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

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.

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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.

<a href="http://forthardknox.com/2008/07/01/boycott-the-ap/" target="_blank"><img src="http://forthardknox.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/boycottap2302-150x150.jpg" alt="boycottAPmini" title="boycottap2302" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-5850" /></a>