I’m not normally one to subscribe to conspiracy theories, but something is just plain rotten in this whole New York Times/Associated Press/Media Bloggers Association love fest.
As I wrote earlier today, the New York Times just won’t stop defending the Associated Press and their position that quoting from their articles is a copyright infringement (it isn’t). The NYTimes’ Saul Hansell has now written three blog posts and one feature article on the mess, all defending the A.P. None of those articles disclose the NYTimes’ partial ownership or board seat with the A.P.
In the first article, Hansell wrote that the A.P. was negotiating with the Media Bloggers Association to negotiate guidelines around use of A.P. content, even though copyright law already sets forth very clear guidelines on fair use. Any more restrictive measures wouldn’t be enforceable, but the A.P. has shown that it’s willing to use it’s army of lawyers to make life hell for anyone that tries. The easy way out is to simply pay the A.P. for quotations of more than four words.
Throughout Hansell’s posts there is a noticeable lack of criticism towards the A.P., or even recognition that this is a two sided issue. In his third post, this source left a comment basically retracting all the original material.
So that part of the story is still playing out, but this Media Bloggers Association keeps popping up in the conversation. Why did the A.P. choose them to represent bloggers? Why is the association’s Robert Cox spamming any blog (including ours) with factually incorrect pro-A.P. propaganda?
Why have I never heard of the Media Bloggers Association before last weekend? Why are they considered a representative body for bloggers, and why doesn’t the New York Times question that relationship?
The Media Bloggers Association has business ties to the A.P.. How can they possibly represent the interests of bloggers without prejudice?
Read Making Light for a more detailed investigation into this mess, as well as Mathew Ingram’s commentary. Jeff Jarvis continues to hold on to this story like a pitt bull (I nominate him to represent us bloggers, he’s clearly not a shill for the A.P.).
While an interesting post, Michael, I can’t help but feel these kind of posts are what crunchnotes is for? Yet that blog seems dormant…
So wait, first you want free music (laughable) and now you want free writing from the associated press.
Im pretty sure the AP is allowed to protect their copyrights. The economics of the current web simply don’t support a web 2.0 utopian view of content creation. Great content produced by a business requires real business models, not “put adsense next to it” business models. It simply does not, and cannot, pay enough to create the content.
RIAA – you just fundamentally don’t understand the issue. read some of the background material on this, then you’ll get it.
I dont know how far “fair use” can go
RIAA – it goes a hell of a lot farther than four words.
Michael, this is “old media” fighting back. Premiere blogs like yours are eating them for lunch.
Do as you do as though they don’t exist. Also don’t think for a minute they don’t take great joy from your frustration.
OK that clears up a lot
Ever since this incident everytime i see an AP logo on an article I immediately skim it. Kudos to you Michael for raising this issue to the level that it needs to be rasied to. And shame on anyone that supports AP’s line on this.
Whilst I agree that articles should be copyrightable it is not up to AP to dictate those laws, thats for an external governing body to draw those up.
AP if you want to lock down your code then make a private only area, put all your articles behind a login area and therefore no-one will link to it.. Problem solved!!!!!! You want the freedom of the internet but you don’t want to contribute to the freedom!!!
Mike, you ought to give credit to Shakespeare for your title quote.
Why do you even have to compare yourself to them?
You sound jealous or something?
“Why have I never heard of the Media Bloggers Association before last weekend? Why are they considered a representative body for bloggers, and why doesn’t the New York Times question that relationship?”
In case you haven’t figured this out yet, life isn’t fair. When I was in ITAC, I saw a bunch of things that govt of Canada did that were flat out wrong as far as special relationships.
There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s almost 10 PST, go to bed. I am.
Chris – there’s lots I can do about it
Bob Cox interview at ITconversations from 2005:
http://itc.conv.../detail547.html
“The big media companies have deep pockets to go after the small blogger. Bob tells the story about his battle with the New York Times that got recent national-media attention.”
By the way on an ironic note, this entire AP thing started out with a site that follows Matt Drudge, it turns out that Cox’s site follows Kieth Olbermann:
http://www.olbermannwatch.com/
The more they want to protect their turf, the less it worth. As far as I am concerned, I would never use AP or Reuters crap in my blog anyway. It is highly opinionated, inaccurate and full of hidden agendas. And when it comes to Bloggers Association, that sounds like oxymoron. In the words of Graucho Marx (not to be confused with Karl, who also was a clown) – “I would never want to belong to a club that would accept me as a member”.
