearly falls within the fair use exception to copyright law," especially when it comes to posting hot news items and misappropriating headlines and snippets, which may or may not constitute the heart of the news story. - KnightMareInc, on 06/17/2008, -8/+26I'll take the AP over techcrunch anyday
- lamiaconfitor, on 06/17/2008, -12/+29I don't think people visiting the Druge Report are worried about credible sources.
- Mudcrutch, on 06/17/2008, -0/+16Anyone else notice the AP link at the bottom of the article?
- Travelsonic, on 06/17/2008, -0/+14"...they are damaging their right to income."
A right to make income, as oppose to right to tr and make income, does not exist, and is a contradiction to how real life works. - dunderballer, on 06/16/2008, -3/+17It is annoying as hell when sites like firedoglake take snippets from articles and present the information as complete, but web-users should take the responsibility of not getting their news from garbage sites like that. What firedoglake and similar sites do is legal (as it should be) because they cite sources. The AP is trying to bully these blogs with their legal team to attempt to get more strict control of their content than the law requires.
- secrity, on 06/17/2008, -1/+14The AP issue is NOT about the Druge Report or even the Drudge Report.
- Cl1mh4224rd, on 06/17/2008, -0/+13> "When a blooger, who doesn't pay for it, links to the AP, they are damaging their right to income."
I don't get this... If the AP article is made available in such a way that it can be linked to, what's the problem? Either the AP stops putting their articles online and making them freely available, or they demand that the news organizations who paid for the articles restrict access to their copies.
I can see a problem if bloggers are duplicating the articles wholesale (either from the AP directly, or from one of their customers), but if all they're doing is pointing folks toward the full article, legally acquired, then... what... the... *****... is... the... problem...? - inactive, on 06/17/2008, -4/+17The AP is a news monopoly and that is a bad thing because its easy to control, censor & manipulate news that comes from 1 source. Hopefully people will give United Press International (UPI) & Reuters a chance.
- rdomanski1, on 06/16/2008, -17/+30I disagree and actually think a boycott would be totally counter-productive. Critics of the Associated Press' policies are correct in their assertions, and their watchdog vigilance serves us all well. However, such cyberactivists ought to realize that, to protect open communication, loud public criticism serves them better than a boycott of the very information they are trying to defend.
http://thenerfherder.blogspot.com/2008/06/online-b ... - ralphthemagi, on 06/17/2008, -6/+18What about blogspam sites like the Huff Po and Raw Story? Hell, half of their stories are AP copypasta, often with no citation at all. Why doesn't the AP go after them?
- inactive, on 06/17/2008, -1/+11http://fairuse.stanford.edu/web_resources/multimed ...
Read up.
That link will give you all the details of every possible legal use of copyrighted material as a blogger. - inactive, on 06/17/2008, -0/+10@ Writher
You are so damn right. Its late. Ignore my first nonesense.
AP take note. This will stop the linking:
RewriteEngine on
# Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} drudge.com [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F]
*note: [the backslash wont show, thanks to digg, after the word drudge as it should] - Writher, on 06/17/2008, -1/+11All that would do is block someone who is ssh'ed into the web server box of drudge.com from being able to access the AP, how would that prevent drudge.com from linking to that host?
- Seafea, on 06/17/2008, -0/+8Probably because nobody reads them ever.
- BeeArePro, on 06/17/2008, -3/+11You're doing it wrong!
I've never been to AP.com, but seeing this article made me go there... - morcheeba, on 06/17/2008, -0/+7AP is a co-op, owned by its member newspapers, radio, and tv stations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_Press
Nazis are German; Putin is Russian. - TSCheredar, on 06/16/2008, -0/+7Also, I didn't want to intentionally piss you off with my replies. I was honestly just enjoying the discussion. This is exactly the kind of dialog we need to ensure the credibility of our information.
So no hard feelings. - inactive, on 06/17/2008, -1/+8Interesting you should mention that, I was just reading about this on John Scalzi's Blog. He's a writer here's the post http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=888
- TSCheredar, on 06/16/2008, -2/+9First off "Circuitbomb" or Flyninja, I see your point. Largely I agree with you about reporting today being too passive, but the AP is not the same as CNN, FOX, MSNBC, or any other big media organization. (Please note, there is a reason why all of those organizations subscribe to the AP newswire-- which is who pays the bills for the AP...)
The AP *is* credible. You can't tell me that lesser known, unproven "independent" reports are valid all the time because they are largely untested and mostly unknown. Who knows if the "indy" reports even have an agenda behind them. With the Associate Press, I can.
