It is moves like the AP pricing that will ultimately establish the control points (and values) in the media food chain. Is it the original content (e.g. AP) that is the source of value? If so, constrict it and look for pain, and then determine what people will pay to relieve the pain. I'd guess that $2.50 a word isn't right, but then neither is free. On a separate note, I do find it naive when people say they don't need the original content (AP, NYT, etc.), because they have Twitter. Most of the interesting traffic on Twitter is a response to, or analysis of, a news story, originial article or reported event. Turn off the original content, and Twitter becomes a much less interesting place.
AnnaTarkov
· 4 months ago
While this AP plan may indeed be idiotic and badly priced, you're also way off base when you say that the AP's goal is to "spread information faster and to more people." Do you see what's wrong with that statement? Spreading information is not a business model. We all spread information and no one is paying most of us for it. The AP on the other hand pays professional reporters/writers to produce content that they then sell to newspapers and other media outlets. So again, while this latest idea of theirs might not be a good one, it's a valid attempt to get payment for the use of their content.
I've only found links to license from AP on the iCopyright site itself. Do any AP-subscribing publications still display the links -- i.e. http://bit.ly/17nY4t -- as they were "encouraged" to when the AP-iCopyright partnership was announced (in April 2008 it seems per this PR: http://bit.ly/2r2lY)
That's what I'd be interested in seeing - it's no longer at knoxnews.com - talk about throwing your readers under the bus!
Rowan
· 4 months ago
Two issues come to mind.
The first about ‘provability’, the second about enforcement
The first: 'provability' How will AP prove that a series of words - as little as 5 - from the tens of millions produced worldwide each year are 'theirs' and theirs alone to the point where they can enforce payment or penalty?
The following phrase is on AP's website: "a popular way to get news and information" but if you Google that phrase it appears on over 17,000 websites: http://tinyurl.com/nhp3tc. (I copy and pasted that phrase from one of the 17,000 sites, not AP’s)
Say for example you're talking about Michael Jackson’s death - thousands of bloggers and media-outlets covered it - there's only so many ways to phrase his passing. How will AP actually prove that they own a five word phrase like ‘King of Pop, Michael Jackson Dead’ and that bloggers ranging from New York to Tokyo don't?
Secondly, enforcement: Even if they get past the provability issue and the Bing, Google and aggregator issues (which I'm not sure they will) how will they possibly pursue infringement claims between $12.50 and $100 against individual bloggers globally?
At a scale of 10 bloggers, not such a big problem maybe, but extrapolate out the costs associated with identifying 1,00,000 or 1,000,000 bloggers / other social media users and trying to force them to take down the content or sue for copyright is going to quickly get too expensive - far more than they'll ever be likely to receive from the proposed fees.
Michael Hart
· 4 months ago
I think that it's definitely the wrong approach. It'd be interesting to know how much of the traffic originates from Google, also, with them complaining about loss of revenues due to how Google organizes that information.
Let Google remove their results for a few hours, and see how their traffic floats then. Gogo Marissa Mayer! :)
Ben Parr
· 4 months ago
Michael: Your Google comment is spot-on.
charlie
· 4 months ago
I agree. Dumbass business decisions shouldn't be rewarded. Let AP swim in a tide of their own ignorance and stuborness. May they drown.
Sorry. But I come from old media and I LOATHE old media establishments that just don't get it!! Bastards.
Fortunalee
· 4 months ago
I can live without AP. I'll just be even more scrupulous about avoiding anything they touch. Their policies are strangling, and absurd. Expect them to make their next steps ala the RIAA.
TC banned the AP? That's like me calling Ben "Asian." Maybe worse.
Ben Parr
· 4 months ago
I'm actually only half-asian.
Mike Stenger
· 4 months ago
This is idiotic and I see this going over "very" well. *cough, cough*
gregpalmer
· 4 months ago
So there are two questions here.
- What's the limit of fair use? The AP's pricing model doesn't acknowledge any room for fair use. I'd say anything under 100/150 words, when quoted and attributed, is clearly fair use.
- What's a fair price to pay when you have to license content? And what's the appropriate model? Do "big" web publishers have to pay more than the little guys?
dangrossman
· 4 months ago
Fair use isn't measured in words. If 150 words is all it takes to reproduce the entire substance of the story, then you've taken too much to pass a fair use test.
Jody Pellerin
· 4 months ago
There isn't any hard and fast rule about what constitutes fair use. But I also have to wonder: If I used information and a quote from an AP article and it was duly cited in the bibliography of my article or paper if I would still have to pay, seeing as I didn't have to pay to get the information in the first place.
If they want money for their content, let them set up their own site using their own content and charging either per article or for membership to be able to read the articles. AND they would have to stop allowing newspapers to publish AP content because it would be too easy for someone to use the article somewhere else.
Herne
· 4 months ago
The AP is living in a dream world. If they continue in their ignorance, they will find that people will simply move to other news outlets instead.
Yann Jules
· 4 months ago
Not only is this policy plainly stupid, the AP itself is turning into a joke. I do not agree with the use of "their" news by papers either. Can't they just publish releases, flashes, headlines and let journalists do their job, like the AFP and Reuters are doing (even though they are sliding down the same slope...). Seriously, when I read collegiate papers or local ones with 7 or 8 AP pieces for their nation and international pages, or even firmovie reviews, it makes me cringe. I'd rather not have these stories at all, that would save newspapers some money.
Linda
· 4 months ago
They are a joke when they think they are the only place we can get the news. I get more via twitter and I can get it there first. I even have their twitter account blocked. I won't have anything to do with them.
wewillchange
· 4 months ago
Almost all of the twitter news services pull from AP.
Stephanie
· 4 months ago
As long as the content is cited why should you be charged? It is not like you are trying to pass it off as your own.
Sonia
· 4 months ago
Volume and attention don't necessarily equal value. So a story may get spread to millions of people, which can feed the company's ego - but it may have negative ROI for the publishing company.
