Associated Press, your desperation is showing

Last week I was talking about viral videos and the copyright paranoia that gets them yanked off YouTube faster than you can say, “Profit!” This week, it’s the Associated Press that’s making copyright paranoia news (again).

The AP has always been a bit crazy about copyright, and they certainly don’t show much of an understanding of fair use, especially for an organization that probably relies pretty heavily on the principle. Now they want to charge you if quote as few as 5 words from one of their articles. I’m not certain how 5 words can be copyrightable, or even a quote, but the AP seems to think they have stumbled on a cash cow. Their licensing policy is so egregious that they will sell you the “rights” to re-publish quotes from documents in the public domain, such as Thomas Jefferson’s argument about copyright.

Earlier, the AP announced that they had figured out how to DRM text so it couldn’t be copied without licensing. (So, how do you prevent people from just re-keying it?) Here’s a re-interpretation of their diagram that explains how the DRM works (warning: naughty words!).

Clearly, the AP needs some schooling in how copyright and fair use work exactly, so here are some resources:

• The Copyright Website attempts to provide a comprehensive resource on copyright
• The Center for Social Media explains fair use so even the AP can understand, illustrated by video examples, and here is a handy fair use chart as well
• Here’s a handy chart and a cool flowchart to determine whether something is in the public domain (everyone loves charts!)
• UnAssociated Press, calling for a boycott of the AP until they rethink their stupid copyright policies
• Creative Commons is helping content creators license their work in order to encourage sharing and collaboration, rather than restrict it

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