Everybody ought to read Making Light’s excellent investigative article on the so-called “Media Bloggers Association” that claims to “represent” bloggers. The link is in Mike’s post.
NY Times and AP have huge corporate legal departments, and they did not vet this guy Robert Cox before hooking up with him? Wow. This is probably going to blow up on their face.
Mike,
Thanks for staying on this. CultureKitchen has an interesting chat exchange with Robert Cox, who by his picture looks to me to be not that typical of bloggers. Doing some digging.
http://culturek...uestions_about_
There’s a lot that can be done, but it mostly seems like you are moaning about the NY Times. Instead of banning the AP (even though I can’t recall many AP links or quotes ever appearing), why not quote the AP in a manner you deem fair and legal in EVERY story that their coverage and your coverage intersect. Become the test case. You are (were?) a lawyer. Hopefully, you have a lawyer. If you run out of money, Calacanis can pick up the bill.
Mike, Jeff, Om, and every other prominent blogger should raise their voices simply because of their wide distribution and ability to uphold principled opinion. In a democratic society, law is what governs the land, not institutions nor tradition. This isn’t about new v. old media…it’s about rights.
I don’t get it.
Doesn’t someone over there realize just how badly this is going to back-fire? Or are they stuck in in that mind-space that drivers are when they pass a horrible accident on the interstate?
To jog through this post’s links and land back on techcrunch automatically:
http://www.jogt...php?trackId=123
Lawyers have always told me that legally fair use is an available defense when you are accused of a copyright violation.
Is there a case not involving Luther Campbell dealing with fair use in commercial settings I have not read about?
“The question isn’t who is going to let me, it’s who is going to stop me”
-Ayn Rand
OK, this is circumstantial, but I think rather telling. Something about the photo of Robert Cox screamed out to me “Republican” – don’t ask me why, it just did. So I popped in a search into Google for “Robert Cox Republican.” One of the sites that came up was Olbermannwatch.com, a site that since 2004 has been posting items about MSNBC reporter and commentator Keith Olbermann, or, as one of its contributors puts it, “The infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann.” A Robert Cox contributes to this site.
I checked whois information for olbermannwatch.com and mediabloggers.org. They are hosted at the same ISP, Zubr Communications in Philadelphia, PA, with a c/o ownership pointing to Zubr. Certain styles of the two sites – for example, its way of indicating email addresses – is coded similarly also.
Question: since there is no indication of who is a member of MBA – they slam up against their own policies of not allowing anonymous bloggers by using an anonymous account for their own main blog – and since Robert Cox appears to be affiliated with a Web site with a particular political outlook, is there a possibility that the MBA is funded by interests which back certain political views?
Interesting question.
@21: That’s the kind of investigative research the AP just doesn’t do.
“So, Barzini will move against you first. He’ll set up a meeting with someone that you absolutely trust guaranteeing your safety and at that meeting you’ll be assassinated…”
“Listen, whoever comes to you with this Barzini meeting he’s the traitor. Don’t forget that…”
Michael-
I think you are missing the point here and your conspiracy theories are just a joke… almost like you have a chip on your shoulder.
I fully agree.. if you have high quality content… you can’t put ad words next to it and make a ton of money while sponging off of the work others do. I know that you haven’t thought that far… but its time that all those multi billion dollar sponge off companies start paying money. Guess why all the newspapers are reducing staff, why serious reporting is a thing of the past and everyone is just being fed the same old crap… because of people like you who don’t get that the media and journalism is a key aspect in this country which we have lost.
Or why would people support this president.. even vote him into a second term after lying, sending their sons back in body bags, hiding, cheating, torturing etc… why because the people who’d expose this and write about it are being laid off.
And people like you supporting this business model and probably more then once using it to your benefit are the reason for it. You built a fortune just on this same sponge-bob model. It’s time you give something back and the least you could do is throw some support back to the people who make it all possible.
I know you won’t agree to this.. if we want our country back we need journalism… professionals who are getting paid and not just their work being used by others….
Bingo.
Robert Cox also writes for “examiner.com,” an online site associated with the San Francisco Examiner, a newspaper which, as you know, has been through many changes. Cox is mentioned on the site as head of the Examiner’s board of bloggers. One item that Cox posted on the examiner.com site: “Commentary: New questions raised on Google, MoveOn.org relationship”
http://www.exam...lationship.html
The Examiner was purchased in 2004 by Philip Anschutz, mentioned in Forbes as the 31st richest person in America and according to his Wikipedia entry as a “supporter of conservative Christian causes.”
