The Truth as Private Property

Hostilities between the Associated Press and bloggers are escalating to the point that some are now vowing to stop linking to the wire service. Regardless of the merits, such conflict is unhealthy for the free flow of information in a society that depends on it.

As a part of traditional media, AP regards its output as property without distinguishing between form and substance. The arrangement of words and sentences in its reports belongs to the agency, but the news conveyed does not. The facts and public statements therein, once published, belong to everyone. "Published" literally means "making public"

Bloggers, regardless of where their information comes from, have the right to analyze and comment on news without restriction. What they may not have the right to do is cut and paste large chunks of AP stories, as some do, and add their reactions which, in some cases, amount to no more than "Oh, wow!" in either a positive or negative sense.

Even before the Internet, on-the-spot reporting was only a fraction of what MSM did. TV news often piggybacked on newspaper reporting, and magazines got most of their ideas and leads from daily news. In the future, with news bureaus being cut back for economic reasons, that will be truer than ever.

Those of us who spent a working lifetime dealing with copyrighted material have no formula for where "fair use" ends and theft begins. But context is important. If a blog post is using AP material as a taking-off point for commentary or to illustrate a point, that's "fair use," and a word count formula can't be the only criterion.

For example, if this post were legally copyrighted, fair use would be characterizing it, quoting from it and expressing views but not just lifting most of it without creating some new piece of writing. But the exhilarating thing about blogging is that such property considerations are beside the point.

Beyond that, the real puzzlement in this debate is defining what damage AP believes results from having bloggers quote from its output by linking to the media that are legally using it. In what way does it devalue the product or damage those legal users? In fact, don’t they benefit from getting more traffic to their web sites?

But, all that aside, the larger issue is that, in a free society, it's not a good idea to start treating the truth as private property.

AP: Accusatory and Patronizing

As an editor and publisher, I spent part of my working life dealing with copyright infringement and fair use, so it's fascinating to find the Associated Press today in a fumbling effort to limit use of its content by bloggers.

To start, no one's work should be redistributed at random, but that's hardly what bloggers do in reproducing, almost always with attribution, portions of the news that AP publishes and commenting on it, almost always with links to the source of the material.

In the case chosen to set an example, the AP leaned on the satirical Drudge Retort over seven items containing quotations ranging from 39 to 79 words, hardly a wholesale lifting, leading to the suspicion that the news syndicate was more upset by the appropriator's tone than the "theft."

That's less a defense of copyrighted material than the act of a would-be censor.

“We are not trying to sue bloggers,” its "strategy director" says. “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 adding insult to insult. Bloggers may want avoid using AP stuff--there are so many other news sources from which to steal our pathetic little music.

Great Moments in American Journalism

Reserve a Pulitzer Prize now for another reporting coup by Associated Press. After scouring thousands of pages of newly released White House records, an investigative journalist today reveals the shocking news that "Hillary Rodham Clinton was in the White House on at least seven days when her husband had sexual encounters with Monica Lewinsky."

If this doesn't damage the former First Lady's claim that she was involved in the crucial affairs of the Clinton Administration, what will?

Didn't You Mean Uppity, Massa?

Wire Services are not known for parody, so the piece about Barack Obama's "arrogance" today by Ron Fournier, who "has covered politics for The Associated Press for nearly 20 years," must be meant to be taken seriously.

"Barack Obama better watch his step," Fournier writes, "He's bordering on arrogance. The dictionary defines the word as an 'offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride.' Obama may not be offensive or overbearing, but he can be a bit too cocky for his own good."

The indictment cites such statement as "To know me is to love me" and "Every place is Barack Obama country once Barack Obama's been there."

"True," Fournier concedes, "there's a certain amount of tongue-in-cheekiness to such remarks--almost as if Obama doesn't want to take his adoring crowds and political ascent too seriously. He was surely kidding when he told supporters in January that by the time he was done speaking "'a light will shine down from somewhere.'"

Nonetheless, "both Obama and his wife, Michelle, ooze a sense of entitlement," according to the AP's resident character analyist, who concludes:

"As he told 7,000 supporters at a rally last month, 'I am an imperfect vessel for your hopes and dreams.'

"Nobody expects Obama to be perfect. But he better never forget that he isn't."

The Associated Press might want to consider that having the clueless and irony-impaired calling African-Americans "uppity" is not the best strategy for a wire service in the 21st century.

Maybe Obama will explain it to them when he makes his speech about race tomorrow.