Comments on: AP vs. Drudge Retort: one tough question still unanswered

By: Shelley

Shelley — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:29:43 +0000

Greg Costikyan, try this on for size: just because you read it in Making Light doesn’t make it true. If you can manage that, we’ll then progress on to Boing Boing and Techcruch.

We don’t have the facts to determine what is “true” in any of this. We don’t have the AP’s detailed written guidelines in order to determine how onerous a burden these will be on weblogging. When we do, we can then make a choice: to challenge such guidelines, and take the consequences; or follow the guidelines because they don’t impact on how we write.

I, for one, will welcome these guidelines because they’ll clarify the AP’s view of copyright and fair use, rather than my having to try to guess what the AP’s view is from Rogers’ writing of his interpretation of what the AP is telling him.

As for the Bloggers Media Association, it doesn’t matter if it was this organization or a grouping of Arrington, Jarvis, Nielsen Hayden, and Ingram–no one organization represents webloggers, but if any want to participate with the AP, fine, have fun, send a postcard.

No one, the AP or otherwise, seriously believes _any_ of these people represent all webloggers. If you don’t want to be represented by the MBA, cool, but I certainly wouldn’t want to represented by Arrington, Jarvis, et al.

In the end it will still be the individual writer making their own choice. Except maybe we’ll be able to make better informed, rather than accidental, choices.

By: Shelley

Shelley — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:15:30 +0000

Jon, Drudge Retort is a commercial entity. It makes a profit. Monies donated support the site, and then Rogers pockets the rest. That is, more or less, a commercial enterprise.

By: Pajamas Media » AP to Bloggers: Chill Out!

Pajamas Media » AP to Bloggers: Chill Out! — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:34:03 +0000

[...] claim to represent the entire blogosphere, his statements are sweeping enough to have raised some extreme ire in parts thereabout. And, when one considers that the MBA is in business with the Associated [...]

By: Jon Garfunkel

Jon Garfunkel — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:47:08 +0000

Incidentally, Drudge Retort was not the first noncommercial / public interest blog to get a C&D from AP this year. Brian Ledbetter posted to the TechCrunch comments that he got one in February for his re-use of AP photos, and that he wrote EFF and only got a form letter in response. He took down every picture and didn't fight it. He was not aware of the MBA at the time. His plight-- well-circulated in the conservative blogosphere-- got up to Instapundit, who didn't give it a whole lot of attention. I suppose with a little more effort it could have gotten over to Volokh and then transsected into the liberal blogosphere.

By: Seth Finkelstein

Seth Finkelstein — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:05:56 +0000

Scott – regarding “we still haven’t really heard answered by the AP” – this isn’t really a hard question to answer, if one has some knowledge of the copyright battles and the limits of fair use. The problem is you’re not going to get an answer from the A-listers of the bogosphere, since all the attention is in the other direction :-( .

By: Rogers Cadenhead

Rogers Cadenhead — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 11:25:00 +0000

The Media Bloggers Association is not some phony grass-roots organization. They’ve helped bloggers engaged in legal disputes, which is how they were recommended to me. They’ve lived up to that reputation.

I can understand the natural rebellion to authority in blogging, but the MBA hasn’t done anything here to inflate its importance. They were involved before this disagreement got any press.

It’s a crying shame that bloggers don’t recognize the value of a group that can advocate our interests in libel and IP battles and help bloggers navigate the murky and difficult subject of media law. Millions of people blog. C&Ds, DMCAs and lawsuits against bloggers are increasingly common.

By: Greg Costikyan

Greg Costikyan — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:46:07 +0000

And yet it appears that the “Media Bloggers Association” is astroturf…. See http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/010354.html#010354

By: Scott Rosenberg

Scott Rosenberg — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:22:18 +0000

Right, Liza — I don’t doubt there are some very interesting arguments taking place inside AP. In the meantime, seems helpful for those of us on the outside to keep asking questions — firmly not rudely.

By: AP and the Media Bloggers Assoc. » mathewingram.com/work |

AP and the Media Bloggers Assoc. » mathewingram.com/work | — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:13:36 +0000

[...] or otherwise, although it’s possible I may have missed something. I do recall a lot of people writing about the chipping away at the concept of ‘fair use’ that the AP’s case against Drudge [...]

By: liza

liza — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:13:22 +0000

I just twittered to Jay and you that I am sure there must be a battle of the IP philosophies going on internally at AP with Kasselman in one corner trying to extend the old licensing structure to the blogosphere and Kennedy in the other corner fighting against it.

There’s too much double speak happening from their side of the story for things to be just about Rogers having headlines and some text on their site. He is obviously a case study for them internally.

If you don’t know, The Drudge Retort’s traffic is nothing to sneeze about at about 250K pageviews a week (am lowballing). They’ve been around for a long time as well so their page rank is not shabby either. YET it is not a traditional “political” site and it’s actually thumbed by most “A-listers” with less traffic than them.

So it isn’t as high profile as the Big Orange Satan but it still has way more traffic than the conventional community site.

Which is why I am sure they thought they could go after it under the radar.

Right.

Cheers,
liza

Liza Sabater, Publisher
http://culturekitchen.com