Comments on: The A.P. Has Violated My Copyright, And I Demand Justice http://weblog.sinteur.com/2008/06/the-ap-has-violated-my-copyright-and-i-demand-justice/ si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:55:58 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7-RC1 hourly 1 By: John Sinteur http://weblog.sinteur.com/2008/06/the-ap-has-violated-my-copyright-and-i-demand-justice/comment-page-1/#comment-26026 John Sinteur Sat, 21 Jun 2008 06:59:42 +0000 http://weblog.sinteur.com/?p=24107#comment-26026 All you say is true, but you're forgetting one thing: AP is using the DMCA to get the stories removed. Or perhaps I should say abuse. The legal process is very different in that case, because such a takedown notice starts with 'on penalty of perjury...' So it isn't just billing, or getting a "general denial". Apart from the great misquoting method you mention, getting one of them to admit they know it's fair use, would theoretically mean jail time. That should work pretty well as a deterrent, but it has never been done for a DMCA notice. It would take a lot of power out of the DMCA if even once a lawyer for a large company like AP would sit in a cell for a few hours. All you say is true, but you’re forgetting one thing: AP is using the DMCA to get the stories removed. Or perhaps I should say abuse. The legal process is very different in that case, because such a takedown notice starts with ‘on penalty of perjury…’ So it isn’t just billing, or getting a “general denial”. Apart from the great misquoting method you mention, getting one of them to admit they know it’s fair use, would theoretically mean jail time. That should work pretty well as a deterrent, but it has never been done for a DMCA notice. It would take a lot of power out of the DMCA if even once a lawyer for a large company like AP would sit in a cell for a few hours.

]]> By: Capa http://weblog.sinteur.com/2008/06/the-ap-has-violated-my-copyright-and-i-demand-justice/comment-page-1/#comment-26024 Capa Sat, 21 Jun 2008 01:45:08 +0000 http://weblog.sinteur.com/?p=24107#comment-26024 Ha. It's fair use either way, so long as either one of you are using it for critical, satirical, reference, blah, blah, blah purposes. The problem is if you quote an AP story, AP bills you, and you refuse to pay AP, they sue you, you still have to defend it. A general denial followed by a clearly written motion requesting summary dismissal on the grounds of clear fair use, citing a couple precedents, should, I think, do it with something like this. But a lot of bloggers won't even know what a "general denial" is, so they're going to have to pay an attorney thousands of dollars to make it go away. I really doubt AP is going to go after a lot of unpaid $12.50 bills since the filing fees on the cases alone will exceed the amount of the bill; but their outside counsel will love them for it if they do. What would probably be more fun, and perhaps even effective, is rather than not quote AP, or bill them for quoting you, is get a bunch of high-traffic, heavily read blogs together and post references to AP stories, without links, intentionally misinterpreting the AP story. For example, AP wires a story that includes the quotation, "A recent poll of registered Pennsylvania voters who self-report as likely to vote in the November general election places Senator Obama 12 points ahead of Senator McCain. The margin of error in the poll is +/-..." Write it as, "An Associated Press wire story today reported that a poll in shows Senator McCain 21 points ahead of Senator Obama in the important 'swing state' of Pennsylvania. So, looks like Associated Press has made it pretty clear McCain has Pennsylvania locked up, as though numbers could change, if that lead is anywhere near accurate, it's pretty much insurmountable for Obama." Keep that up long enough, in enough popular blogs, they'll be PAYING bloggers to quote them VERBATIM instead of merely reporting on their reporting. It will annoy the hell out of them, people calling and emailing to ask them just what the Schenectady they think they're talking about. Since you provide no link in your story, and the nature of the Internet is that people will just remember "AP says" and very few people bother to actually source things on the Internet even by one degree of abstratction, anyway, it actually stands a chance, or they will perceive it stands a chance, of eroding their credibility as a wire service. Ha. It’s fair use either way, so long as either one of you are using it for critical, satirical, reference, blah, blah, blah purposes. The problem is if you quote an AP story, AP bills you, and you refuse to pay AP, they sue you, you still have to defend it. A general denial followed by a clearly written motion requesting summary dismissal on the grounds of clear fair use, citing a couple precedents, should, I think, do it with something like this. But a lot of bloggers won’t even know what a “general denial” is, so they’re going to have to pay an attorney thousands of dollars to make it go away. I really doubt AP is going to go after a lot of unpaid $12.50 bills since the filing fees on the cases alone will exceed the amount of the bill; but their outside counsel will love them for it if they do.

What would probably be more fun, and perhaps even effective, is rather than not quote AP, or bill them for quoting you, is get a bunch of high-traffic, heavily read blogs together and post references to AP stories, without links, intentionally misinterpreting the AP story. For example, AP wires a story that includes the quotation, “A recent poll of registered Pennsylvania voters who self-report as likely to vote in the November general election places Senator Obama 12 points ahead of Senator McCain. The margin of error in the poll is +/-…” Write it as, “An Associated Press wire story today reported that a poll in shows Senator McCain 21 points ahead of Senator Obama in the important ’swing state’ of Pennsylvania. So, looks like Associated Press has made it pretty clear McCain has Pennsylvania locked up, as though numbers could change, if that lead is anywhere near accurate, it’s pretty much insurmountable for Obama.”

Keep that up long enough, in enough popular blogs, they’ll be PAYING bloggers to quote them VERBATIM instead of merely reporting on their reporting. It will annoy the hell out of them, people calling and emailing to ask them just what the Schenectady they think they’re talking about. Since you provide no link in your story, and the nature of the Internet is that people will just remember “AP says” and very few people bother to actually source things on the Internet even by one degree of abstratction, anyway, it actually stands a chance, or they will perceive it stands a chance, of eroding their credibility as a wire service.

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