Commentary

AP Vs. The Web

It's no secret that the economic crunch is taking a big toll on mainstream media. But media companies' response -- which hinges on complaining about the Internet -- isn't likely to help improve matters.

The latest example comes from Associated Press Chairman Dean Singleton, who is railing against portals and other Web sites that, in his words, "walk off with our work under misguided legal theories."

It's not clear what misguided legal theories he's talking about. If Singleton is referring to copyright law, the AP can gear up for a lengthy battle. Using brief excerpts of other outlets' stories is probably permissible as a fair use -- though that question would have to be answered case-by-case by courts. What's more, information itself isn't subject to copyright protection, which means that news outlets don't infringe on copyrights by rewriting stories.

Singleton also referred to "misappropriation" -- but that's even murkier than copyright law. "Misappropriation" is a 100-year-old doctrine in New York that allows news companies to sue when rivals more or less rewrite "hot" stories. The problem is, no one knows what "hot" means in the Internet era, when news only remains "exclusive" for a very short time, as there are very few stories that can't be confirmed within minutes.

Relying on misappropriation poses another problem for Singleton: The AP itself occasionally rewrites stories that were first reported elsewhere.

Sometimes, in fact, AP executives even use snippets of others' work in speeches. Yesterday, Singleton drew applause with the line: "We are mad as hell, and we are not going to take it any more."

1 comment about "AP Vs. The Web".
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  1. Dan Mckillen from HealthDay, April 7, 2009 at 6:02 p.m.

    The world has changed a lot since the "fair use" rules were crafted. Just watch any teenager when they sit down at a computer to do their homework. They turn on their music player, instant message is enabled, they open their Facebook page in one browser window, swivel around and turn on the TV, tweet a little bit, and start doing thier homework assignment while they have 7 or 8 simultaneous instant messeng conversations. My point here is that we are all becoming masters of multi-tasking. Scanning headlines and brief blurbs to stay current works well for a lot of people that don't need to read the whole story to understand what's going on..

    In many instances, all anyone needs is access to Google-type headlines along with another sentence or two to quickly digest a handful of news stories. The fair use rules need to be looked at again. Content creators are getting the short end of the stick and companies like Google get far too much benefit from using other people's content while they claim fair use. And it's not like Google can't afford to pay for content.

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About the Author

Wendy Davis is a Senior Writer at MediaPost. You can reach Wendy at wdavis@mediapost.com