Mr. Cox and Mr. Anschutz are free to do what they want, of course, but I suppose the question to AP would have to be why they feel that Mr. Cox’s organization represents any broad set of interests.
This is some pretty amazing shit Michael.
Manufacturing the existence of something that just isn’t true, apparently makes it true and gives it credence. Just ask the swift boat vets. The tryst of complicity between the NYT, AP and MBA (snicker) is is beautifully dissected in the links above- there is no theory involved with this conspiracy. The whole thing is so blatantly disingenuous it makes me want to puke.
So much to jurnalistic (sic) integrity. The majority of blogging is regurgitation (sadly). Nonetheless; Fair Use and Attribution. Let’s see them fight that up to the Supreme Court.
Interesting you should find yourself outside the toblerone, now you know what its like for us outsiders of the TC – Twitter – Facebook – Google – Scoble – Valleywag – Techmeme – Digg love octagon. Clique’s come in all different shapes and sizes.
I asked a few folks and no one seems to have heard of the MBA. I suspect it’s just an astroturf organization.
mey, if oliver willis http://www.oliverwillis.com says the mba is legit, they are …. oliver has been blogging since before most of you went online
Just as I like to point out the pro-Microsoft and anti-yahoo posts by Arrington I would like to say good job for keeping on this. Maybe this time your ego will be of use.
Ivan – I’m not anti-yahoo. I’m anti-Yahoo’s senior execs.
I’m not pro-Microsoft, I’m pro-competition in the search space.
Mike, would it be possible to launch a legal defense fund for media bloggers? The idea of organizing the blogosphere brings to mind Winston Churchill’s comment about India being no more a unified nation than the equator, but there are certain issues that large sectors of the blogosphere could rally around and this is one of them. A legal defense fund set up to assist bloggers facing lawsuits related to freedom of speech and content-linking seems like a good next step, and one that will hasten some sort of resolution of the issue, whether by agreement or by litigation.
I went to Robert Cox’s web site Mediabloggers dot org, clicked on the “Membership” button, and got some interesting info.
It seems that he is trying to sell some kind of “media liability” insurance, and plans to use the “AP vs. Drudge Retort” case to illustrate the “need” for bloggers to buy insurance through him. The following is from his web site:
“Up until now, we have been quietly going about revamping the MBA with the centerpiece of those efforts being the first-ever media liability insurance product for bloggers. We will also offer an online training course on media law for bloggers; MBA applicants will have to answer questions about that course in order to be approved for membership and get access to the insurance program which will entitle them to a significant discount on the annual premium.
An important part of our mission is to educate bloggers on the reality that the risks facing a micro-publisher (blogger) or micro-broadcaster (podcaster, vlogger) is the same for any other publisher or broadcaster. We do not expect bloggers to become media lawyers but rather that they understand the questions they need to ask BEFORE publishing and then give them access to people who can help them get answers.
A major benefit of our requiring media law training for our members is that Media Pro Insurance, a leading provider of media liability coverage to newspapers, TV networks, film companies and others, was willing to create a special insurance program to offer our members a significant discount off this type of insurance, making it affordable for many bloggers who need this type of insurance (as the AP-Drudge Retort case clearly shows) but could not otherwise obtain it. We will be providing details about this program in July…”
Mike,
Why are you calling Robert Cox’ comments on your previous post spam?
You have lots of other folks who comment far more frequently on any given post. His comments seemed to be relevant to the discussion.
You should talk to the guy and get his side of the story. I think you just might end up agreeing with what he is trying to do.
Greg is right. You should all read Oliver Willis post he links to. the MBA has both conservatives and progressives and non political bloggers. The one thing they all have in common is they don’t like being sued by big media.
here is a small excerpt from that post:
“A lot of noise is being made about the Media Bloggers Association and their role in the AP cease and desist story. Most of it is uninformed. I’ve been a member since the thing began. It’s not a sham. It’s got members from the left and right. Robert Cox is a conservative, I don’t agree with him on anything, but he’s a stand up guy who has been a great advocate for collectively getting blogs access to things.”
Again read the whole thing.
I have had several long discussions with Robert over the last couple of months and while I don’t know him well enough to say with certainly he is on the side of the angels on this it seems that way to me.
His first goal as he has told me is to keep this particular blogger from being sued right now.
It is all fine and dandy to talk about theory and how we all have rights to fair use and how there is no way the AP’s case will stand up in court, but if you are the blogger on the receiving end of a lawsuit and you don’t have insurance to cover you against such claims (and none of us do because that kind of insurance does not exist) Then it is still going to cost you thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend yourself. That is if you win.
