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AP Will Sell You a "License" To Words It Doesn't Own
James Grimmelmann performed an experiment using the AP's form to request a license to use more than four consecutive words from one of their articles. Except that he didn't paste in words from the (randomly chosen) article, but instead used 26 words written by Thomas Jefferson 196 years ago: If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea. The AP cheerfully charged him $12 to use Jefferson's 26 words. Both Boing Boing and TechDirt have picked up the story so far. Grimmelmann adds an update to his blog: the AP has rescinded his license to Jefferson's words and issued a refund for his $12. They did not exhibit the grace to admit that their software is brain-dead.
And so we see yet another terminally-ill industry smothering itself with a pillow.
Should be changed to "$.46-a-word" press.
DISCLAIMER: I am very rarely serious. If the above comment seems asinine makes no sense, it is most likely a bad joke.
I'm afraid Mr. Grimmelman has a severe English comprehension deficiency. The instructions are a single sentence, clear as day. It says paste the article text you want to use. Not " paste whatever you like, and if our javascript form counts the words for you then consider it assertion of copyright by us.".
I've known folks whose workplaces used to pay Sun a license fee for Perl ... the same Perl you could download for free (as in beer); and yes, the same Perl that is one of the usual examples of successful free (as in speech) software.
No, they didn't get tech support. They didn't get to file bugs against Perl that would be resolved by a Sun engineer. They didn't even get a custom build of Perl optimized for their Sun hardware. They didn't even get a CD. What they got was an invoice ... precisely what their company's IT procurement process required.
It's idiotic, but there is in fact a market for nothing: if you are correctly positioned as a trusted supplier, there are cases when you can get paid for delivering no product at all, but merely for carrying out the ritual of delivering a product, with all the paperwork thereunto appertaining.
The Associated Press collects articles from reporters all over the world. I doubt those reporters submit articles royalty-free. How does the AP tie licensed text back to the article it applies to? Clearly they don't bother.
Good point. And they did refund the money. I guess the flaw is assuming that the user wants to play by the rules, and I suppose we'd be complaining even at the unnecessary restrictions to account for the users who do not. We can make any machine look stupid when we misuse it.
The beef here I think is that they have the 'audacity' to sell the license... but now that I think about it, it's still a much better system than trying to contact a real person and deal with it. Still, I don't think it should be too hard to have a JavaScript check to see if the words come from the actual article. At the very least that might help prevent people from accidentally misquoting it if they are silly and type by hand or copy the wrong article or whatever.
DISCLAIMER: I am very rarely serious. If the above comment seems asinine makes no sense, it is most likely a bad joke.
I'm writing a computer program that will figure out every word combination that can possibly be used to form a sentence, and then copyrighting the output. When someone writes something somewhere, I'll sue them for copyright infringement.
Don't even think about stealing this idea. I have it patent pending on it!
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
At least using "free as in beer" stays free as in beer.
My webcomic
But I think his point was to ridicule the ridiculous assumption from AP that they should be able to restrict access to and license on a per-word basis any text "more than four consecutive words" in the first place. The Jefferson quote helps him make the point. The fact that the software is basically just a word counter adds a level of lol, but I don't think that was the main point of this experiment.
What if the AP sells you a license for text copyrighted by Reuters or any of the other wire services? Woah, man!
We can make any machine look stupid when we misuse it.
Rule #1: Never trust user input.
Still, I don't think it should be too hard to have a JavaScript check to see if the words come from the actual article.
LOL @ Javascript
They need a database of every AP article ever published.
Then they can either hash the pasted text & try to find
the source or they can require you to provide a citation.
Either way, you don't want to do that client-side with javascript.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
It's idiotic, but there is in fact a market for nothing: if you are correctly positioned as a trusted supplier
Finally! An explanation for the RIAA/MPAA and other association's sense of entitlement that we can all understand!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Why would you put words they don't own into their licensing software? Is it malice or stupidity on your part?
