Scott Greenfield is feeling defiant over the news service’s theory (disputed by some others) that websites are infringing its copyright if they copy so much as a headline and link from its stories without permission. More: Windish, Morrissey, Citizen Media Law.
3 Comments
AP’s best bet is to make it easy to license their material for blogs.
Perhaps even a revenue-share operation. For example, you can take stores that are more than 24 hours old on your blog, if you serve one of their ads along with it.) Current and up-to-the-minute news for a fee.
They’ll end up losing if they restrict people from quoting a title, or a one or two sentence summary and linking back. However, people to rip them off, and I can see why they’re angry. It’s only fair to pay for their work.
If AP doesn’t want people linking to their articles, they shouldn’t post them to the web. Linking is what the web is all about – indeed, that’s why it’s called the “web”. If you don’t agree with this basic attribute of the web, you shouldn’t be using it. Or they should move to a model where you have to pay for access and sign in before you can read their articles.
[…] Associated Press now putting out softer line on blogger use of its copy, but is it a trap? [Felix Salmon, earlier] […]