For instance, with many local media outlets - global traffic builds ego and a sense of broader relevance, but only local or highly qualified traffic pays the bills.
So maybe one option is for high-value sources of qualified traffic to be able to syndicate freely if they demonstrate relevance and link in a valuable way - and low value sources of general-bounce traffic should have to pay. This is great for SEO, for building "credible neighborhoods" and for overall online UEX.
On a different note, aggregators have themselves to blame for getting too liberal with free use rules and resorting to overuse and outright plagiarism. The ethics of online content sharing is muddled. Though the AP's guidelines may seem ludicrous and luddite, they will force an interesting dialogue among aggregators and publishers of original content - one that has been fruitless and not constructive to date.
Stew Brennand
· 4 months ago
//OP ED
Fine by me, I'll cite other sources and never point to an AP published story. I use quote snippets all the time when writing up an article, for context, clarity and factual reasons. The major issue I see here, fair usage aside, is that if and when larger entities do pay for such a thing, how long before this precedent spreads to other media sources who implement the same thing, passing costs down to consumers.
This is simply backwards thinking in terms of the web and could very well stifle the flow of information simply because of costs and frivolous copyrights. What happens if Encyclopedia Britannica bases much of their information on AP generated news? How does this affect print media, where in some cases, basic publisher permission and references are all that's required?
How will the AP go after IP rights from a retweet of a headline or some other "supposed" quote? How do they (AP) plan to make up for the severe loss in website traffic and paid revenues from advertising from shared links from many blogs and news articles around the globe?
This sort of money making, capitalistic mentality is dragging humanity down to incredible lows. Frankly, in this day and age of shared information, a model such as this will ultimately fail in the end, despite the short term gains it may present on paper to the AP. This isn't foreword thinking at all and we the free information sharing public of the global online culture will find other sources and way around simplistic, old word views such as this.
What other sorts of implications could this mean on a larger scale and how exactly will it affect you, the reader of this article?
Thanks Mashable, your always on time and spreading the word. I just hope it doesn't cost me anything to quote anything from this article.
/click
Stuart Foster
· 4 months ago
Ha! Good luck getting that guys...
Steven Rossi
· 4 months ago
What's the cost of that screenshot?
Linda
· 4 months ago
Can't wait to see the photoshopped version. ;)
sevatt
· 4 months ago
Is the AP ready to start paying for everything they quote? What happened to fair use?
If you want to quote a few lines in a blog and the AP comes down on you, they are being stupid. If you are scraping all their content and putting your ads around it, then you deserve what you get!
baekdal
· 4 months ago
This is just ridicules. Republishing, yes. That's fair. Quoting 5 words for 12 bucks isn't.
But let them have their fun. If they try to fight the social world, they will simply lose. The news agencies no longer holds the monopoly on delivering news. Anyone can simply get it via other means, and quote it from there. ...Or even better, go directly to the source, and quote that.
The biggest flaw, however, is that there is no way they can prove they own a quote. If I write, "Tiger Woods wins another trophy", and AP happens to use the same words in one of their articles, do they then own it? Of course not.
Copyrighting the full article, or even a substantial part of it - that's fine. Trying to claim ownership to the individual words or sentences, trying to get people to pay for mentioning them in a article, and trying to control people's reactions to their news articles (in which you would always put some kind of quote) is simply ridicules.
Linda
· 4 months ago
I've got two words for them. And they have my permission to quote me.
I'm waiting to see the edits to this page. Anyone want to give it a go?
I just figured out my retirement plan... I'll write a PHP script to create thousands of common sentences in various permutations on my web site, and copyright all of them. With my lawyer in the wings, whenever AP happens to use a series of 5 words or more that match mine, I'll demand they pay me for them - and not single-website quoting prices like $2.50/word, either, but mass distribution and reproduction rights. Much more expensive. If they balk, I'll just quote back to them every argument / policy they are using to suicide - er, I mean "protect their business" with this charge-for-any-use scheme.
It's funny in a sad kind of way to see the highly successful, big-business brains of the 20th century revealing themselves to be so slow on the pickup in the 21st century. :(
Hey, really though - what am I complaining about?! I can still use groups of any four words I want without worry that some AP writer is going to claim them as his. I should be able to write just about anything in four words or less...
Alan Bleiweiss
· 4 months ago
Yes - the biggest thing is how they plan to enforce this mess. If I write an article, never having seen a single AP story on a subject, I could easily have five words in the story that might be in one of theirs. Are they then going to sue, and force me to prove in court that mine was an original work? Holy Crap.
Bully tactics never cease to amaze me.
Fibo
· 4 months ago
While it seems fair that AP checks that nobody is getting unfairly unauthorized gains from its published content, assuming that such an unfair uses starts at 5 words is clearly unrealistic: - AP cannot claim any 5 words sentences, even if they publish them: most probably they will have been published somewhere else before, and therefore someone else owns the "copyright" for this sentence... but this can only be a "moral" right, because there is no way someone can claim to own a sentence made of normal words (of course, there are some variations when brand names are involved, although some brands would be unenforceable as words (but would be by their distinctive logo) - and if they decide they still want to stick to 5 words, how are they going to enforce that?
The Marketing Intern
· 4 months ago
Absolutely unreal. I will continue to quote the AP in my various blogs, and I absolutely refuse to pay a red cent for it. I would not demand money from people trying to quote me. I report what happened; how could I possibly charge for that?
Can someone explain to me the logic of making me pay more for five words of an AP article than I pay for the Sunday Edition of the Boston Globe?
Sssssteve!
· 4 months ago
Absolutely ridiculous. The NEWS is not theirs- they are simply a delivery service, just like everyone else. Sorry, AP News, but I'm not paying you to relay news to my readers. I don't mean to be brash, and possibly inappropriate, but you can suck it. :)
Thanks, Mashable.
The Marketing Intern
· 4 months ago
Are they going to start charging talk radio hosts for quoting, too? Or for paraphrasing? What utter nonsense.
