
AP Not Amused By The Woot Story, Tries To Play The Oil Spill Card - jasonlbaptiste
http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/06/ap-woot-oil-spill/
======
mcantor
This article reads like an annoying friend kept instant messaging me while I
was away from my desk to narrate a petty internet social encounter as it was
happening, then I come back with my Starbucks Frappathingie and furrow my brow
because I have six pages of IMs filled with condescending "can-you-believe-
this-guy-is-so-stupid-ha-ha-what-a-troll" drivel in the window's scrollback
history.

~~~
Batsu
Agreed completely. Not only is this not even news, it's not worth caring
about... it's just a squabble with TC being the loudmouth, rallying it's
readers against some target we're supposed to care about because they said so.

~~~
phoboslab
I think how AP deals with this situation is interesting regardless. I'd take
it as a nice example of how NOT to do PR work for your company.

The best thing AP could've done, would be to pay the 17.50$ with a nice gift
card, buy the headphones for all their CEOs or "come clean" in some other
humorous way. Instead, they behave like a little child.

------
dionidium
The AP's position seems really silly at first, but the link they provide is
actually worth reading. If what they say is true -- namely that 1) this isn't
targeted at bloggers or anyone else using the content in a way that can be
reasonably assumed to be fair use; and 2) this is a simple way to license
content you have reason to believe may not qualify for fair-use protection --
then I think this seems fairly reasonable.

EDIT: Just want to make the logical fallacy explicit. The fact that the form
_allows_ you to pay for 5 words does not imply that the AP _expects_ you to
pay for 5 words.

~~~
chc
Except that's disingenuous, because the AP _has_ suggested that bloggers and
Google and basically anyone else who reprints AP text should pony up the fee.
They don't explicitly say so in detail, but they've had a pretty consistent
campaign of FUD about it.

For example, their document on the question "Do I even need to pay to excerpt
your story?" prominently notes that "the safest course is always" to pay the
fee, and suggests that if you're publishing the excerpt "on the Web," that "is
cause for serious reflection before assuming 'fair use'" — particularly if you
are "choosing not to exercise an affordable and accessible licensing
mechanism."

Think I'm reading too much into a CYA legal document? Take a look at this
story, where AP president says that they want to be paid for "any use of news
articles," even as little as citing a headline:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/business/media/24content.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/business/media/24content.html?_r=1)

~~~
dionidium
_..."the safest course is always" to pay the fee_

Well, this has got to be true, right, since there's no reliable way to tell if
your usage is fair _a priori_?

~~~
chc
It's definitely true, but in a document linked right from the payment page,
it's rather self-serving. Taken in context with the rest of the document and
the AP's utter silence on what might possibly count as "fair use" in its eyes,
the message it sends is more than just cautious legal advice.

It's tantamount to someone running a protection racket pointing out that
you're less likely to get hurt paying his fee than fighting it: He's right,
but it doesn't legitimize his demands.

------
tdoggette
Were I Paul Colford, I'd have bought the headphones, sent Woot the receipt,
and noted publicly that this is in no way a payment for the quote, but merely
a very good deal on headphones.

~~~
kmfrk
And it only costed you $17.50 in damage control.

------
staunch
The AP may be clueless, and Woot may be funny, but TC is just lame. They're
just trolling for pageviews.

~~~
mjs
TC is trolling for pageviews perhaps, but I did like copy-and-paste of an
entire AP story at the end.

~~~
kelnos
I thought the copy/paste was kinda childish. I was actually still amused up
until that point.

------
elbrodeur
Shouldn't the title of this link be: "TechCrunch overturns two year moratorium
on posting AP content to prove a moot point"?

AP's attempt to control their content sucked, but TC is being way snarky.

~~~
pavel_lishin
They don't have much else besides snark. When all you've got is a hammer, I
guess you're gonna pound some nails into AP's face.

------
InclinedPlane
What the AP flack meant to say:

"We are the AP, we are a for-reals, big-timey news agency. Without us you
wouldn't even know what was happening two towns over. Thus, re-using our
content costs money, because our content is valuable. You, _you_ are just some
guy who runs a multi-million dollar company or some a-hole with a blog. Your
content is meaningless pablum slathered on the walls of the digital romper
room that is "the internet". It is valueless and thus we are able to reproduce
it in any way we choose."

~~~
die_sekte
Also:

"BAM! Look behind you, an oil spill!"

~~~
alttab
Who let the narwhals in?

------
ErrantX
AP are dinosaurs, Woot are genuinely amusing and TC are trolling.

All is "right" in the world.

But why is it on hn :(

------
danieldon
It seems utterly bizarre that posters here apparently belive that the AP's
copyright stance is no big deal. The last time I checked, the AP still
considered using headlines to be a copyright violation and the only reason
they weren't going after sites like Hacker News is because they haven't yet
figured out how to deal with PR fallout they experienced last year when
(simultaneous with other controversies surrounding their legal attacks on
sites) their board actually voted to go after news aggregators. Do note, they
have already sued at least 2 news aggregators.

------
jbooth
The lesson, of course:

Never get into email pissing matches with someone willing to be more shameless
than you are.

------
ghshephard
I read the AP article that was linked as follows:

Certain Parties (not HN, Groklaw, Daring Fireball, etc..) have requirements
that they license all the content they display (NYT, CBS, CNBC, GM, etc...) -
those parties now have a mechanism to license our content. NYT and many
(thousands) are already a subscriber to AP. Other parties can pay by the
article and _eliminate_ any downstream liability. All others can play the fair
use card.

SqlLite will do the same thing for their software - it's freaking public
Domain, but: <http://www.hwaci.com/cgi-bin/license-step1>

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tamersalama
I'm the only one to blame for clicking on that techcrunch.com link, knowing
it's not worth it.

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hubb
hah! for once i'm amused by techcrunch's antics

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VictorHo
The TC article is a bit childish, but I laughed pretty hard when they
reproduced the entire AP oil spill article.

------
Tawheed
Even TC sometimes has a slow news day.

------
jamesseda
By taking the high road of ,we cover real news, they set themselves up for
ridicule from Bloggers who cover even more "important" news.

~~~
pyre
But "we cover real news" is just a distraction from the fact that their own
policy for citing the works of others is vastly different than what they
expect when others cite their works.

