An answer to AP's anti-blog policy: quote freely but carry adtribution link

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Assaults on Fair Use benefit no one

The AP is hurting themselves as well as their consumers by this short-sighted action. While use of an entire article or other substantial body of work is copyright infringement, there is an important difference between factual news and other copyrighted information: nobody "owns" the news. In terms of journalistic integrity, publishers are expected to properly cite the source of the news. This establishes credibility and rules of conduct between journalists.

But these are not codified in law. If a journalist chooses not to identify his source, then his personal reputation is the primary determining factor for credibility. The AP as a source has credibility because it is one of the main news distributors, but there are others. And it wouldn't be difficult for an organization like Google to become a credible "repackager" of news for free distribution. All it takes is the resources to read news articles from whatever source, distill the "news facts", and then write a new article. As I mentioned, nobody has a copyright on the facts, just the written article as a whole.

Posted by: terry flores   Posted on: 06/21/08 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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