Lisa Hirst Carnes
· 4 months ago
Guess they realized there is LOTS O' MONEY to be made using social media and jumped on the bandwagon. Paying $12 bucks for quoting 5 words is absolutely ridiculous! AP - shame on you!
Jeff Korhan
· 4 months ago
My understanding is if I quote a source I can reference it any way I wish if it is germane to my message. This is from an intellectual property attorney. Attribution is the rule of the road. Even Yoko Ono discovered this while trying to protect the use of content regarding John Lennon. If the story is about John Lennon, then the attribution naturally follows. Am I wrong here?
Nik Sargent
· 4 months ago
I can see where they're coming from, but this is bonkers. If you can't quote then you can't really draw attention to the source - so it seems like AP is cutting off their nose to spite their face. The commercial model seems badly thought out - i'd have thought that being able to quote something like 40 - 70 words for free, then pay beyond that would be perfect for allowing the masses to reference the source and drive traffic to it by linking, without ripping the whole source off.
Dave
· 4 months ago
Don't worry -- if people continue to quote them without paying, and they take it to court in a landmark case a la the RIAA, and their traffic drops by 25 or 40 percent as a result, then they might wake up and reassess their position. When enough people vote with their feet, then they'll either change their policy or go bankrupt -- they can't live without traffic...
Kevin Althaus
· 4 months ago
Greedy.
Mel
· 4 months ago
Do what every red-blooded journalist does read the AP wire or content and contact the source listed. If you are a content provider worth your salt - you should have a list of newsmakers in your e-contact list anyway!
benjaminjtaylor
· 4 months ago
The price absurd, it's an RIAA aggressive style of policing content, with 2 recent "wins" by the RIAA the AP runs similar risks of alienating consumers, or perhaps they already have. Question, how many people look for AP credit lines in news title headers. It's something I rarely paid attention to, but in light of the recent news, I now realize how many sites aggregate AP content. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but these types of initiatives only further the discontent regarding the news reporting industry. Great post.
livia
· 4 months ago
There is no indication the AP wants little blogger, though they do want those who routinely use their content. If bloggers were worth their salt they'd not have to scarf the words of others and frankly we don't need a million bloggers posting the same thing over and over again, but either way fair use is much touted by those who are ripping off content that does not belong to them.
Ryan Chittum at CJR had two good posts on this at the end of July.
Alan Bleiweiss
· 4 months ago
Wait. "We don't need a million bloggers posting the sam thing over and over..."
Are you kidding?
Care to explain how the AP Wire Service, sending the SAME THING OVER AND OVER, to millions of news organizations, is not what you're talking about. Unless you think bloggers don't have a right to communicate current events?
I totally agree that nobody should have the right to republish or reprint anyone else's entire body of work.
Yet simply quoting a source of information, providing a link to that information, and then going on to offer unique fresh content based on something related to it is how the news industry makes what little income is left after corporate ownership spends the revenue from it.
No, the problem is that the AP and the major news organizations live in the 20th century, and are fighting for the survival of their archaic ways.
Garrett Blakeman
· 4 months ago
This is insane. First of all, I don't even think they can legally do that. I admittedly haven't read all of their policies yet but I'm pretty sure you can quote a small part of something and then provide a link to it regardless. As long as your quote doesn't contain the bulk of the content.
Peter Mis
· 4 months ago
I'd like to respond, but, taking a page from AP, my response carries a $19.95 price tag.
Cooki
· 4 months ago
let's blow the AP off..the Huff-Po will be in dumps..since a lot of content comes from AP.Cing-Love
Dennis Jernberg
· 4 months ago
"Cutting off their nose to spite their face" is the right metaphor. Exactly what the RIAA is doing. And look at the incredible success the RIAA's having: its member conglomerates are all on the verge of collapse! As with the RIAA (and soon the MPAA too; it's inevitable), they'll find that lavishing such elitist contempt on the populist Internet will earn them contempt. Bad reputations are proven to be bad for business!
These cartels (and the Associated Press is a cartel, not a corporation) are trying to repeal the 21st century. They want it to be 1950 forever! Sorry, cartels: the arrow of time points in one direction only. You can't turn back the clock. You either adapt to the changed environment of 2009, or you go extinct. And the 20th-century media cartels are flirting with extinction.
By the way, I've blocked every single AP account on Twitter. Serves them right.
Nick D.
· 4 months ago
Here's an exercise for those of you so inclined. Read all the posts here, and combine their insights into a story or article. Now compare that to one researched, reported AP story - any one, it doesn't matter. Which of the two is more valuable? Mor informative? More credible? We all like to hear ourselves rant, rave and opine, but in the end, someone (or some entitity) has to do real work - reporting, researching, analyzing and distributing. Without this credible source material, most everything on in social media is just conversational noise.
Ilya Haykinson
· 4 months ago
Clearly, the answer is to quote only four words at a time, and not have to pay. Let's try:
- Navy pilot Michael "Scott" ... - An American linguistics student... - Sen. John McCain says... - The Obama administration is... - The Obama administration will... - Yukon River smokehouses should... - President Barack Obama's treasury... - Tiger Woods won the...
We can do this from the middle, too:
- ... as part of a ... - ... has caught on with .... - ... for a third time ...
And nobody said that we have to quote words all in a row. We can summarize, too:
- pilot shot down Iraq - American misses hiking Iran - Obama Michigan Taliban Cuba - McCain McCain McCain McCain - Obama Administration President Obama
We also win with compound words as used by the AP:
quite interesting news. jsut today my blog suffered from a similar case where a robot blog or something grabbed an article of mine but published it without any credit to me or link to my site.
I think copyright in the internet must be more controlled but not as restrictive and expensive as the AP is trying.
