RSSAssociated Press responds to DMCA-related backlash
By Tim Conneally | Published June 16, 2008, 2:34 PM
Last week's well-publicized Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notices from the Associated Press to social news site The Drudge Retort caused an uproar. Now the AP is calling its own actions "heavy handed."
Associated Press licensee The New York Times reported that Jim Kennedy, Vice President and strategy director of the AP, emerged from a Saturday meeting of its executives with a decidedly more placatory tone.
"We have to figure out a better and more positive way to do this," Kennedy said in an interview, "We are not trying to sue bloggers; that would be the rough equivalent of suing grandma and the kids for stealing music. That is not what we are trying to do."
Meetings with representatives from the Media Bloggers Association as well as others will reportedly be taking place this week so a set of guidelines can be laid down to detail what constitutes "fair use" in the blogosphere.
Currently, however, the content which the AP demanded the Drudge Retort remove remains missing. Despite the portent of a "friendlier" attitude toward bloggers by the Associated Press, some of the most prominent bloggers have turned against the media group.
In a blog entry titled "Here's our New Policy on A.P. stories: They're Banned," TechCrunch's Michael Arrington says the AP is in "damage control mode," and that a new set of rules will not prevent legal drama, but actually encourage it. "...even though they say they are making these new guidelines in the spirit of cooperation, it's clear that, like the RIAA and MPAA, they are trying to claw their way to a set of property rights that don't exist today and that they are not legally entitled to," Arrington wrote this morning. "And like the RIAA and MPAA, this is done to protect a dying business model - paid content."
Exactly... Last time anyone uses them for anythign IMHO. Good riddance. Now if we could just be done with any content from the RIAA or MPAA forever. that would be progress...
Then MAYBE some quality content would be allowed to emerge again that is WORTH buying. And the public not lied too all teh time about imaginary Sales losses to P2P systems. These unrealized losses, would had never happen anyway, so why they count such as losses I haven't a clue. Indeed the rare download I do get, OFTEN results in a full download and keep, and My going out to find it on CD, hopefully on a MIX CD of some kind, with other top singles.. Thank you for Now thats what i call music series... Cause short of that, I doubt I would buy a full album for 1 song I want...
As too this story... The AP has essentially said to all bloggers we do not want you quoting our stories in any way, Even if you give us credit for the story. Which in turn has told the bloggers to go elsewhere for things to talk about. In effect delegitimizing the associated press as a source for ANY medium.
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This was a worse PR 'take down notice' since the Doctor Who knitting pattern incident. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/...tertainment/7400268.stm
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Hahaha. Yes.
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I enjoy the identical use of "heavy-handed!"
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DOCTOR WHO! BRILLIANT!
Also that's a load of crap. That's like them trying to get rid of the instructions on how to build your own Dalek.
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Who gets paid to sue kids and grandma.. all to protect a dying business model???
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LOL where you been? the RIAA, the MPAA.
They have these unscrupulous companies doing the dirty work of the infiltration and in some cases entrapment. Mediasentry being one such organization, whose activities have recently come under government scrutiny for violations of civil rights in the process of identifying their victims to feed to the RIAA as violators. Indeed if the legal standard was in the Federal court where it belongs, None of these cases could stand up to burden of proof... but allas they keep it in the Civil courts to keep it out of reach of a Precedence that may once more lead to a betamax style ruling nullifying the DMCA.
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very very bad PR move by AP. Who gets paid to make these bad decisions?
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