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03 Aug 2009 21:02

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About: The Associated Press is dead to us. We’re not covering their stories.

  • © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
  • The slogan that runs at the bottom of each Associated Press story • We copied it from the bottom of one of their articles. Why? Because it’s silly in the day and age of the Internet. Of course it’s going to get copied and redistributed, paraphrased and quoted. It’s how information spreads. But not anymore from us. We quit. This was the last straw. You used to be great, AP, but now you’re just a giant beast of another era. Even your efforts to reach younger customers fail. So, we’re no longer linking to your stories on this site. Or, if we absolutely need to (which, considering the wide variety of content online, we don’t need to), we’ll link to you guys using a NoFollow tag. Think we should do this? Let us know. We’re up for any opinion you have on this matter. We simply want the AP to respect the rights of its audience. It’s only fair.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 5 Comments • Permalink

02 Aug 2009 20:21

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Biz, Tech: Dear Associated Press: There’s no way you’re charging this much

  • $12 cost to quote five words from a single article, according to their new iCopyright site source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 6 Comments • Permalink

29 Jun 2009 00:53

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Politics, Tech: Two examples of old people who don’t get new journalism

  • Judge: Let’s outlaw linking! In this corner: Seventh Circuit Appeals Court Judge Richard Posner, based out of Chicago. A pretty smart guy.
    His argument: Posner, in an argument on his blog, says that “Expanding copyright law … to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers.”
    Why he doesn’t get it Because his idea is against the very nature of the Internet and nobody would support him. Plus, his article has a trackback function enabled to encourage linking!
  • Judge: Let’s outlaw linking! In this corner: Seventh Circuit Appeals Court Judge Richard Posner, based out of Chicago. A pretty smart guy.
    His argument: Posner, in an argument on his blog, says that “Expanding copyright law … to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers.”
    Why he doesn’t get it Because his idea is against the very nature of the Internet and nobody would support him. Plus, his article has a trackback function enabled to encourage linking!
  • Columnist: Let’s tighten laws! In this corner: Connie Schultz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, still a solid print product.
    Her argument: Schultz says that there’s too many free riders on the journalism bandwagon and they’re coming at the cost of newspaper revenue. She subscribes to David and Daniel Marburger’s theory that copyright law needs to force aggregators to share ad revenue with producers.
    Why she doesn’t get it While her idea is less crazy than Posner’s (she’s not advocating the blocking of linking), it’s cut from the same cloth. Also, you can share her column on Reddit and Digg!
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

08 Jun 2009 09:33

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World: In Sweden, the Pirate party had a great Euro Parliament showing

  • 7.4% of the vote, good for one pirate-friendly seat source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 May 2009 11:17

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Culture: “Word Worms”: Another example of turning copyright on its ear

  • Public domain toons are a sadly-wasted resource – one Alex Gorosh uses in clever ways, creating family-friendly raps to go with the old-school toons.source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 Apr 2009 23:54

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U.S.: Barbara A. Ringer, the queen of fair use in copyright

  • The basic human rights of individual authors throughout the world are being sacrificed more and more on the altar of … the technological revolution.
  • Barbara A. Ringer • In a 1975 speech discussing the rights of authors in the use of content. It’s crazy, by the way, because it seems her comments would be even more relevant now than they were 34 years ago. Ringer, by the way, is the author behind the Copyright Act of 1976, which both gave copyright-holders more rights in retaining copyright and established the very fair use that allows us to quote this article from The Washington Post. She’s kind of our hero, and makes the Library of Congress seem vaguely awesome. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Apr 2009 23:52

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Tech: MPAA: Lock the doors, kick the public out. Judge: OK!

  • The RealDVD trial takes a sketchy turn. The Motion Picture Association of America and another group, concerned that trade secrets about DVD encryption technology would be revealed during a trial against Real, asked the judge to close the courtroom. Judge Marilyn Patel agreed. RealDVD, if you don’t know, allows people to save DVDs onto their computer and legally watch them later. Just days after releasing the software, Real was sued by the MPAA. The closed courtroom does not bode well for Real’s case, by the way. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

17 Apr 2009 18:00

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Tech, World: The Pirate Bay: Lose the Spectrial, gain political momentum

  • 3,000 new Swedish Pirate Party members today source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 Apr 2009 10:25

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Biz: This is why the Associated Press should not fight a copyright war

  • The AP claims copyright ownership in, and makes commercial use of, many photographs that consist almost entirely of copyrighted artwork of Fairey and other artists without permission.
  • Excerpt from “Fairey Answer to AP Counterclaims” • This court document from Shepard Fairey (the guy behind the iconic Obama poster and Obey Giant), among other things, attacks the Associated Press for a double standard. The AP is asking Fairey for compensation for using one of their photos to create his Obama artwork. Fairey then sued to have a court say his art is fair use. The document notes that the AP used his artwork and the artwork of others to create numerous photos which they then sell on their Web site. Double standard, anyone? • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

17 Apr 2009 08:56

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Tech, World: The punishment that The Pirate Bay faces, post-spectrial

  • one
    year     of prison time for each of the defendants – Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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