Dennishay
· 4 months ago
If you are going to quote someone, at least link to the original.... the wife of someone travelling through our town Fort Nelson, copied straight out of Yahoo Travel and pasted in her blog http://bit.ly/9Qid8... the problem was that the information was about 10 years old... she ended up looking like she wrote it when all she wrote was a couple of sentences...
A better way would have been to summarize the info and link to the original... but then I guess her blog would not have much content... so the actual content produced by her would have been very small in comparison to padding it with other material.
Anyone can copy and paste.. but to say you wrote it is the problem... I guess what I'm saying is link back or don't publish it... it's not that hard.. then if something is inaccurate your not stuck looking like the idiot :)
winandmac
· 4 months ago
If I don't quote their original passage, I re-write it. Do I need to pay the fee?
Michael Masnick
· 4 months ago
This absolutely is ridiculous, but it's worth pointing out that this is not new and not a deal that was signed in April. We wrote about this well over a year ago: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080617/07405...
Dennishay
· 4 months ago
The monopoly is dying, the music industry http://bit.ly/6i93p now newspapers http://bit.ly/KzyHy. The industry with just have to become more innovative and start adding value rather http://bit.ly/PlNUB rather than just being lazy about their business.
They will realize that monopoly thinking doesn't work on the net or they will go out of business and someone who does get it will take pickup the pieces and give people what they want.
All this shows is how ignorant they are of this fact and in effect they are broadcasting to everyone that there is an opportunity if someone want to take advantage of it....hmm... :)
Digital Jedi
· 4 months ago
It's just the corporate folks not getting it again. No one knows exactly what the solution to moving forward in digital media is. But that's because no one with the ability to do anything about or to set the example has even tried.
janet pettersen
· 4 months ago
five words who what when where why....started in pr...then art history teaching goal. alas...i believe when how or if came to media, well circus began. gotta laugh. seems like only thing i see on boob tube. watch rarely..loved Tudors. life is just life. adapt to it wherever and whatever even weather. yes only my thinking. watched long played long. artist writer poet called in still small voice. a love of it all. why make things up, or get 13 he said, she said. i just laugh and remember how folks became bored. only good thing is news catches bad guys more than police. ahhhhh big brother Orwellian. cant stop them, then reality shows what a misnomer of many metaphors. dont know if you were looking for these five words. yet fun the memory. awesome you
Bryant Larsen
· 4 months ago
Darn! You took my idea. Maybe just let me copy your PHP script, and I'll pay you $1.50/word. That way we can double charge AP!
Seriously, It's pretty bold of the AP to basically try to copyright much of the English language. Nice try, though.
Bryant Larsen
· 4 months ago
Darn! You took my idea. Maybe just let me copy your PHP script, and I'll pay you $1.50/word. That way we can double charge AP!
Seriously, It's pretty bold of the AP to basically try to copyright much of the English language. Nice try, though.
John Hamilton Farr
· 4 months ago
Sliding into irrelevance... just another self-destructive fit on the way to whatever's coming next...
dez
· 4 months ago
Here's my plan:
1: put a "Right's of usage" area on my blog. 2: Inside area explain that there is a price for quoting me 3: If you are not an AP reporter or the quote will not be used in an AP story the cost is a link back to my original post 4: If you are an AP reporter the cost per word will be $2.50.
I will most likely never be considered to be quoted. I did a quick scan through my posts and found that I hadn't linked or quoted to any AP stories (thankfully). I don't have any problem with people getting what is owed to them. I would understand paying for an article if I wanted to use the whole thing (which seems unlikely for my blog).
There are paywalls and then there's this. Good luck AP, I stopped relying on you for news a few months ago, and now you won't get anything.
--dez
janet pettersen
· 4 months ago
i do see and get where this going. i maintain AP, this is where journalism went. facts. now. they are just a crew looking to stay alive with next hype....i had same treatment for cancer fawcett had. i bled. know i am grateful i live, yet scared. so imagine when i first saw she went to hospital. i called my daughter and she assured me not same. the fallacy of news. one week later think she died. as one who just received news of biopsy of liver and thank the universe, still clean cancer check. i feel for the millions who will never be able to afford my treatment. sad yes. fact yes. so this not answer of five words i know. my belief and again old hippie yippee yuppie to now my opinion means nada. to also add to this so many people listen to media and do not dig deeper, it is like standard and poors, or s&p. we measure how stocks would do by s & p. then came NASDAQ...ahhh. confusion of profusion leads to not one conclusion. yep old carolina gal, yet not. raised with facts of truth in way only those in Nam times get. raised daughters, went to college, worked two jobs. now the news is so full of hyperbole's, feel like one reading novel. yes going way back to get to get sec license, a jill of all trades. my inner voice, no not head, this way we go on merry go around. do know that AP would not do before which they do now. sad state of affairs. as readers or watchers of this i say not me. do remember being young and it was left to folks what or when. now some blindly accept. dig, dig, dig my words. i like facts. wish truth. what we do not know is that which causes pain after the fact. hope you know of many i speak. first time ever aired this opinion. let me know more. how far down do we go. hit bottom and only way up...get real and deal. just my opinion.. as people of free country i see not this study to facts. look up past, follow trail, be careful:) yes. many peoples wish not truth. better to say again mixed metaphors no sense. men conquer with remote. only one channel watch now for truth, even they fall short. many a scare of wars, and all about money. read fine that print. yes take hint. this is the reason i only trust researching back. starting at end of story. write words run on if will, discernment reality. this after desert storm desert fox, what the hey. why are we still there. yes air force family. yes became wyld chyld. not long. was arrested with Jane Fonda as young girl. did not know who she was. fayetteville, NC. we now see people being shot in head on knees, bombing of children who believe. i do hope they find this peace spoon fed. i cry. we have starving children in this country. what are we doing? again off topic yet not. media circus with AP. give me a break. wish to stay insular as artist. sad not, mad not, just is. thanks for letting me vent though. you can bet i research all that i find of interest. doggedly. writer artist cannot stop when chewing that bone. again my opinion matters not. just a vent on policy foreign and yes here. times are tough. take the bucks and feed the children, feed the animals, create shelters. no do not like, yet again we lost shelter where i live. i have been nursing sick or wounded animals entire life. age five with great grans on farm. how we have changed. ps i had just seen barbarella when friend with said to me that is Jane Fonda. cared not. thought mad as hatter. yet not. trying to live best she can. rich poor middle class and no this covers not all. sad sad sad. thanks much for the lead of five words. fun stuff. will stay for this. thanks much cloudsdreams/ aka janet. i wish no fame. had shot. yet this last week has shown me why i know without doubt why a name a connection led me here. people and family i can not trust anymore. so go a looking i do. yes hard. trying to lower standards. cant give up. again thanks janet
Joanna
· 4 months ago
You'd want them to be 5 really fascinating words at that price. Surely it is reasonable and legal to quote a sentence or two as long as you attribute it to its source.
