Like a lot of bloggers I've been monitoring the recent spat between the Associated Press and bloggers over quoting AP news stories.

Bloggers quickly went into combat mode, claiming the AP had crossed the line in an age when so much content is free. The AP on the other hand says they have a right to protect their property and get paid.

Is it possible they're both right?

I had a really hard time with this. My gut reaction was similar to plenty of bloggers - confused and filled with expletives. Some, like TechCrunch, are adopting a new policy that bans AP stories.

While there may not be a universal standard or style for bloggers, the thought is that quoting stories falls under fair use - the same guidelines that let you cite articles for school projects and reports. For the most part writers will link and quote to original stories. (There are of course exceptions.)

But what makes things worse is that it looks like the AP has taken up in the same lot as the Motion Picture Association of America and Recording Industry Association of America, which has sought to control the illegal use of its property through serious lawyer action.

From the example of both the MPAA and RIAA we know that tactic can go a long way towards making your audience unhappy.

On the other hand I work for a news organization, one that happens to pay the Associated Press (among other wire services) for their content. The fact is the AP ain't free for folks in the industry, so in that way it seems almost fair that they just want to get paid on the other side of things. The way they see it, they would not allow a newspaper to just run AP stories without consent (or a cashiers check).

But here's the problem: The old rules don't apply like they used to.

We all know this because we can find and access AP stories anywhere online through news sites, aggregators/RSS feeds and social networks. It's hard to tether the news to just once source now.

While the way we get our news is changing it's also effecting the news business itself. An interesting tidbit that has come out of this flap is that while the AP wants to start charging bloggers per word to quote their stories, at the same time they may be quoting bloggers more extensively in their stories.

(In return some are bloggers asking the AP for some of that fat wire service cash.)

This all makes for a pretty messy situation, as bloggers are at odds with the AP - which they need in some form to help them with their work. And the AP, which increasingly is quoting and legitimizing blogs through their work. (And of course there is the issue of who owns what when the story is an AP rewrite of a story from another paper.)

Scott Karp at Publishing 2.0 has an interesting take on things, specifically that the lines between quoting sources and blogs has blurred on both ends:

The simple fact seems to be that the new media wrecking ball that has hit so many other news organizations looks like it may have crashed into the AP finally. The AP's business model is as old as newspapers, and we're seeing how well that's shaking out for the industry.

The Internet has basically outpaced the old models for using/enjoying and paying for news, music and movies, and we're at a point where everyone's just starting to realize that.

The AP certainly has a right to want to get paid for its work - same as movie studios and musicians - but the problem is there may not be an easy solution right now.

Links:

- Cory Doctrow at Boing Boing: "Associated Press expects you to pay to license 5-word quotations (and reserves the right to terminate your license)"
- Karp on bypassing the AP: "Associated Press Hands Local And National News Sites An Opportunity To Get Links And Traffic"
- Culture Kitchen: "AP have their legal vampires chasing bloggers. I blame Hilary Rosen."
- Memorandum round-up of blog reaction

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