AP Says "Case Closed" - I Don't Think So

By Cernig

Kat passes on this in the WaPo today - the Associated press has released a statement saying it has come to an agreement with Rogers Cadenhead of Drudge Retort and now regards the recent uproar over its dubious definition of fair use as "closed". The full statement reads:

In response to questions about the use of Associated Press content on the Drudge Retort web site, the AP was able to provide additional information to the operator of the site, Rogers Cadenhead, on Thursday. That information was aimed at enabling Mr. Cadenhead to bring the contributed content on his site into conformance with the policy he earlier set for his contributors. Both parties consider the matter closed.

In addition, the AP has had a constructive exchange of views this week with a number of interested parties in the blogging community about the relationship between news providers and bloggers and that dialogue will continue. The resolution of this matter illustrates that the interests of bloggers can be served while still respecting the intellectual property rights of news providers.

Over at his personal blog, Rogers confirms that he's resolved his personal dispute but adds that his own agreement:

...does nothing to resolve the larger conflict between how AP interprets fair use and how thousands of people are sharing news on the web. You could probably guess that by the lack of detail in AP's statement...If AP's guidelines [due out on Monday - C] end up like the ones they shared with me, we're headed for a Napster-style battle on the issue of fair use.

...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. (Emphasis Mine - C]

In other words, this isn't over by a long chalk. Which means that Newshoggers, like many other larger and smaller blogs, will be keeping our boycott of AP in place. AP's clients will be missing our readers and those of many other blogs, who might have been sent to their sites by our links and thus have generated advertising revenue for them. AP will also have to contend with the PR challenge of such a continuing boycott. It's the only real leverage we've got against a company that wants one rule for itself and another rule for others.

Update: Mike Masnick at TechDirt:

for an organization claiming that it wants to be a part of the conversation (and some have noted that "conversations" rarely begin with a legal threat), never actually coming out and talking in public seems quite problematic. So far, the public communication from the AP has been (1) identical cut-and-pasted comments on a number of blogs, (2) a couple of quotes given to reporters, (3) possibly some private discussions with unnamed bloggers, and (4) a private meeting with a representative for the Drudge Retort. There wasn't a single attempt to have a public discussion. There's no explanation of the resulting "agreement" or how it might impact other bloggers who quote the AP. There isn't even a single indication from the AP that it recognizes why so many people are upset.

That's not a resolution. That's denial.

Update 2: Fester has an amusingly wicked idea to increase pressure on AP.