Nathan
· 4 months ago
I don't think that they should charge Non-Profits, but if you're saying that you're planning on profiting from their work, why wouldn't they charge you for their Intellectual property?
spullara
· 4 months ago
It doesn't make it really clear who would pay for me quoting in the comments:
"AP - President Barack Obama's treasury secretary said Sunday he cannot rule out higher taxes to help tame an exploding budget deficit, and his chief economic adviser would not dismiss raising them on middle-class Americans as part of a health care overhaul."
Did I just charge Disqus, FriendFeed, Spoonfeedr, Google Reader, My Yahoo, Mashable, or me $105? Or close to that, not sure about the "AP" or the hyphenated word. I tried to work it out with their site but got a 500 error: http://tr.im/veG3
jenp
· 4 months ago
Three or four words is plenty.
Oddgeir Holen
· 4 months ago
this is contra productive, to spread the word should be the policy of any news media :-)
Son of Bob
· 4 months ago
While I'm not a big fan of the left-leaning AP, I still respect that they are trying to get some control of their product. For whatever reason, the Internet has warped otherwise intelligent people into thinking that copyright protections don't apply to anything on the Internet. As a result, we have people knowingly downloading music illegally, then bemoaning the consequences when caught, while others on the Internet attempt to vilify the record company trying to legally protect its product.
Likewise, the AP spends the money, exerts the effort and creates the product, then every webmaster in the world feels they have the right to merely cut and paste that product onto their own website...without sharing in any of the costs of journalists, travel, office expenses, etc. The AP might be leaning a little heavy on their prices, however, they do have a right to charge for the use of their copyrighted material.
Andy de Ronda
· 4 months ago
For just 5 words? I'd love to know how they manage to identify any five words as being their copyright, that isn't even a sentence, and I'd be willing to bet their journalists hardly ever create new phrases that are unique to the article. Take any five words in the preceding sentence and I'm certain you'll find a similar expression somewhere in AP's archive, or in blogs, or casual conversation.
This is a dangerous precedent AP are trying to impose, and reinforces my opinion that copyright law needs to change to reflect the realities of 21st century broadcasting and publishing. With this step AP reminds me of the outdated ideas the music industry has, it looks like they too are not coping with the Internet so are desperately trying to figure out ways of monetizing electronic information, and in this instance doing a poor job.
If I'm not mistaken, traditional standards of plagiarism say that if 5 or more words are used from an unattributed source, it's plagiarism. Of course, if a blog provides a link to the AP, it's not plagiarism, but with unattributed sourcing so rampant on the internet, I understand that something has to be done here. The issue to me seems to be whether there's a better way for the AP to track unattributed sourcing. The blanket charge seems unreasonable to the sites that do properly attribute AP stories.
Dave Zatz
· 4 months ago
I reserve the right to quote the AP quoting me. :p
"traffic and attention" aren't going to pay the journalists for doing their job properly (and not copying other people's work). see The Washpost's "Death of journalism (Gawker edition)"
clarafrenchy
· 4 months ago
"traffic and attention" aren't going to pay the journalists for doing their job properly (and not copying other people's work). see The Washpost's "Death of journalism (Gawker edition)"
Zackery Moore
· 4 months ago
I agree that news sites get more traffic to their content by social media posting quotes and links to the original content, but it's not enough. I support most of what traditional media decides to do so they can recoup some of the money they're losing from people/bloggers using their work unfairly.
The only problem I see in this is that it interferes with "fair use." A better business model could be ad revenue sharing with partnered websites. Or a social media site setting up a partnership with a monthly fee for using content.
Träsel
· 4 months ago
Whatever. I will just ignore any AP story if this plan flies. One can count on lots of other sources. It's the internet, stupid!
bustedkeys
· 4 months ago
this certainly impedes progress. business isn't just a direct sell of its goods but it's also about building rapport and value with your customers. profits are the result of that relationship and the AP took more than a few steps backward with this move.
bustedkeys
· 4 months ago
this certainly impedes progress. business isn't just a direct sell of its goods but it's also about building rapport and value with your customers. profits are the result of that relationship and the AP took more than a few steps backward with this move.
Rocky
· 4 months ago
This is absurd stupidity and flies in the face of copyright fair use agreements.
It also ignores the fact that snippets of articles produce link-backs to their pages, so in fact draws more traffic into their site.
Just more proof that Associated Press is an intelligence vacuum which should be avoided by all.
Joe M
· 4 months ago
Could the AP please report to the Dead Pool? Um, thanks. I cannot think of a more ignorant position that the AP could take. Lets be serious, they have the Web to thank for syndication of their content. They have been the beneficiary of the network effect time and time again. I cant wait to see the fall out. How long till we can add them to the Dead Pool?
Perhaps maybe the AP is scheming to build the "InterPipe", a crazy new tool with which they can traffic their content without it ever being seen by human eyes. Its the new revolution?
Phojo
· 4 months ago
"Social media helps spread information faster and to more people, which is the point of a wired service like the AP."
The point of a wire service is to provide news/photos to it's clients.
