AP Harasses Own Member Over AP Youtube Videos

DrEldarion writes "The Associated Press, who has been acting very bipolar lately about Google News (they get paid by Google for their content, and then complain about Google 'stealing' that content), has another issue with not knowing what their association is up to: they set up a channel on Youtube, and then threatened an AP affiliate for embedding that content."

Comments

Car analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

You pay a parking license to go to someone's garage, and then get towed for parking in someone's garage!

Re:Car analogy

[rob1980]

Thank you, this discussion is now over. Everybody please exit the thread!

Re:Car analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine that you were trying to load a station wagon full of magnetic tapes into the library of congress. And a football field full of Volkswagon Beatles filled with hard disks races around you and charges you money for the privilege. Meanwhile, the hogshead of petrol that you bought a fortnight ago is running out while you wait.

Signing its own death warrant

[rolfwind]

None of these tactics will get people to buy more newspapers. I don't know what will, but I sure don't want Google to set a precedent for linking to asshats who can't be bothered to spend 3 minutes to edit their robots.txt if they hate it so much. But of course they won't do that. They don't want a solution, they just want money.

The problem is, as with organizations like the RIAA, once you pay them off, you just fund their lawyers to go after others who want to make use of fairuse. This is as big threat to a free internet as any national firewall or net neutrality.

Re:Signing its own death warrant

[the_arrow]

The problem is that AP doesn't want to stop Google from indexing them, they just want to be paid more.

Re:Signing its own death warrant

[lucas_picador]

The problem is that AP doesn't want to stop Google from indexing them, they just want to be paid more.

Exactly. Like I said in the AP story two days ago:

It's even more ridiculous and pathological than that: the AP is simultaneously whining about how aggregators link to their articles and also about how search engines DON'T link to their articles. This is typical schizophrenia from an industry that is in hysterical denial because the world has changed and their business model no longer works. They can't even articulate what they want; they just want to go back to the way things used to be, when Mommy used to play with them and feed them all day. Embarrassingly infantile.

A friend of mine tells stories about her little brother, who used to hate taking a bath as a little kid, alternating between "I'm freezing!" and "It's burning my skin off!" every few seconds as excuses to try to get out of the tub.

Re:Signing its own death warrant

[BitZtream]

Interestingly enough, its generally the exact opposite. Companies pay to be listed in the yellow pages. White page listings are typically part of the standard phone service.

Yellow pages on the other hand are for pay listings. Its amusing that newspapers are getting pissed off that someone is giving them for free what they used to pay for.

The only thing they really have to bitch about is the fact that every one else is listed right next to them so they have to compete with other papers rather than knowing the person reading the article is probably only looking at their newspaper as it used to be.

Re:Signing its own death warrant

[Alzheimers]

None of these tactics will get people to buy more newspapers. I don't know what will

E-Paper readers and wireless delivery. Once the tech gets cheap enough to make a Kindle-like device "Free With Subscription" then the news media will finally catch up with the rest of the world.

And the trees will sleep a little easier at night.

No future..

[aurispector]

I just can't see a future in these organizations suing the pants off of anyone and everyone in sight. It doesn't appear to do anyone any good, not even the rights-holders benefit in the end since they just turn themselves into litigation businesses. If this isn't a reason for far-reaching copyright reform, I don't know what is.

Re:No future..

[Anonymous Coward]

If this isn't a reason for far-reaching copyright reform, I don't know what is.

True but be careful what you wish for. There are some extremely rich vested interests who would like nothing more than to be given the chance to find additional revenue streams by legal manipulation.

That's a problem with ill-gotten gains in general - they give additional financial leverage to the very people you don't want to give it to.

Contrast that with how capitalism should work - people who are most productive accumulate resources that expands their influence.

Nothing more exciting than Big Org gets confused

[khakipuce]

It's bound to happen, set up a department to check web content and they will find your own content apparently copied. Tracing that back through to some original poster and then identifying that poster as legitimate or not is going to be difficult.

Anyone who has worked in a medium to large organisation will know how hard it is to find out what someone in the same building is doing, let alone some affiliate.

Re:Yeah, well...

[Norsefire]

Goddammit. You forget to log out for two minutes and jerkface co-workers are uploading AP owned media on your YouTube account and allowing embedding. Status = currently sending out cease and desist letters.

Have we learned nothing!?

[mc1138]

If the RIAA has taught us anything, no one likes strong arm tactics and poorly thought out legal maneuvering. Seriously, suing an affiliate? That will really help them turn around the economic slump by attracting a large customer base. Seriously, give me a break.

Re:Nothing more exciting than Big Org gets confuse

[Sockatume]

Tracing that back through to some original poster and then identifying that poster as legitimate or not is going to be difficult

You'd think that somewhere near the top of the list of "authorised users" would be "Our Own Goddamn YouTube channel". That part shouldn't have been difficult. That the group checking for infringement weren't aware of the legit YouTube channel, and didn't comprehend what embedding it meant, suggests that the group looking for infringements is on more of a "shoot first, don't ask questions" approach. We take it for granted that fair use is dead, but having a department seemingly set up to block all use is beyond a joke.

This can only be a good thing...

[castironpigeon]

Necessity is the mother of invention. There'd be no changing a broken system if crises like this didn't come up and stress it. I'm curious to see how much further this can go (in general, not just regarding AP) before some really big shit hits the fan.

AP calls for free money from Google

[David Gerard]

The Associated Press has asked the government to examine Google News and other content aggregators, claiming they contribute insufficiently to their income.

"The newspapers put their content up on the web for free and then Google, the freeloading bastards, tell people where to find it. We told them to pay up or stop using our stuff, and they said OK, they'd stop using our stuff!

"We need federal regulation to bring back balance, 'balance' defined as being able to make them give us money because we want it. You'd think the Internet wasn't invented to give news agencies and record companies free money!"

The press group argues that traffic from search engines doesn't make up the cost of producing the content. "Ad revenue has collapsed, so search engine traffic doesn't bring in enough views to pay for itself. Our inability to sell ads is clearly Google's problem."

The AP suggests the exploration of new models that "require fair acknowledgement of the value that our content creates, both on our own site through advertising and 'at the edges' in the world of search and aggregation. Basically, they should just give us money because we want it. And the music industry too. How about a bailout? Go on, gi's it."

Ominous

[agorist_apostle]

It worries me when the free flow of political and economic information is going to start becoming the newest IP/DRM battleground because people who produce information simply cannot wrap their minds around the idea that information is now cheaply and easily reproducible and their old business models are defunct. All sorts of de facto censorship could very easily occur now under the guide of "protecting their business," especially given the tight mingling of media companies, the government, banks, etc.

Re:Ominous

[je ne sais quoi]

Let's hope that these organizations all go bankrupt before that. I heard once that often in repressive situations, no reform or anything like that really happens until the progenitors are all removed from power and sometimes that only happens when they die of old age. So how long do we need to wait for people who grew up with the internet and free information to come into positions of power? I'm in my early 30s and I was surfing bbs' while growing up, so maybe another ten years or so, so when people like me are in their 40s?

Solution

[BitterAndDrunk]

Flash Gordian?
Flash - a-ah - saviour of the universe
Flash - a-ah - he'll save everyone of us

*ducks*