My own comments on this particular thread dealt with the differences between blogging and journalism, and my own thought that, since they are different animals all together, trying to apply the rules and ethics of journalism to blogging just won't work. ER, being a journalist, disagrees. We can agree to disagree on this particular issue, because I believe that we come from different mind-sets. I don't think, at least between the two of us, there is any bad faith on this issue. We were both honest enough to state our positions, and on the general point we have both said all there is to say. To each other. On his blog.
Last night, just before going to bed, I was cruising around and saw that atrios had named the Associated Press his Wanker of the Day. I clicked the link, and discovered there is a bit more to the Associated Press story than the earnest good intentions of the traditional press for new media. From the Newshogger's report:
Bloggers beware, Associated Press are on the warpath, starting bogus copryright suits against those linking and quoting even the merest fraction of an AP news report.
Ah, the old carrot and stick. Or perhaps it's bait and switch. Or even not reporting the whole story.
See, they are going after the Drudge Retort and some small-timers for fair-use violation. From the post at Drudge Retort:
I'm currently engaged in a legal disagreement with the Associated Press, which claims that Drudge Retort users linking to its stories are violating its copyright and committing "'hot news' misappropriation under New York state law." An AP attorney filed six Digital Millenium Copyright Act takedown requests this week demanding the removal of blog entries and another for a user comment.
The Retort is a community site comparable in function to Digg, Reddit and Mixx. The 8,500 users of the site contribute blog entries of their own authorship and links to interesting news articles on the web, which appear immediately on the site. None of the six entries challenged by AP, which include two that I posted myself, contains the full text of an AP story or anything close to it. They reproduce short excerpts of the articles -- ranging in length from 33 to 79 words -- and five of the six have a user-created headline.
If the folks at Drudge Retort want to sue me for quoting the first two paragraphs of their story, they can file away.
So, is the AP being a good, well-heeled big brother to all those newbies on the block, giving sage advice? Or, perhaps are they publishing a PR campaign to hide the fact they are filing lawsuits against bloggers who link to, and quote snippets from, their articles? From the letter the folks at Drudge Retort published, which they received from AP, it seems there might be an argument over what the words "fair use" mean. Yet, is a nuisance lawsuit against small-time, relatively poor bloggers by a major corporation the way to figure that out?
Bloggers are rewriting the rules (to keep Salon and Glenn Greenwald from suing me, that is the link, and you should scroll down to item (2), which is an example of a "citizen-journalist" who is doing just that, causing much hyper-ventilation among some journalist-types). Along with the rules of how information is disseminated and discussed, framed and set in context, they are also challenging certain entrenched ideas of what it means "to report". I think this is good, and a good discussion topic. I do not think, however, that simply falling back on "professional standards" and "codes of conduct" and "this isn't as easy as it looks" are actual points in an argument. They are points of contention, the center around which the whole controversy swirls.
I open the floor to all of you.