Bob O'Lary
· 4 months ago
OK then A.P. if you want to quote me for a story, You gotta pay me the SAME amount for my words. Bob O.
Doug
· 4 months ago
The AP is not a "news" source, it is a Zionist propaganda organ. Why would anyone in their right mind want to pay to pass on someone else's propaganda?
HandleTheTruth
· 4 months ago
>> They are the source of a lot of our news and a valuable journalistic asset..
AP is an asset.. for the federal government sure.. I read AP to see how the propaganda is shaping up and what's the Zionists next move, not to get real news..
I have a feeling this fee is not for you or me, but just to bleed more cash from legitimate news sources that might be using AP... kill the American dream, one industry at a time..
Mark
· 4 months ago
Some AP news stories are from other sources that AP themselves have re-reported.
So my question is, will AP pay those sources $2.50 per word from now on?
Better yet....has AP compensated those other news sources for all the past stories they ripped off?
maggie
· 4 months ago
Let's boycott AP. I can get the same information (worded differently) from other news sites anyway. I say we should just boycott because our community watchdogs are spending more time lying to us than telling us the truth anyway.
Keith Coogan
· 4 months ago
What about the "Share" button right on the ap news pages on yahoo? If I push that button, does that mean I have to pay the ap for whatever pops up on twitter and my blog.... even though they made the "Share" button so easy to use? Where is the disclaimer that pushing the "Share" button will cost me $12.50?
Sevastian winters
· 4 months ago
Lol... With so many writers proffering opinions these days, it's EASY to imagine identical 5 word strings. If they want to play at a 50 word level , fine, but other than that the AP needs to figure out that the world has changed and there are better ways to secure income than complete propriety. If they ever come looking to me for a fine, I will be more than happy to show them precisely which region of my hirsute glutes open to their kiss. In the meanwhile, Dear AP, Kindly exit to the nearest private place and concentrate all of your efforts on the finer art of self copulation.
Sevastian winters
· 4 months ago
Lol... With so many writers proffering opinions these days, it's EASY to imagine identical 5 word strings. If they want to play at a 50 word level , fine, but other than that the AP needs to figure out that the world has changed and there are better ways to secure income than complete propriety. If they ever come looking to me for a fine, I will be more than happy to show them precisely which region of my hirsute glutes open to their kiss. In the meanwhile, Dear AP, Kindly exit to the nearest private place and concentrate all of your efforts on the finer art of self copulation.
DaleA
· 4 months ago
This is asinine. AP knows damn well that in US copyright law the concept of fair use is both well established and well defined. If they start coming after people who are making legitimate use of their content under the umbrella of fair use, they will inevitable be smacked down in court and made to look like fools.
As others have pointed out here, this is just hamhanded scaremongering. If I legally quote AP in my creative work, I am doing them a favor, and they know it.
robert
· 4 months ago
Memo to AP: I think that's a grand idea. As your readership tanks(mostly because you fail to print the truth), this will speed your demise. You and Rupert must be on the same page. Keep it up and don't forget to fall squarely on your sword.
Timoluege
· 4 months ago
The sad thing is that by demanding that people pay for a headline and link, the really interesting part of the license model was completely lost: you can use AP articles on your web site or blog for free as long as you use the whole article and include AP ads. Alternatively, you can pay and use the article without advertisement.
In fact AP is using the same company (iCopyright)to manage their content as Reuters. And when Reuters did it, it was applauded as an important step into the right direction. The difference: AP is expecting to be paid for excerpts whereas Reuters doesn't. Instead, Reuters reminds people to observe fair-use criteria and links to an explanation of what “fair use” means. That explanation is carefully worded to suggest that, if in doubt, you should always get a license.
What this demonstrates to me is how even showing minimum of respect for the people whose money you want can make huge difference. Whereas AP apparently perceives most bloggers and website owners as thieving profiteers who cannot be trusted, Reuters appeals to their judgement and fairness, which doesn’t mean that Reuters wouldn’t sue if you stole their content. The result: Reuters is seen as a pioneer, AP as dinosaur who doesn’t get it.
Bob
· 3 months ago
This plan has FAIL written all over it. Let us know how that works out for you.
Apgetreal
· 1 month ago
AP is making a last ditch effort to save their business model which was nullified some time ago. They can try anything, just like anyone can sue anyone. But good luck. Like most of the corporate bullys they will try the little guy first, but won't take on the big money guys like google.
All Comments
On a separate note, I do find it naive when people say they don't need the original content (AP, NYT, etc.), because they have Twitter. Most of the interesting traffic on Twitter is a response to, or analysis of, a news story, originial article or reported event. Turn off the original content, and Twitter becomes a much less interesting place.
How Mashable & Hacker News Ripped Off My Newspaper Story
http://daggle.com/mashable-hacker-news-ripped-n...
That's what I'd be interested in seeing - it's no longer at knoxnews.com - talk about throwing your readers under the bus!
The first about ‘provability’, the second about enforcement
The first: 'provability'
How will AP prove that a series of words - as little as 5 - from the tens of millions produced worldwide each year are 'theirs' and theirs alone to the point where they can enforce payment or penalty?
The following phrase is on AP's website: "a popular way to get news and information" but if you Google that phrase it appears on over 17,000 websites: http://tinyurl.com/nhp3tc. (I copy and pasted that phrase from one of the 17,000 sites, not AP’s)
Say for example you're talking about Michael Jackson’s death - thousands of bloggers and media-outlets covered it - there's only so many ways to phrase his passing. How will AP actually prove that they own a five word phrase like ‘King of Pop, Michael Jackson Dead’ and that bloggers ranging from New York to Tokyo don't?
Secondly, enforcement: Even if they get past the provability issue and the Bing, Google and aggregator issues (which I'm not sure they will) how will they possibly pursue infringement claims between $12.50 and $100 against individual bloggers globally?
