Comments on: The AP Wants $17.50 For Me To Quote Myself

By: Astrit

Astrit — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:37:40 +0000

Hey Danny, this sounds as good deal, you charge them $100 for quoting you and then pay the $17 fee, naah i was just kidding. It’s absurd what they are doing really.

By: Synchronium

Synchronium — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:22:05 +0000

Perhaps you should give them 20 words for free over the phone, then stop mid-sentence until they fork out money on a word-for-word basis.

By: Jehzeel Laurente

Jehzeel Laurente — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 17:32:35 +0000

“But to quote what I told the AP, I have to pay them $17.50.” – This is crazy.. hehehe

By: Merrill

Merrill — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 08:43:59 +0000

“It really hard to tell whether (Bartz) just thinks Yahoo isn’t that strong in search or whether she thinks she needs to jettison search to save the company”
What if I quote the AP on your blog ? Do I have to pay or do the blog owner has to (according to AP)?
If so, that means the blog owner will need to double check that no one is quoting the AP in his/her comments. Clearly not feasible…

By: Gus Snarp

Gus Snarp — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 19:39:35 +0000

Clearly the AP owns the full text of articles, but fair use means you can excerpt part of the article, with attribution, and use it in your own article. I don’t know if AP is planning to sue everyone who quotes their articles, because they certainly would lose in most cases (assuming a decent defense). I think everyone with a blog should be quoting AP sources under fair use guidelines left and right and waiting for a lawsuit. Ultimately the AP will either have to abandon these mindless policies or start suing, and I hold out hope that the courts will toss them out on their ears. Especially when the defendants turn up with AP articles that quote Reuters articles, TV and Radio broadcasts, blogger, etc. and ask the AP how much they paid for the right to use those quotes.

By: Jeff Durocher

Jeff Durocher — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:29:52 +0000

This is a very common practice in the publishing industry. We’ve had to pay to post bylined articles on our website. Articles we wrote! With all the changes in media its seems like there should be some sharing allowed to those who help drive eyeballs to their sites. Radio and TV shows can play other peoples audio and video as long as they give them credit. Time for the print/web industry to catch up

By: Seth Finkelstein

Seth Finkelstein — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:57:26 +0000

“Solution? Getting out of the AP ivory tower and having a frank dialog …”

Danny, you’re kidding (well, you should be kidding). Right now, the AP is in the situation like the old joke where if their participant walked on water, bloggers would rant “THEY CAN’T SWIM!!!”

I mean, we’re basically seeing something not too far from that now. Dialog does not happen on the Internet. He or she who gets the most attention, wins (no offense intended).

By: Dudibob

Dudibob — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:41:28 +0000

The form is stupid, it’s a simple word counter form which can take card payments. It wouldn’t be so bad but since this creates legal documents regarding copyright, you’d expect them to search a database of their own articles to see if it was actually theirs.

As someone mentioned over on SlashDot, put some lyrics in there, buy the rights and let the RIAA and AP fight it out over who ‘owns’ the content haha

By: Adam Javůrek

Adam Javůrek — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 07:47:04 +0000

…and If I’ll buy your quote from AP, will you get your revenue share? )

By: Jeffrey McManus

Jeffrey McManus — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 04:35:50 +0000

So if the intention is to turn information into a commodity that’s suitable to be sold by online vending machines, maybe it’s time for them to pay the sources that provide them quotes? You could create your own online form to sell them your quotes wholesale.