The left blogosphere has a useful concept called “zombie lies“—information that’s false and been debunked but continues to pop up as if it were the gospel truth.
So it is with the meme that the Associated Press wants you to pay $12.50 to quote five words of any of its stories online. It just won’t die, despite being beyond dumb—not to mention false.
Woot, which Amazon just bought for $110 million, brings it up again in a jokey post calling for $17.50 from the AP for quoting its blog, and the BS is making the rounds of the usual suspects—TechCrunch, techdirt, Newser, etc.—for what must be the tenth time.
So let me put it as clearly as I can: The AP doesn’t charge bloggers to quote small excerpts of its stories, nor will it sue us for linking to them.
While you can excuse Woot for making this cheap mistake, there’s less reason for folks like techdirt and TechCrunch, and even less for PaidContent .
Here’s Woot:
The AP, we can’t thank you enough for looking our way. You see, when we showed off our good news on Wednesday afternoon, we expected we’d get a little bit of attention. But when we found your little newsy thing you do, we couldn’t help but notice something important. And that something is this: you printed our web content in your article! The web content that came from our blog! Why, isn’t that the very thing you’ve previously told nu-media bloggers they’re not supposed to do?
So, The AP, here we are. Just to be fair about this, we’ve used your very own pricing scheme to calculate how much you owe us. By looking through the link above, and comparing your post with our original letter, we’ve figured you owe us roughly $17.50 for the content you borrowed from our blog post, which, by the way, we worked very very hard to create. But, hey. We’re all friends here. And invoicing is such a hassle in today’s paperless society, are we right? How about this: instead of cutting us a check for the web content you liberated from our site, all you’ll need to do is show us your email receipt from today’s two pack of Sennheiser MX400 In-Ear Headphones, and we’ll call it even.
There’s a form online where you can license AP content. Who needs a license? Somebody who wants to use them for things like reprints, which media organizations have long charged for. In other words, if you’re a small business mentioned favorably in an AP story and you want to feature that quote on your website or in your newsletter, you have to pay for a reprint license. That’s nothing new, and the AP has made it explicit that the licensing service “is not aimed at bloggers”:
The iCopyright form that enables users to license AP content online is drawing new attention this week.
It is an automated form, thus explaining how one blogger got it to charge him for the words of a former president.
As the AP stated more than a year ago, the form is not aimed at bloggers. It is intended to make it easy for people who want to license AP content to do so.
So this from TechCrunch is just embarrassing:
According to the AP’s own ridiculous rules for using quotations, Woot figures that the AP owes them $17.50.
The AP has been banned on TechCrunch for two years now because of this ridiculous rule. In fact, we’re breaking our own rule here by acknowledging they even exist. But this is too good to pass up — and it’s actually similar to something we did a couple years ago, trying to charge the AP $12.50 for their usage of quotes from us. To my knowledge, we’re still waiting for that check.
Please, TechCrunch, let us know if the AP has ever tried to bill you or any other blogger by the word.
It’s long past time for this zombie lie to bite it.
The zombie lie would die a lot more if those forms that the AP puts at the bottom of its content made it clear that bloggers needn't license their content, in the way the forms imply.
Do the clickthrough. Here's an AP story:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_AMAZON_WOOT?SITE=OHALL2&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
At the bottom is a link that saying "click here for copyright permissions." If you're a blogger who is wondering about doing the right thing by the AP, and uncertain, you might click on that. In turn, you get this:
http://license.icopyright.net/rights/tag.act?tag=3.5721%253ficx_id=D9GLS8GO0
That page has a section saying: "Post all or part of this article on a web site, intranet or blog." Click on that, and you get this page:
http://license.icopyright.net/rights/postServiceGroup.act?inprocess=t&tag=3.5721%253Ficx_id%253DD9GLS8GO0
In turn, that page has a button saying "Embed an excerpt of this article on your web site, intranet or blog" with a cost ranging from $17.50 upward.
Embed on your blog. But the AP supposedly doesn't charge bloggers. So which is it?
The answer is that after I and many others wrote about this form over a year ago, the AP eventually issued that short press release that isn't associated with the form at all. The AP made no changes to the form, which very much gives the impression their charging.
Sure, TechCrunch and PaidContent may know better. But so does the AP, which has failed to change the form that caused the outcry in the first place. So when it come back to bite them again, I think the blame is more with the AP.