At a scale of 10 bloggers, not such a big problem maybe, but extrapolate out the costs associated with identifying 1,00,000 or 1,000,000 bloggers / other social media users and trying to force them to take down the content or sue for copyright is going to quickly get too expensive - far more than they'll ever be likely to receive from the proposed fees.
Let Google remove their results for a few hours, and see how their traffic floats then. Gogo Marissa Mayer! :)
Sorry. But I come from old media and I LOATHE old media establishments that just don't get it!! Bastards.
https://license.icopyright.net/rights/offer.act...
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/16/heres-our-...
http://www.unassociatedpress.net/
- What's the limit of fair use? The AP's pricing model doesn't acknowledge any room for fair use. I'd say anything under 100/150 words, when quoted and attributed, is clearly fair use.
- What's a fair price to pay when you have to license content? And what's the appropriate model? Do "big" web publishers have to pay more than the little guys?
If they want money for their content, let them set up their own site using their own content and charging either per article or for membership to be able to read the articles. AND they would have to stop allowing newspapers to publish AP content because it would be too easy for someone to use the article somewhere else.
Seriously, when I read collegiate papers or local ones with 7 or 8 AP pieces for their nation and international pages, or even firmovie reviews, it makes me cringe. I'd rather not have these stories at all, that would save newspapers some money.
For instance, with many local media outlets - global traffic builds ego and a sense of broader relevance, but only local or highly qualified traffic pays the bills.
So maybe one option is for high-value sources of qualified traffic to be able to syndicate freely if they demonstrate relevance and link in a valuable way - and low value sources of general-bounce traffic should have to pay. This is great for SEO, for building "credible neighborhoods" and for overall online UEX.
On a different note, aggregators have themselves to blame for getting too liberal with free use rules and resorting to overuse and outright plagiarism. The ethics of online content sharing is muddled. Though the AP's guidelines may seem ludicrous and luddite, they will force an interesting dialogue among aggregators and publishers of original content - one that has been fruitless and not constructive to date.
Fine by me, I'll cite other sources and never point to an AP published story. I use quote snippets all the time when writing up an article, for context, clarity and factual reasons. The major issue I see here, fair usage aside, is that if and when larger entities do pay for such a thing, how long before this precedent spreads to other media sources who implement the same thing, passing costs down to consumers.
This is simply backwards thinking in terms of the web and could very well stifle the flow of information simply because of costs and frivolous copyrights. What happens if Encyclopedia Britannica bases much of their information on AP generated news? How does this affect print media, where in some cases, basic publisher permission and references are all that's required?
How will the AP go after IP rights from a retweet of a headline or some other "supposed" quote? How do they (AP) plan to make up for the severe loss in website traffic and paid revenues from advertising from shared links from many blogs and news articles around the globe?
This sort of money making, capitalistic mentality is dragging humanity down to incredible lows. Frankly, in this day and age of shared information, a model such as this will ultimately fail in the end, despite the short term gains it may present on paper to the AP. This isn't foreword thinking at all and we the free information sharing public of the global online culture will find other sources and way around simplistic, old word views such as this.
What other sorts of implications could this mean on a larger scale and how exactly will it affect you, the reader of this article?
Thanks Mashable, your always on time and spreading the word. I just hope it doesn't cost me anything to quote anything from this article.
/click
If you want to quote a few lines in a blog and the AP comes down on you, they are being stupid. If you are scraping all their content and putting your ads around it, then you deserve what you get!
But let them have their fun. If they try to fight the social world, they will simply lose. The news agencies no longer holds the monopoly on delivering news. Anyone can simply get it via other means, and quote it from there. ...Or even better, go directly to the source, and quote that.
The biggest flaw, however, is that there is no way they can prove they own a quote. If I write, "Tiger Woods wins another trophy", and AP happens to use the same words in one of their articles, do they then own it? Of course not.
Copyrighting the full article, or even a substantial part of it - that's fine. Trying to claim ownership to the individual words or sentences, trying to get people to pay for mentioning them in a article, and trying to control people's reactions to their news articles (in which you would always put some kind of quote) is simply ridicules.
I'm waiting to see the edits to this page. Anyone want to give it a go?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_Press
It's funny in a sad kind of way to see the highly successful, big-business brains of the 20th century revealing themselves to be so slow on the pickup in the 21st century. :(
Hey, really though - what am I complaining about?! I can still use groups of any four words I want without worry that some AP writer is going to claim them as his. I should be able to write just about anything in four words or less...
Bully tactics never cease to amaze me.
- AP cannot claim any 5 words sentences, even if they publish them: most probably they will have been published somewhere else before, and therefore someone else owns the "copyright" for this sentence... but this can only be a "moral" right, because there is no way someone can claim to own a sentence made of normal words (of course, there are some variations when brand names are involved, although some brands would be unenforceable as words (but would be by their distinctive logo)
- and if they decide they still want to stick to 5 words, how are they going to enforce that?
Can someone explain to me the logic of making me pay more for five words of an AP article than I pay for the Sunday Edition of the Boston Globe?
Thanks, Mashable.
Ryan Chittum at CJR had two good posts on this at the end of July.
Are you kidding?
Care to explain how the AP Wire Service, sending the SAME THING OVER AND OVER, to millions of news organizations, is not what you're talking about. Unless you think bloggers don't have a right to communicate current events?
I totally agree that nobody should have the right to republish or reprint anyone else's entire body of work.
Yet simply quoting a source of information, providing a link to that information, and then going on to offer unique fresh content based on something related to it is how the news industry makes what little income is left after corporate ownership spends the revenue from it.
No, the problem is that the AP and the major news organizations live in the 20th century, and are fighting for the survival of their archaic ways.
These cartels (and the Associated Press is a cartel, not a corporation) are trying to repeal the 21st century. They want it to be 1950 forever! Sorry, cartels: the arrow of time points in one direction only. You can't turn back the clock. You either adapt to the changed environment of 2009, or you go extinct. And the 20th-century media cartels are flirting with extinction.
