Blogosphere In An Uproar Over AP's New Quote Rules

Filed in archive Blogging News on June 16, 2008

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Image# 5836621

The blog community has launched a campaign to protest the Associated Press's recent attack of such blogs as The Drudge Retort. Last week it demanded that the blog-a satire of the hugely popular drudge report, remove seven posts that contained small excerpts of AP articles. The site did so, but also published a post announcing what had happened, and sparking outrage in the blogosphere and leading to the "FU AP" campaign. The AP seems to have been taken aback by the response to it's legal demands and has admitted they may have been heavy handed. To try and quell the uproar, they are planning to meet with members of the Media Bloggers Association to try and come up with a set of mutual agreeable guidelines.
The issue at the heart of this controversy is Fair Use. Bloggers say using an excerpt of an AP story along with a link to the complete article is Fair Use. The AP disagrees, saying they don't want people to get their stories from anywhere but the AP site itself, and want bloggers to summarize a story in their own words rather than use an excerpt or quote. It's pretty much a given that the AP was pressured into their attack by their customers-over 1,000 newspapers across the country. Newspapers are struggling to keep their readers in an age of shrinking ad revenue and instantly available news online. It will be interesting to see what Thursday's meeting brings!