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

My first suggestion

[deft]

Is to figure out if it's six or 7.... article says 7, summary says 6.

Re:My first suggestion

[deft]

In other news, I'll go ahead and try to figure out of it's 6 or six.

Re:My first suggestion

[wizardforce]

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.

six for blog entries plus one more making seven.

And in other news....

[Cutie Pi]

SourceForge, Inc. files 32,819 DMCA notices against its daughter site, Slashdot.org, for blatantly reproducing its own stories, such as this one.

Re:And in other news....

[Anonymous Coward]

SourceForge, Inc. files 32,819 DMCA notices against its daughter site, Slashdot.org, for blatantly reproducing its own stories, such as this [slashdot.org] one. You mean "SourceForge, Inc. files -51 DMCA notices against its daughter site, Slashdot.org, for blatantly reproducing its own stories, such as this [slashdot.org] one." ...

Slashdot Files 7 DMCA Takedowns Against Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

DMCA in this case refers to the Dupes Make Cmdrtaco Angry

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

Re:ho-hum

[lena_10326]

Prepare to see "fair-use" to be vindicated

Fair use still exists? K3wl.

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.

The AP Has Retracted Its Complaint

[Doc Ruby]

Under heavy criticism from people who actually know how the Internet works, the AP has retracted its DMCA complaints:

Last week, The A.P. took an unusually strict position against quotation of its work, sending a letter to the Drudge Retort asking it to remove seven items that contained quotations from A.P. articles ranging from 39 to 79 words.

On Saturday, The A.P. retreated. Jim Kennedy, vice president and strategy director of The A.P., said in an interview that the news organization had decided that its letter to the Drudge Retort was "heavy-handed" and that The A.P. was going to rethink its policies toward bloggers.

The quick about-face came, he said, because a number of well-known bloggers started criticizing its policy, claiming it would undercut the active discussion of the news that rages on sites, big and small, across the Internet [...]

But the AP still doesn't really get it (if it can get away with destroying it, where "it" is "fair use"):

Still, Mr. Kennedy said that the organization has not withdrawn its request that Drudge Retort remove the seven items. And he said that he still believes that it is more appropriate for blogs to use short summaries of A.P. articles rather than direct quotations, even short ones.

"Cutting and pasting a lot of content into a blog is not what we want to see," he said. "It is more consistent with the spirit of the Internet to link to content so people can read the whole thing in context."

Re:The AP Has Retracted Its Complaint

[michaelmalak]

"Cutting and pasting a lot of content into a blog is not what we want to see," he said. "It is more consistent with the spirit of the Internet to link to content so people can read the whole thing in context."

That would be fine if controversial news didn't disappear off websites.

I had several such examples on my underreported.com blog where I had to take screenshots because I knew it would soon get "disappeared" (or I just happened to still have it open in one of the 20 browser windows I had open and when surfing to the news item again to ponder it, it was "hey, wait a minute.") I certainly wasn't the only one who had to do it.

Re:The AP Has Retracted Its Complaint

[Doc Ruby]

Yes, IFRAMEs don't serve to let the publisher of the external content control the integrity of what they're "pointing to".

If HTTP included content signing that could at least let the publisher of the link help readers clicking it to see that the target content has changed. Eventually there will probably be a "distributed archiving" system that points at URIs, "content names", rather than URLs, which point at "content location", regardless of whether the content changes.

In the meantime, "fair use" quoting isn't just fair. It's more fair than the content publishers who bait & switch when their original content brings blowback pressure they don't like. AP has to get with the 20th Century laws if it's going to survive in the 21st Century. That's why it's trying to change the laws in the 21st Century, so it can drag us back to 19th Century yellow journalism that pays, but doesn't inform.

Re:The AP Has Retracted Its Complaint

[Big Jojo]

And he said that he still believes that it is more appropriate for blogs to use short summaries of A.P. articles rather than direct quotations, even short ones.

That would screw up searches based on those direct quotations. Example: AP article says mouthpiece spouts propaganda, someone covers that as The latest example is this from AP: mouthpiece spouts propaganda Notice how this directly conflicts with fact, fact, fact, but also directly contradicts what mouthpiece said last week and would, if true, break not just another promise made to the voters but laws L1, L2, and L3.

In fact, maybe that's part of the goal here ... making it harder to find criticism associated with so-called news, and harder for third-party fact checkers (or spin detectors) to be effective.

Re:The AP Has Retracted Its Complaint

[jc42]

That nytimes article started with a comment that (if true) has interesting implications:

The Associated Press ... said that it will, for the first time, attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without infringing on The A.P.'s copyright.

So the AP has decided that defining "fair use" and what is copyrightable isn't a question for Congress or the courts. The AP is going to decide for itself what can be copyrighted and what can't.

If this is true, I think I'll follow the same approach. I'm going to copyright the word "the", which I've used several times in this article. If I see an AP article using "the" without my permission, I'll send them a DMCA takedown notice. If they persist, I'll take them to court. Part of my evidence against them is their declaration that they have the right to decide the minimum that's copyrightable and they can enforce their definition. If they can decide that, then so can I.

Now I do realize that the nytimes could have misquoted them. Anyone know exactly what the AP actually said?

Of course, if you quote their exact statement here, they'll probably charge you with copyright violation. OTOH, if you merely provide a link to it, they'll change it after the fact, once they realize the import of what they said.

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

Re:It really doesn't matter....

[Anonymous Coward]

Drudge Report This is not the Drudge Report. This is the Drudge *Retort*, a website that typosquats the real Drudge Report URL.

This is simply an attempt to quash competition using the DMCA. A government tool provided for their friends to squash anyone that might dissent. This would never have happened if the Drudge "Retort" linked to the AP story like the real Drudge Report does.