By the way, I've blocked every single AP account on Twitter. Serves them right.
Which of the two is more valuable? Mor informative? More credible?
We all like to hear ourselves rant, rave and opine, but in the end, someone (or some entitity) has to do real work - reporting, researching, analyzing and distributing. Without this credible source material, most everything on in social media is just conversational noise.
- Navy pilot Michael "Scott" ...
- An American linguistics student...
- Sen. John McCain says...
- The Obama administration is...
- The Obama administration will...
- Yukon River smokehouses should...
- President Barack Obama's treasury...
- Tiger Woods won the...
We can do this from the middle, too:
- ... as part of a ...
- ... has caught on with ....
- ... for a third time ...
And nobody said that we have to quote words all in a row. We can summarize, too:
- pilot shot down Iraq
- American misses hiking Iran
- Obama Michigan Taliban Cuba
- McCain McCain McCain McCain
- Obama Administration President Obama
We also win with compound words as used by the AP:
- courtroom-within-a-prison soon-to-be-shuttered maximum-security ill-conceived
- Seattle-based auto-update earth-shattering man-in-the-middle
This AP plan is complete and utter nonsense.
I think copyright in the internet must be more controlled but not as restrictive and expensive as the AP is trying.
A better way would have been to summarize the info and link to the original... but then I guess her blog would not have much content... so the actual content produced by her would have been very small in comparison to padding it with other material.
Anyone can copy and paste.. but to say you wrote it is the problem... I guess what I'm saying is link back or don't publish it... it's not that hard.. then if something is inaccurate your not stuck looking like the idiot :)
They will realize that monopoly thinking doesn't work on the net or they will go out of business and someone who does get it will take pickup the pieces and give people what they want.
All this shows is how ignorant they are of this fact and in effect they are broadcasting to everyone that there is an opportunity if someone want to take advantage of it....hmm... :)
Seriously, It's pretty bold of the AP to basically try to copyright much of the English language. Nice try, though.
Seriously, It's pretty bold of the AP to basically try to copyright much of the English language. Nice try, though.
1: put a "Right's of usage" area on my blog.
2: Inside area explain that there is a price for quoting me
3: If you are not an AP reporter or the quote will not be used in an AP story the cost is a link back to my original post
4: If you are an AP reporter the cost per word will be $2.50.
I will most likely never be considered to be quoted. I did a quick scan through my posts and found that I hadn't linked or quoted to any AP stories (thankfully). I don't have any problem with people getting what is owed to them. I would understand paying for an article if I wanted to use the whole thing (which seems unlikely for my blog).
There are paywalls and then there's this. Good luck AP, I stopped relying on you for news a few months ago, and now you won't get anything.
--dez
"AP - President Barack Obama's treasury secretary said Sunday he cannot rule out higher taxes to help tame an exploding budget deficit, and his chief economic adviser would not dismiss raising them on middle-class Americans as part of a health care overhaul."
Did I just charge Disqus, FriendFeed, Spoonfeedr, Google Reader, My Yahoo, Mashable, or me $105? Or close to that, not sure about the "AP" or the hyphenated word. I tried to work it out with their site but got a 500 error: http://tr.im/veG3
Likewise, the AP spends the money, exerts the effort and creates the product, then every webmaster in the world feels they have the right to merely cut and paste that product onto their own website...without sharing in any of the costs of journalists, travel, office expenses, etc. The AP might be leaning a little heavy on their prices, however, they do have a right to charge for the use of their copyrighted material.
This is a dangerous precedent AP are trying to impose, and reinforces my opinion that copyright law needs to change to reflect the realities of 21st century broadcasting and publishing. With this step AP reminds me of the outdated ideas the music industry has, it looks like they too are not coping with the Internet so are desperately trying to figure out ways of monetizing electronic information, and in this instance doing a poor job.
You might also take a look at the AP RSS feeds instructions/restrictions, if you have the time to read them:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/fronts/RSS?SITE=AP...
http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2009-08/dave-on-tiv...
see The Washpost's "Death of journalism (Gawker edition)"
see The Washpost's "Death of journalism (Gawker edition)"
The only problem I see in this is that it interferes with "fair use." A better business model could be ad revenue sharing with partnered websites. Or a social media site setting up a partnership with a monthly fee for using content.
It also ignores the fact that snippets of articles produce link-backs to their pages, so in fact draws more traffic into their site.
Just more proof that Associated Press is an intelligence vacuum which should be avoided by all.
Perhaps maybe the AP is scheming to build the "InterPipe", a crazy new tool with which they can traffic their content without it ever being seen by human eyes. Its the new revolution?
The point of a wire service is to provide news/photos to it's clients.
Bob O.
AP is an asset.. for the federal government sure.. I read AP to see how the propaganda is shaping up and what's the Zionists next move, not to get real news..
I have a feeling this fee is not for you or me, but just to bleed more cash from legitimate news sources that might be using AP... kill the American dream, one industry at a time..
So my question is, will AP pay those sources $2.50 per word from now on?
Better yet....has AP compensated those other news sources for all the past stories they ripped off?
As others have pointed out here, this is just hamhanded scaremongering. If I legally quote AP in my creative work, I am doing them a favor, and they know it.
In fact AP is using the same company (iCopyright)to manage their content as Reuters. And when Reuters did it, it was applauded as an important step into the right direction. The difference: AP is expecting to be paid for excerpts whereas Reuters doesn't. Instead, Reuters reminds people to observe fair-use criteria and links to an explanation of what “fair use” means. That explanation is carefully worded to suggest that, if in doubt, you should always get a license.
What this demonstrates to me is how even showing minimum of respect for the people whose money you want can make huge difference. Whereas AP apparently perceives most bloggers and website owners as thieving profiteers who cannot be trusted, Reuters appeals to their judgement and fairness, which doesn’t mean that Reuters wouldn’t sue if you stole their content. The result: Reuters is seen as a pioneer, AP as dinosaur who doesn’t get it.