Why bother
He *offered* to pay them for words they don't own and they accepted his money since the mechanism for doing so does not check ownership. It's simply a word count. AP did not seek him out to collect charges. That is a big difference. In fact, that difference to me is why it's a non-story. Basically the AP is charging on a "per word" basis. So all they need to do count words. That someone decided to pay the AP for a worthless license and the AP decided to issue a worthless license doesn't mean anything. No laws were broken. No trust broken. No rights violated. The person did this with intent to gain a worthless license even. He got what he paid for.
I see nothing wrong with what AP did here. This is like complaining that Comcast will let you pay your cable bill even if you don't watch any TV. Yeah, they will. So?
Why the heck is this modded troll? 'troll' != 'i disagree with this person'.
The parent raises a valid point. If you are stupid enough to offer me money for a copy of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, Thomas Jefferson's or William Shakespeare's writings or anything else in the public domain, why shouldn't I accept your money? The AP's software may be brain dead but to say that this represents an industry "smothering itself with a pillow" rather misses the point.
I would also add that of those cheering the downfall of the AP aren't likely to be too happy with the eventual consequences. The blogosphere may do a fair job of covering Washington (although most of it so slanted to one side or another as to make Fox News look fair and balanced) but the coverage of local issues and politics is sadly lacking.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
What if Jefferson's quote had been used in the article?
I think that was the whole point to the exercise...missed by some above. The content provider trying to extort people into paying license fees they may not need. This exercise demonstrates that the content provider in question can't positively identify their own material or material that they can't legitimately claim as intellectual property. They can't conclusively back up the need for anyone to license a particular piece. They're ignoring the context, intended use and trying to rewrite fair use by their own definition.
This exercise exposes that it's a scam, an online shake down. I think it actually works against their IP claims.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Actually, I think virtually all book publishers only give money up front as an "advance against royalties." Often the figure is based on an estimate of how many copies will actually sell. If you write a computer book, for example, you'll probably never see much in the way of royalties beyond the original advance, because the publisher will be able to predict the market for your book and compensate you appropriately. I've heard of few instances where modern book publishers pay by the word. Magazine publishers, on the other hand, often do -- but then, the lengths of magazine articles are usually dictated by the magazine's editors.
Breakfast served all day!
And the premise that the copyright owner should be able to charge on a per-word basis
Stop.
A copyright holder can charge on any basis they damn well want. Either you have a valid fair use case, and can ignore them, or you don't, and have ZERO RIGHT to use their work without tehir say-so.
That's true. Jefferson's 1813 letter to Isaac McPherson concerned itself with inventions and patents, which had been an area of special interest to Jefferson as he was 1) an inventor; 2) Secretary of State during a period where he had responsibility for reviewing patent applications and issuing patents; 3) opposed to monopolies as a general rule.
However, it is widely recognized that Jefferson's argument, which is made at a very high level, is perfectly applicable to copyrights. After all, copyrights and patents are more closely related to one another than to, say, trademarks, or anything else, and at that high of a level, the underlying logic is basically the same.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Is it 5 words in a row or do I get charged for any 5 words I pull from the article? If so I would like to grab words "a, the, it, the, and" so I don't end up having to pay someone else even more.
This is just like when you get up an go to the zoo, and buy an ice cream cone with vanilla and strawberry ice cream, and you go into the penguin house and when you are in there a polar bear breaks out if its cage and you are trapped in the penguin house with you ice cream cone, and you notice that Natalie Portman is sitting next to to you covered in hot grits, and then, like, the polar bear breaks down the door and as he comes in...
Wait a second. Its NOTHING like that.
Its more like the AP hired some developer to write a tool license out its twenty three kajillion words of content automatically and told them they wanted it done by Tuesday. Do you really expect someone to write code that would contextually differentiate public IP content from private on the fly? Really?
While we are wishing for silly shit, I wish I was really the one in the penguin house in the story with my best grits spoon.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!