The AP should never be where you stop your quest for truth sir, it should be where you begin. You go with what you know, then you build off of it. Only then can you get to work on the investigative reports that will carry some weight. - Chalks777, on 06/17/2008, -2/+8Kinky?
- ralphthemagi, on 06/17/2008, -0/+6Because they usually add a sensationalist title, or make some stuff up and inject it into the story in order to drive more traffic.
- Wolfboy, on 06/17/2008, -0/+6AP doesn't go after HuffPo, etc. because they pay the AP for the rights to AP's stories.
- mcnasby, on 06/17/2008, -0/+6I find that AP has no more credibility than any other for-profit news organization. They seem to do nothing but reprint press releases. If I want to read ***** I'll venture over to the PR news wire.
- SmartfulDodger, on 06/17/2008, -0/+6There's nothing wrong with using a quote and citing a source; it's been done forever. My first research paper was mostly paraphrases and quotations of credible news sources. It wouldn't have been much of a research paper without the expert knowledge that content provided.
- Elliuotatar, on 06/17/2008, -3/+9Hm.. let's see... maybe we wouldn't have 50 news sites with the same story with the same information in it?
- jmignea2, on 06/17/2008, -1/+6I have to disagree with this. Bloggers will never be able to provide the quality journalism that can come from the MSM when it's doing things right (and I admit it often fails at that). I'll trust a good AP reporter (you know, those people who actually go out and talk to sources) over some guy looking stuff up in his basement any day of the week.
New media works great in conjunction with the MSM (especially to keep the latter in line) but bloggers just don't have the resources (and often don't have the training) to go out and get the news themselves, the old fashioned way. - Naieve, on 06/17/2008, -1/+6LOL.
AP trusted news source.
ROFL. - inactive, on 06/17/2008, -1/+6I sure hope so. I'm just glad "***** THING SUCKS!" on every single article has died down.
- WiseWeasel, on 06/17/2008, -2/+7That's not the point. If they can bully TechCrunch around, they can come after you, or you, or (points towards the camera) YOU! AP is wrong to abuse the legal system like this.
- jecruzs, on 06/17/2008, -0/+5The "CEO and Chairman" part refers to his position at News Corp.
/facepalm - Pyehole, on 06/17/2008, -0/+5Your attempt at humor has been sabotaged by countless digg posts from the perpetually clueless.
- BlackVincent, on 06/17/2008, -2/+6Another example of how the establishment needs to adapt to online.
- inactive, on 06/17/2008, -2/+6Why all the damn drama?
If the AP had a web-developer with half a brain they could simply use HTACCESS to deny any linking by drudge.com.
order allow,deny
deny from 67.19.86.58 [drudge.com]
allow from all - minox, on 06/17/2008, -1/+5whiterice, The article is actually talking about a site called the Drudge Retort. Just thought you'd like to know since your post makes you look ridiculous.
- SethEllis, on 06/16/2008, -1/+5I'm going to start mentioning the AP as much as I possibly can just for spite. Sue me, I dare you.
- billbugger, on 06/17/2008, -8/+12all three! ***** the MSM!
- JBravada, on 06/16/2008, -11/+15I noticed the AP press fed way more pro-Clinton articles to the front of the wire over Obama's when they both had newsworthy happenings. I began to think that AP was as biased as CNN
- shark72, on 06/17/2008, -0/+4That's kind of like asking "I got busted for the RIAA for distributing a bunch of music which I torrented. Why doesn't the RIAA go after iTunes? They distribute a lot more music than I do!".
The vital difference is, of course, that iTunes pays for the priveledge. Same, too, with the sites you mention. They license AP content. That's how the AP makes their money. Drudge Retort came upon the brilliant idea of copying significant portions of AP articles, without bothering to pay the AP. - hollowturtle, on 06/17/2008, -0/+4Agreed, a boycott is completely counter-intuitive to the message they're trying to send. You don't protest by doing exactly what the AP wants, which in this case is for people to stop citing them. This just doesn't make any sense, either the blogger is an idiot or they're an insider that planted this. Either way, no boycott people, all press is free press, cite it however you wish.
- tschau, on 06/17/2008, -0/+4Actually, CNN.com has an audience almost six times larger and regularly features AP stories. I don't think you understand exactly what the AP is.
- EricSchC1, on 06/17/2008, -1/+5Or conversely, why is a HuffPo, Raw Story, et al article that is a repost get criticized for not "having a credible origin"?
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