(The rest of the comment, which panders to emotion and has no real substance or evidence) 'Nuff said.

Washington Post bans the AP

[sp332]

The Washington Post is boycotting the AP over this. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/16/AR2008061600340.html

Re:Washington Post bans the AP

[socsoc]

Although TechCrunch stories do appear on Washington Post, they are not the same and it's just content sharing. http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/080508/0395131.html

AP Stylebook

[Enderandrew]

Consult the AP stylebook.

Re:kdawson, dupe, again.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Is the search function really so hard to use?"

Yeah because Slashdot's search function is second only to Google.

DUPE

[Anonymous Coward]

AP Targets Blog Excerpts With DMCA Notices

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

Re:Yellow is better

[michaelmalak]

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.

No, that's pretty much it. The difference is the need to read blogs from opposite ends of the spectrum, rather than just trying to get all one's news from a single "newspaper of record" or one evening news show.

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

Good example. Because of blogs and chain e-mail, 1) the issue has been brought to the forefront, and 2) we can gather needed facts from those with an agenda to bring those facts to light (from each side) and then draw our own conclusions.

Re:I'll say it again.

[gnick]

...and a handful of good porn sites... [Citation needed]
Please?

Interesting quote from the AP

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the problems with the AP is that their whole business model isn't so different from providing an RSS feed these days. Fair use here may be an interesting case, because blogging might well cut down on their (obsolete) business model and because there's no limit to how little you can quote while being fair use. In fact, because this would seem to impact upon their business, the fair use case may be harder to make.

That said, they have an interesting way of justifying things. Pay attention to those last few lines:

Mr. Kennedy argued, however, that The Associated Press believes that in some cases, the essence of an article can be encapsulated in very few words.

"As content creators, we firmly believe that everything we create, from video footage all the way down to a structured headline, is creative content that has value," he said.

But he also said that the association hopes that it will not have to test this theory in court.

"We are not trying to sue bloggers," Mr. Kennedy said. "That would be the rough equivalent of suing grandma and the kids for stealing music. That is not what we are trying to do."

That's right. They're saying at least we're not as bad as the RIAA. Where's NYCL? :-)

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?

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?

It is not Fair Use:

[thtrgremlin]

TITLE 17 CHAPTER 1 Section 102 (b)
In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work. and...

International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918)
...
A news article in a newspaper may be copyrighted under the Act of March 4, 1909, but news, as such, is not copyrightable. P. 248 U. S. 234

As against the public, any special interest of the producer of uncopyrighted news matter is lost upon the first publication. Id. IANAL, but... isn't this, like, Journalism 101? It was their own damn case, AND THEY WON!!!

Re:It is not Fair Use:

[raehl]

"The news" and a particular presentation of the news are not the same thing. 30-80 words is enough to be a particular presentation.

Whether quoting that much is fair use or not is going to depend on a lot more than just the words quoted themselves. Is the quoting commercial? Done for rebuttal purposes? Source-cited? How much of the total work is the quote?

These are factors that may not be easy to clearly decide except at trial.

Disclaimer: I have not seen the 7 cases cited in this story, so for all I know they could be clearly fair use, clearly not, or up for debate.

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:what is the deal with "drudge retort"?

[Hal_Porter]

I think he's right. This Drudge Retort guy is clearly taking advantage of the Drudge Report's high alexa rating. And most of his original content is scrapped.

He can go on about parody, mashups and so on. But in the end it reminds me of Victor Lewis Smith's quip that "imitation is the sincerest form of being an unoriginal thieving bastard"

Re:The length of the quot e not important in absol

[shark72]

"as long as drudge is providing the info where they took the quote stuff from, i don't see how AP has a case in this. They provide a link to original story on AP its not stealing if you are giving the credit to the original writer in these cases."

There's a persistent meme on Slashdot that artists should be happy that their stuff is simply being shared and listened to. If they make even a peep about trying to make a living from their craft, they're branded as greedy businesspeople, not artists.

Looks like people are starting to think the same way about journalists, too. That's sad.

If the Drudge Retort fellow thinks that there's not much value to the AP articles which he excerpts, then great -- he can stop using them, and switch to a news service which is less profit-oriented and which allows free distribution of their content (provided he can find a suitable replacement). But if he thinks that using the AP source material is a benefit to his site and to its readers, he can license it, just like real news sites do.

He seems to be playing it down the middle -- the AP content is worth reproducing on his site, but not worth paying for.

Re:what is the deal with "drudge retort"?

[julesh]

The first time I wanted to visit this Drudge site I'd heard about, I punched in the obvious url and ended up at the "retort" instead. Isn't that some kind of copyright violation?

Err... no. Titles are not protected by copyright. URLs are not protected by copyright. Single words are not protected by copyright.

Re:Fair?

[Weedlekin]

Fair use is (1) a legal defence in a copyright violation case, not a right; so (b) whether a snippet counts as infringement is therefore up to a judge (and possibly a jury) rather than being a hard and fast rule.

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".

I've met Jim Kennedy

[Spinlock_1977]

I worked for the AP from 2001 thru 2004 as a software engineer. I met Jim Kennedy at that time, who recently said this:

"It is more consistent with the spirit of the Internet to link to content so people can read the whole thing in context."

Believe me, this guy doesn't know the tubey thing from a hole in the ground. To see him preach on the 'spirit of the Internet' is preposterous. He doesn't get it, his colleagues don't get it, and really, there are few left there to get it (trust me, most of the 'good' software engineers have long since fled the AP).

It's sad to say, but what used to be the world's voice of freedom has devolved into back-biting, politicking disaster with a hemorrhaging business model.