Many bloggers have lost. I’m not arguing the specifics of this case. I’m no attorney. But if it was me getting threatened with a lawsuit I would sure appreciate someone stepping in and helping me out Pro-bono. Which is exactly what the MBA has done for numerous bloggers since 2004.
I don’t think they are claiming to represent or negotiate on the blogosphere’s behalf. They are just trying to help this one guy. Just like many other aspects of this story the NYT has their facts wrong.
I am not a member of the MBA I am just relaying what I have been told by Bob Cox and other members of the MBA and posts I have read like the one from Oliver above.
Once again Arrington/Techcrunch makes a grand pronouncement about something without the benefit of any actual knowledge. Please, quit it.
http://www.oliv...d-the-ap-story/
Why drag Denmark into this?
At least get the quote right…
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”
Greets. This is not a note to agree or disagree with you, but to ask you to follow your own advice to “RIAA” and think a little more deeply about Fair Use and how it applies to the Drudge Retort.
A few words _ notably the first paragraph _ of an AP story very often contains its essence. Copying the essence of a copyrighted work is not covered by Fair Use.
Of course nobody owns the reality that underlies a news story _ but nothing is stopping news organizations or big time blogs from verifying an AP story independently.
AP doesn’t (in my opinion) have any interest in going after small-time users. I don’t know where the line should be drawn, but surely big-time, for-profit plagiarism is hard to defend?
Are you aware that Google News initially took your position in several nearly identical cases and later reversed itself and decided to pay the AP? Perhaps it was a question of not being evil.
Look at the points “Jimbo” raises.
Food for though, anyhow.
Full disclosure: I am an AP reporter, but my views here are my own and in no way whatsoever can I or do I speak for my organization.
Anonymous Source: the test for fair use under US law does not involve your notion of “essence”. According to case law, it involves considering four factors, none of which favor the AP. Google licensed AP content because it was cheap gesture to earn the trust of certain publishers and further Adsense’s expansion. Why does nearly every publisher on earth (AP and AFP excluded) want Google to quote the as much as possible for “free”? Perhaps it’s a question of AP being…evil.
Liza Sabater of Culture Kitchen clears up this whole Media Bloggers Association thing here.
Oliver – I’m basing my position on quotes from the New York Times article. If they are incorrect, we have an even bigger problem on our hands. Besides the ad hominem attack, do you have anything to add to the conversation? Even your blog post just distills down to “I’m on the MBAs side.”
Still trying to figure out what’s up with the Media Bloggers Association. Who are the members given that membership is not even open yet?
@Anonymous Quoter: You are mighty confident of yourself.
Four conditions of fair use:
1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
Drudge Retort quotation is commercial, and purely derivative. Favors AP.
2. the nature of the copyrighted work
News has a public interest, which generally means citing it favors Drudge. However, while AP doesn’t own facts, it owns its own report on them. Favors AP.
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;
As I said, the lede of an AP story is usually the essence. Favors AP.
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
Hard to resell news when it’s being used free. Favors AP.
Again, I don’t claim to know everything but I think y’all are being a little too facile in dismissing the idea that AP might have some legitimate say over how its news gets used.
PS AQ: you should reread your irony-rich remarks about Google and the AP when you’re calm.
If the AP keep pushing stories like this one (climate change causes earthquakes) then who’d want their content anyway?
Good piece, thanks for keeping it alive.
Who the hell are Media Bloggers Association?
That’s like saying you represent the Internet. These slimy con-men will jump on anything to make a quick buck.
Michael,
Oliver and I have been blogging far longer than you and that’s why we know what the MBA is all about.
Dan Gillmore, Jay Rosen, Oliver Willis, Rebecca McKinnon, Micah Sifry, Jeff Jarvis : they’re some of the people who off the top of my head I remember as founding members of the organization.
As someone who was involved in one of the first copyright infringement cases brought against a creative online (this dates back to 1997), I have found no organization as willing to take on pro-bono work with bloggers as the MBA has BECAUSE THAT’S FOR WHAT THEY WERE CREATED.
Not even the EFF, btw.
So until someone else is willing to step up to the bat and deal with the legal issues that plague bloggers, the MBA is all we’ve got.
/ liza
Liza Sabater, Publisher
http://culturekitchen.com
This blog seems dormant… Bingo
…And Michael’s been blogging far more successfully than you, and has probably received more c-and-d’s in the last year than you’ve received in a decade.
See how that works? We can put that argument to rest now.
