AP Announces $2.50 Per Word Charge for Quoting its Stories; Blogger Suggests Counter-Offer

That's AP's plan, apparently, based on its decision that it is, unlike any other publisher, exempt from the "fair use" doctrine of copyright.

Here's my counter-offer:

I will limit the the words actually quoted from AP stories, limiting myself to paraphrase and direct quotes of relevant officials. (AP can't copyright someone else's words -- at best, they can pitch an unfair trade practices beef, but that's a harder case to make.)

Furthermore, I will no longer provide any links to any AP stories anywhere, and in fact may not even bother to mention the story comes from AP. I will cite instead a "news organization."

If AP wants a link, it can begin paying me $25.00 per link. I charge for advertising.

There's my counter-offer. It's not negotiable.

The AP's scheme resembles its previous "price schedule" for quoting its stories, which included this cute little nugget:

The AP claims that it can revoke the license at any time if it feels you're saying something negative about the Associated Press: "Publisher reserves the right to terminate this Agreement at any time if Publisher or its agents finds Your use of the licensed Content to be offensive and/or damaging to Publisher’s reputation."

The AP picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue if it thinks it can charge people or outright forbid them from critiquing their coverage.

Perhaps politicians should copyright their words and begin charging AP to quote them, and perhaps politicians can and should revoke the license if they find people are unduly criticizing them.

posted by Ace at 05:38 PM

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