Comments:Associated Press goes after bloggers for copyright violation

Latest comment: 16 years ago by 167.127.107.8

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How unfortunate. In an age where news from common media is increasingly referred to as 'opinion journalism' and 'editorial stories' and open-source news is increasingly doing quality investigative work, the AP decides to make itself look like the RIAA. Smart move...

I hope they demonstrate good intelligence when they issue these 'guidelines'... and how else should we view these 'guidelines' other than a statement on how to fairly use AP material? Isn't the purpose of these guidelines to spell out acceptable application of fair use?

AP to internets: "Hello! We are outdated irrelevant suckfail! Proceed to ignore us now!" Message received and understood. --on WP as User:Kasreyn 167.127.107.8 14:12, 25 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

You do know you can use SUL to reserve user Kasreyn across all wikis and you will be logged into them all when you log into the first or second one.
How do I do that again? The last time someone told me this, I asked them to post an explanation on my wp user talk page, but they never did. --on WP as User:Kasreyn 167.127.107.8 12:02, 30 June 2008 (UTC)Reply
Anyway, the reality is, that a blogger or Wikinewsie in Seattle can't cover a story in Zimbabwe or South Africa without taking details "off the wire". AP, AFP, and Reuters aren't going away anytime soon; you also must remember that a lot of their income is from selling financial information, the 'global news' side of the business is a source to merge into this financial service; their reportage on unrest in Thailand feeds through to their analysts and on to traders and can impact a whole raft of things, like exchange rates. News for public consumption generally goes through another publisher who has, say, an AP subscription and license for reuse. This is something Wikinews has to be careful with. If AP gets it wrong the story can be carried by 20 or more sources and, voila!, you've tripled the number of elephants in Africa. --Brian McNeil / talk 18:08, 27 June 2008 (UTC)Reply
You have a good point, but this problem will ease as we get more Wikinews members in places like Zimbabwe and S. Africa - the ideal situation would be, Wikinewsies would report on events in their area. (Of course, it's difficult to achieve this ideal). If other major news agencies decide to be dicks like AP, then it may wind up being the only way forward for Wikinews. --on WP as User:Kasreyn 167.127.107.8 12:04, 30 June 2008 (UTC)Reply