The fact is that Cox has indeed seemed to come down squarely on AP’s side, and apparently has some sort of business relationship with them. AND he’s apparently materialized out of nowhere in what looks like an attempt to set standards, when many of the largest and most successful blogs have never heard of him.
The MBA has never thought or claimed or said or even imagined that we “speak for all bloggers”. Much of the news reporting on this case is wrong. I’ve addressed that in my post.
What seems to have escaped people here is that I have funded the MBA out of my own pocket since it was founded in 2004 and I am not rich. Most of what I am able to get down is through networking, asking people to help out, especially lawyers, in particular Ron Coleman who has given his help for free to many, many bloggers including at least two on this thread.
I don’t have the money to have a nice web site or run a fancy PR machine or any of that. I do my best to meet people, make myself available to help with problems as they come up and be of service. I’ve been doing that for four years. My motivation is simple – I was one of the first bloggers ever to have legal action brought against me – by The New York Times.
Yes, I lean to the right politically but I am not a hard core right winger. I have plenty of friends on the left. Every event I’ve ever worked on whether it was getting bloggers into the Scooter Libby Trial, organizing the BlogNashville conference in 2005, managing credentialing for presidential debates or putting together a group of bloggers for Newsweek (The Ruckus) has always been about getting people all points of view together.
Is being multi-partisan only OK if you are coming at it from the left?
Apparently for some.
I will happy to answer questions here.
Let me start wit this one from Joe: “what’s up with the Media Bloggers Association. Who are the members given that membership is not even open yet?”
The idea for the MBA came out of my own experience with the NY Times and then attending BloggerCon II at Berkman. The enthusiasm for blogging was exciting but based on my experience tempered by being sensitized to the downside of blogging, that deep–pocketed litigants could use the threat of legal action or actual legal action to try to suppress speech they did not like. In my case bloggers from all sides of the aisle defended me and helped back the Times down off their threats. I wanted to formalize that with a network of bloggers that would be on call to do that again if and when it was needed. So the original idea for the MBA was like a mutual defense pact. Most of the founding members were people I came to know through the BloggerCons – people like Jeff Jarvis, Jay Rosen, Rebecca MacKinnon, Dan Gillmore and others.
A side note here – for those who claim that bloggers don’t need liability insurance you might want to consider some facts: The Citizen Media Defense Project has over 500 cases in their database. The Media Law Resource Center has tracked about $18mm in JUDGEMENTS against bloggers. I can also tell you that growth in lawsuits is the classic hockey stick. In 2004 there were just a few but it has been doubling each year since.
Foreseeing this expansion of litigation and threaten litigation against bloggers – and realizing there were only some many times we could “cry wolf” to raise attention in a case and so many lawyers I could convince to take a case or help a blogger pro bono – I went searching for an insurance company that would be willing to develop a media liability product specifically for bloggers. In 2006, Jeff Jarvis introduced me to execs of Media Pro insurance, leaders in the field, insuring many large newspapers, broadcast companies, film companies, etc. Since then we’ve worked on developing a product and two weeks ago, in advance of the Media Reform Conference in Minneapolis, we unwrapped our work and showed it to about 100 bloggers to get preliminary feedback. That feedback is being processed by the insurance company to finalize the underwriting guidelines. Their insurance portal for purchasing media liability insurance goes live in July and over the next few weeks we will then role out a new membership application process. That process includes a 45 minute online training course on media law which we are developing with the Poynter Institute’s News University, a Knight-funded education project, Media Pro insurance and Harvard Law’s Citizen Media Defense Project. I’ve also asked for help from folks like EFF, ONA and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and they’ve agreed to help.
Last week I got a call from Rogers just as like I have gotten calls many, many times before – over 400 calls and emails since 2004. We offered to help him with legal counsel and to try to open direct dialog with the plaintiff to see if we could resolve the matter without going to court (as we always do). At the time, there was no hysteria about this matter and no “agenda” other than doing what we have done over the years – try to quietly resolve disputes like this. I’ve described where things went before in what Michael calls my “comment spam” post.
This notion that we are “in bed” with AP is kinda dumb considering that our approach to AP was as the people who were prepared (and still are) to file the counter claim against AP in the event we could not work things out. The meeting today that I asked for last week was to get to resolution on Rogers case and that remains so this morning. I hope it will not be necessary to file a counter claim and based on my discussions with Jim Kennedy I believe we will get to a positive outcome at the end of this process. That this is not happening instantaneously is another matter. Some times these things take a little time.