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Boycott the A.P.! (Button Code and New Updates)

July 1, 2008 by Jenn Sierra  
Filed under Action Alerts!, Web 2.0

Updated: See LGF - Blogs are Being Watched:

Business Week has an interesting article on the technology the Associated Press and other media outlets are using to find and identify their copyrighted content on the Internet: Bloggers: Big Media Is Watching.

Button Code at bottom of post.

Original Post 6/23/08:

The Associated Press is in the process of trying to gain a monopoly on the news, and we can’t let them. Please see Fair Use v. Plagiarism/Copyright Infringement, and now: AP Settles Dispute with Drudge Retort, from Rogers Cadenhead, who runs the Drudge Report (hat-tip, Ron):

I think AP and other media organizations should focus on how to encourage bloggers to link their stories in the manner they like, rather than hoping their lawyers can rebottle the genie of social news. Given the publicity of this dispute, the first blogger sued for excerpting a news story will have the best pro bono legal representation that massive press attention can buy.

Although AP will be releasing guidelines, I don’t think the news service will be able to concede any ground to the blogosphere. AP sells headline and lead-only services to customers. Asking the company to concede there’s a way people can share this information for free is like asking the RIAA to pick its favorite file-sharing client.

If an expansive view of fair use is to remain in place, it’s incumbent upon bloggers and our $500-an-hour friends in the legal community to define our own guidelines and fight for them. If we don’t, big media companies will eventually define them for us, just as they’ve gotten the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and Copyright Term Extension Act passed in Congress.

From this point forward, Ft. Hard Knox will not be linking to or quoting any A.P. stories, and we encourage other bloggers to do the same. No, this will not be easy, because in the United States, nearly all of our news points back either directly or indirectly to the A.P., but no one should have a monopoly on the truth, and thereby be able to manipulate the dissemination of information.

Besides, do we really want to trust the “Associated with Terrorists Press” for our news, anyway? No.

Following is the code you’re welcome to copy and past to your own blog or elsewhere, to encourage the blogosphere to boycott the A.P.. As is, the code links back to this post, but feel free to modify it to point to your own A.P. information.

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4 Responses to “Boycott the A.P.! (Button Code and New Updates)”

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Comments

  1. Kenneth C. Harrell on July 1st, 2008 12:59 pm

    What is the lelftists’ position on the ap attempts to control the news? No doubt they’ll support the ap. They don’t want to see Conservatives take ap’s twisted, distorted “news” and out right LIES and provided the TRUTH or another alternative way of looking at the “facts”. A side-by-side comparison of ap’s “news” with the TRUTH is not acceptable to the left. To the left, ap, reuters, etc are the only way to view the news. The fact that these “news” organizations will twist and distort the facts to achieve the leftist perspective and point of view. What better example to offer than dannyboy of rathergate infamy?

  2. bc on August 25th, 2008 8:03 pm

    Are you serious? The AP is conservative and Pentagon-friendly. The TV news media’s vast conservative bias can be linked directly to the AP.

    Is your blog a parody of conservative blogs? If so, I apologize in advance.

  3. Jenn Sierra on August 25th, 2008 8:10 pm

    Ok, that’s just crazy-talk, bc. Unless you were trying to be funny. If so, I apologize in advance.

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