The AP and Fair Usage vs. The Bloggers

The Associated Press wants to charge bloggers (especially the big-time guys, but also small fry like me) who excerpt and quote 5 or more words of an AP story. Cory Doctorow's Boing Boing blog entry gives the kernel of the story. As an author, I'm all for protecting intellectual property rights but this is ridiculous! AP, you've gone too far.

clipped from boingboing.net Associated Press expects you to pay to license 5-word quotations (and reserves the right to terminate your license) Posted by Cory Doctorow, June 17, 2008 4:55 AM | permalink In the name of "defin[ing] clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt" the Associated Press is now selling "quotation licenses" that allow bloggers, journallers, and people who forward quotations from articles to co-workers to quote their articles. The licenses start at $12.50 for quotations of 5-25 words. The licensing system exhorts you to snitch on people who publish without paying the blood-money, offering up to $1 million in reward money (they also think that "fair use" -- the right to copy without permission -- means "Contact the owner of the work to be sure you are covered under fair use.").