Monday, June 16, 2008

Fair use? AP cracks down on bloggers

A blog has been served with "Take Down" notices based on the Digital Millenium Copyright Act demanding that he remove several blog entries because they quote and/or link to snippets of AP articles and comment on them.

If bloggers aren't allowed to snip / link to news articles and then comment on them, that's going to put a huge chill on the exercise of free speech in the blogosphere. Hell, snipping news articles and commenting on them is a huge part of what a blogger does. I do it all the time. Most people would argue that such activities are the very definition of the "fair use" doctrine, but apparently the AP now feels that "fair use" only applies if you pay for the privilege.

I'll be following this story pretty carefully, since it affects what I do and what a lot of bloggers do pretty profoundly. I'd suggest every other blogger keep an eye on this story as well.