Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Bloggers Beware: Big Media is Watching


I operate this blog like many other bloggers do. I find interesting stories, I write my thoughts on the issue, copy and paste the headline and a snippet of the article, and usually a picture--all attributed, and linked to the original source. I try to go a step further, and put quite a bit of thought into my own commentary. I make an honest attempt to make the posts largely my own, and then give the reader the opportunity to read what inspired me to post it.

It's all rather quid pro quo, as far as I'm concerned. I get something interesting to put on my blog, the original authors get more eyeballs on their work. I myself have been excerpted on other blogs and consider it to be quite a compliment.

But not everybody feels that way. The bigger content providers--AP for one, but not only them--are cracking down on the practice. And they're even making their own rules apart from existing "fair use" laws. This will severely inhibit a lot of bloggers, will reduce traffic on the very sites that are crying foul, and has the potential to turn many blogs into boring news aggregators like The Drudge Report. Ugh. Stay tuned.

[Excerpt]


The Associated Press unleashed a firestorm in the blogosphere earlier this month when it demanded that a political site take down AP content it said violated copyrights. Bloggers, including Michael Arrington of TechCrunch.com and Markos Moulitas of Daily Kos, cried foul, saying the AP's move threatened the free flow of information over the Web. The furor abated a few days later when the AP tempered its demands. . .

Read more at: Business Week

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