#1 Posted by Danny Sullivan, CJR on Tue 6 Jul 2010 at 08:38 PM
Indeed. Danny's point is the key point. Sure the AP says it won't charge, but it has threatened bloggers with lawsuits, and it hasn't changed the iCopyright form. The reason that we keep pointing it out is to highlight the blatant hypocrisy of the AP's position.
#2 Posted by Mike Masnick, CJR on Tue 6 Jul 2010 at 09:24 PM
Perhaps the "zombie lie" would die a lot quicker if it had not actually been a reality that's being conveniently overlooked here.
Remember this?:
It's not so far-fetched as CJR wants to make it out to be. Yes, AP appears to have changed its policy since then, but writing a story as if it's something completely out of left field is bogus. And Tech Crunch is poking fun at AP's previous real stance.
#3 Posted by Susan Gardner, CJR on Tue 6 Jul 2010 at 10:43 PM
It is not at all clear that AP has changed their stance on this, and they still have not changed their stance on attribution when they remove the original reporter's byline from AP stories. The AP style book, which discourages proper citation and attribution, is a bigger problem for twenty first century journalism than bloggers posting quotes from AP stories with links.
Clearly Woot intended this as humor. And the thousands of people who commit their time and earn money from blogging take it seriously, which they should. The AP is an organization whose useful existence has passed. It now exists solely as a protection racket for large corporate interests, publishing press releases as reporting and stealing content from others while bulling those who seek to challenge those corporate interests.
#4 Posted by timothywmurray, CJR on Wed 7 Jul 2010 at 09:49 AM
Thanks for the comments Danny et al. I'll have more later, but for now the point is: Is it true that the AP charges bloggers to quote it?
No, it isn't.
#5 Posted by Ryan Chittum, CJR on Wed 7 Jul 2010 at 10:59 AM
um...
"but for now the point is: Is it true that the AP charges bloggers to quote it?"
it's not clear what AP would do, is it. you have a quote above of a blogger getting hassled. DMCA hasn't changed, what makes you think they can't/won't decide to invoke it again whenever they feel it suits their needs? sometimes those DMCA takedowns are just a dog show for future litigation.
but for now the point is: does the AP have anyone's interests in mind other than their own? no, they don't, and they don't like blogs.
#6 Posted by c'mon now, CJR on Wed 7 Jul 2010 at 03:11 PM
It's pretty clear from the facts available that the AP policy is at the very least inconclusive with regards to what can and can't be done. I think it's quite reasonable that people understand the inspiration/intent of the Woot tongue-in-cheek letter along with TechCrunch's coverage of this.
"You'll have more later"? Seems to me you shouldn't gone to press with this article until you did. As it stands, your article is incomplete and leans towards an incorrect conclusion.
#7 Posted by Mason Foley, CJR on Wed 7 Jul 2010 at 05:22 PM
again, the operative quesition: has anyone ever been sued or been charged a fee by AP for quoting a small number of words -- 5, 10, 25 words -- from an AP story?
if there is any evidence that this has happened, please bring it forward. otherwise, admit that ryan is right when he says "AP doesn’t charge bloggers to quote small excerpts of its stories, nor will it sue us for linking to them."
there may be legitimate concerns about AP's copyright policies, but defending something for which there is no factual backup doesn't help illuminate the debate
#8 Posted by mwh, CJR on Wed 7 Jul 2010 at 06:01 PM
"Is it true that the AP charges bloggers to quote it? No, it isn't."
It is true that if a blogger wants to quote an AP story, AP actively encourages the blogger to buy a license.
It is true that AP filed DMCA takedowns on blog posts on my site quoting as few as 33 words from an AP story.
It is true that AP never told me it would be legal for bloggers to quote short excerpts of its stories when linking to them.
It is true that AP promised the New York Times two years ago it was going to produce fair use guidelines for bloggers and broke that promise.
No, AP does not aggressively go after bloggers who quote its stories. But it still maintains the position that it is owed money for short quoting of its headlines and leads.
#9 Posted by Rogers Cadenhead, CJR on Wed 7 Jul 2010 at 07:39 PM
Hi, Rogers,
I sent an email via your personal site trying to follow up on this thing. Get back at me if you would.
thanks,
r
#10 Posted by Ryan Chittum, CJR on Thu 8 Jul 2010 at 12:43 AM