AP Quotes Blogger In Discussing Bloggers Quoting AP; Hilarity Ensues

from the i-want-my-$12.50 dept

Thu, Jun 19th 2008 10:55pm — Mike Masnick

The ongoing ridiculous situation brewing between bloggers and the Associated Press has now taken a turn towards the enjoyably hilarious. We had already mentioned the fact that, despite the AP's complaints that bloggers quoting less than 100 words were violating fair use, the AP had a long history of quoting more than 100 words from bloggers -- and not even linking back to the original blog. Now, in a bit of ultimate irony, the AP's own article about this brouhaha quoted (without linking) twenty-two words from TechCrunch. That's 18 words more than the supposed four word "limit" the AP has suggested. With an ironic chance that wide, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington couldn't resist, and asked his lawyer to send a DMCA takedown notice to the Associated Press, along with a bill for $12.50 (directly off the AP's own pricing schedule). He admits that it's ridiculous, but that's what his actions are designed to present. By law, the AP should be required to takedown the content before filing a response -- though, since it's filing the response to itself, then perhaps it won't need to takedown the content. Either way, this helps illustrate the insanity of the entire situation.

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Filed Under: copyright, dmca, fair use, michael arrington, takedowns
Companies: associated press, techcrunch

10 Comments

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Anonymous Poster, 19 Jun 2008 @ 11:31pm

Truly, this is glorious.

The AP just got owned, and it's all their fault.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Jun 2008 @ 2:22am

Mike, did you just link to the AP? For shame!
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johnny, 20 Jun 2008 @ 4:34am

it's turtles all the way down
Godel, Escher, Bach comes to mind!
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Jun 2008 @ 5:46am

I was waiting for this to happen. Now, if only someone could do the same thing to viacom...
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Jun 2008 @ 6:21am

So, malicious DMCA notices are OK when they're sent to make a point that you happen to agree with, are they?

I see, it must be only when they're sent by rights owners in response to genuine infringements that they're reprehensible...
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Brandon, 20 Jun 2008 @ 6:52am

I think the bill is a bit of an overkill. The takedown notice I could maybe see if his work is copyrighted but he can't bill them based on their pricing structure unless he had a similar one in place before they quoted him. So I hope he's not really serious about all that.

On another note, if I want to quote anything from any article anywhere, am I now going to have to search their entire site to make sure it's legal for me to do so? What if I hadn't ever heard about this and got the quote from an AP article in a newspaper? There's nothing there telling me I have to pay to do so. What about the high school or college student writing an essay? Do they have to pay if they want to quote something from an AP article? Or does this only apply to bloggers?
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Anon, 20 Jun 2008 @ 7:07am

Re:
I don't see where Mike said this was right, I see where he says this is ironically hilarious though.
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Memarie Lane, 20 Jun 2008 @ 7:21am

Priceless.
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PaulT (profile), 20 Jun 2008 @ 7:55am

Re:
The takedown notice is tongue-in-cheek, but a very concise way of making their point. The AP are sending bills and DMCA notices to bloggers who quote their posts. Why should the AP be immune when they do the same to bloggers?

As for the pricing structure, it's irrelevant. Fair use allows much more than the AP is trying to bill for, free of charge. Same with any other medium you happen to quote to - as long as it fits within the fair use doctrine of standard copyright, you'd be immune from charges.
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Michelle McCormack, 20 Jun 2008 @ 12:16pm

AP
We should milk this story for all the embarassment we can get out of AP. Arrington does this really well, because he is on the high road (not taking one)
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