AP Files 7 DMCA Takedowns Against Drudge Retort

mytrip points out a blog posting by Rogers Cadenhead, author of the Drudge Retort blog, who says: "I'm currently engaged in a legal disagreement with the Associated Press, which claims that Drudge Retort users linking to its stories are violating its copyright and committing 'hot news' misappropriation under New York state law." An AP attorney filed six Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown requests this week demanding the removal of blog entries and another for a user comment. The AP material they object to consists of snippets of from 33 to 79 words. Cadenhead claims his lawyer believes that all fall squarely within the province of fair use.

Comments

kdawson, dupe, again.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/13/2228232

Is the search function really so hard to use?

Re:I'll say it again.

[zblack_eagle]

Some of the DMCA takedowns are user comments on posts that quote other articles. I'm pretty sure that I'm not attempting journalism by posting this comment on slashdot

The length of the quot e not important in absolute

[aepervius]

All will agree that this is fair use if drudge retort quote 79 words out of 790. But this is less defensible if the quote is 79 words out of say, 91.

It really doesn't matter....

[zappepcs]

IMO, the fact that they could do so is evidence, and damn strong evidence that the system is broken. Not broken a little bit, but completely broken.

The story as it goes is stupid. It would not happen if the Drudge Report was a high school newspaper. This is simply an attempt to quash competition using the DMCA. A government tool provided for their friends to squash anyone that might dissent. Canadians? Listen up... this kind of thing is on it's way to you.

Yes, perhaps this is not about dissent, but the unintended consequences of the law are showing through, and it clearly shows that the law is not in the best interests of the public. It is a bad law. It is being used in this case to stop the freedom of thought and speech.

Seriously, I hope that this whole mess costs them millions in the end. It is not only despicable, it is against all that is good in humanity. Sure, that sounds like a rant, but WE have to start pushing back now, not later when there is no room to do so. Please everyone stop supporting the AP in any way shape or form. They need to just go the way of buggy whip makers.

No, this is not some plea to get you to support the latest l337 cause. This is a plea to get you to support your constitutional rights. Those of you reading this that are not Americans can also help. Make this company fail. The Brits know that what America does, Britain does at twice the speed and volume (more or less) so it is not an issue for a single country. We all need to speak out about what is wrong, always, as a single voice, whether it is Darfur, London, Washington, or Lisbon etc.

Please

Yellow is better

[michaelmalak]

In case you haven't noticed, we're better informed now in the 21st century thanks to yellow blogs. It's the 20th century supposedly unbiased news sources that kept us dumbed down -- the populace places too much trust in the mass media and consequently the mass media has become a puppet of the power elite.

The so-called "neutral point of view" came out of the Progressive Era, and like so many things of that era sold as a way to help the little guy, ended up being an instrument of The Man. Give me bias -- explicitly stated bias -- any day. It's a lot easier to understand that way.

Re:Yellow is better

[TubeSteak]

In case you haven't noticed, we're better informed now in the 21st century thanks to yellow blogs. Better informed. Heh.

Yellow journalism is a pejorative reference to journalism that features sex scandals, scandal-mongering, sensationalism, or other unethical or unprofessional practices by news media organizations or journalists. It has been loosely defined as "not quite libel". If you think the blogging version of ^that^ has produced a more informed populace...
Then you must be using a different definition.

I don't disagree with the premise that blogs have allowed for more information (some of it even manages to be factual)
But don't forget that a wide swath of blogs are just echo chambers for misinformation.

Example: Barack Obama is a muslim
As of this posting, about half on the front page say he is and half say he isn't

No it's not.

[raehl]

It's only evidence of such if it actually causes non-infringing content to be removed.

And even then, the evidence is only anecdotal. If 7 non-infringing items get removed from the internet and 3,000,000 infringing items get removed from the internet without anybody having to go to court, that's a system that, on the whole, works pretty well. Or if the system allows service providers to let their users post whatever content they want unfiltered and at low prices because the service providers don't have to worry about being sued by content holders, that's also a system that, on the whole, works pretty well.

To have evidence that the system is fundamentally broken, one would have to know how often the DMCA is used to remove legitimate content and the cost of processing DMCA requests, and compare that to how much illegitimate content would be hard to remove and the costs of exposing service providers to liability for it - and then compare that cost/benefit to the cost/benefit of other possible ways of handling copyright infringement on the internet.

Of course, that would involve some actual research and critical thinking.

Erm, I mean, DAMN THE MAN!

Re:Interesting quote from the AP

[Maxmin]

One of the problems with the AP is that their whole business model isn't so different from providing an RSS feed these days.

An RSS feed delivers summaries of news stories. To create those stories, somebody was paid to go out (outside - you know, leave the computer and keyboard behind?) and gather news and photos. That's qualitatively different than delivering an XML feed, wouldn't you say?

blogging might well cut down on their (obsolete) business model

The blogosphere is largely an echo chamber, with no voice (i.e. reportage) of its own. No voice, no echo, no blogosphere... get it? Original news reporting happens outside that sphere, then it gets repeated, via RSS feeds, copy-n-paste etc., within it.

Without actual news stories to quote and make fair-use copies from, bloggers would be left to writing about taking their dog to the vet, or how the baby barfed on grandma's shoes, or whatever.

I mean, look at /. - with no stories to link to, we'd all be talking about Linus's latest kernel module, now wouldn't we?

You have to love the Irony

[LifesABeach]

The irony of this is that it is a news agency ignoring the First Amendment rights of others telling "the news of the news".

Re:Interesting quote from the AP

[colganc]

Without normal news stories and the AP, the blogosphere will place a greater value on bloggers doing original reporting leading to a greater number of bloggers doing original reporting.

Re:Interesting quote from the AP

[Lodragandraoidh]

One of the problems with the AP is that their whole business model isn't so different from providing an RSS feed these days. You hit the nail squarely on the head. This is yet another example of a pre-internet business model running aground on the new technology.

AP could do some really cool things to get a better return on their investment - but that would take creativity and effort, which is usually in short supply in an entrenched corporate bureaucracy. Much easier to release the lawyers to drive the 'competition' out of business.

We are in the midst of a sea-change. When are the suits going to get it?