Carrying Water for the AP, Day 4
June 19th, 2008 by EyeOnWinerDave continues his trend of being the AP’s (still no disclosure of the nature of the business relationship, for what it’s worth) henchman today, excorciating bloggers for trying to defend their fair use rights. Being a sell-out must be hard work.
Almost everyone seems to be making the story bigger than it is
Here’s the point that Dave is missing (intentionally, in my opinion). There is nothing bigger than a news syndicate trying to control the “conversation of the day.” This is one of the fundamental problems that blogging was intended to “route around” as Dave would put it. He suggests that take-down notices are no big deal. “Their lawsuits will not happen,” he says.
He’s right about the fact that no suits are going to happen. He’s wrong to think that’s an important point in defense of the AP. The reason is simple: if you’re a fat cat like Dave and can afford to defend yourself against a big civil suit, the threat of a law suit is no big deal. If you’re an average person, though, you could not defend yourself against even the most frivolous of suits filed by the AP.
The AP won’t be filing any suits to back-up these take-downs. That doesn’t make the situation better, it makes it worse. It means that somewhere in the bowels of the AP, one of two things is happening: 1) they have a team who really believes they have the right to profit froma 5-word quote, or 2) they know they’re going beyond their rights here and that their threats are unenforceable, but they’re sending the legal threats anyway.
For someone who likes to bad-mouth lawyers and scummy lawyer behavior, he’s really missed the boat on this one. This is bullying, pure and simple.
I find this ironic, though:
the bloggers who just want to lynch AP are engaging in the worst kind of discourse, it’s anti-intellectual, they jump to conclusions, ignore information that contradicts their assumptions that’s easily available, and points of view that don’t agree with theirs.
Dave, rushing to the defense of intellectual discourse. He could not have described his typical course more succinctly.