AP to Set Guidelines on Blog Excerpt Usage
Last week, the Associated Press sent a letter to the Drudge Retort site - a left version of the popular Drudge Report - asking it to remove several items that contained quotes from AP articles. The New York Times reports that after a protest from the blogsphere, AP said it will "attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without infringing on The A.P.'s copyright."
"The A.P.’s effort to impose some guidelines on the free-wheeling blogosphere, where extensive quoting and even copying of entire news articles is common, may offer a prominent definition of the important but vague doctrine of 'fair use,' which holds that copyright owners cannot ban others from using small bits of their works under some circumstances," the Times observes.
"Fair use has become an essential concept to many bloggers, who often quote portions of articles before discussing them."
Jim Kennedy, vice president and strategy director of the AP told the Times, “We don’t want to cast a pall over the blogosphere by being heavy-handed, so we have to figure out a better and more positive way to do this.” Kennedy added that The AP will sit down with representatives of the Media Bloggers Association.
