Blogged

The AP fights the future

The hilarious thing about the hostility of Ye Olde Media to bloggers is the extent to which traditional media is perfectly willing to shoot itself in the foot by making enemies of people who are, in most cases, trying to drive attention and traffic to traditional media. It’s genuinely funny that an information organization is waging a war against modernity and its own self-interest. This is what comes of a scarcity mindset, I guess.

Yes, scraper sites are a real problem - for individual bloggers as well as huge news outlets. Lumping those outlaws together with bloggers who quote a portion of an article while providing a link back (and often full attribution) is convenient cover for the Associated Press, an opportunity to justify bullying tactics like those employed against The Drudge Retort. That the AP went to the brickbats as its very first option - falling back and mouthing more conciliatory words only after meeting with criticism - reveals its determination to set the rules with as little negotiation and conversation as possible. (Note that as of this writing and even after its “retreat,” the AP hasn’t rescinded its demand that The Drudge Retort delete the AP quotations.)

The failure of the Associated Press in this fight against the future is pretty much foregone. Making foes out of consumers and threatening litigation is not exactly in a business’s best interest (ask the RIAA) and if the AP itself can’t figure that out, the fifteen hundred revenue-starved newspapers that own the cooperative will eventually see the light. The only question is how painful - for itself - the AP wants to make this issue.

We must reach a point where “fair use” is clarified for all, but the AP doesn’t get to unilaterally make the rules.

Similar posts:
More on the AP vs. bloggers story
Dana Loesch leaves Post-Dispatch
Serendipity, sort of: New blog at the Post-Dispatch
A list of most-linked newspapers
“Incremental news”

© 2008 Philip Barron.  Log in  Monitored by SiteUptime