Bloggers mock AP's "Quotation Licenses"

Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing has led an chorus of blogs in denouncing the AP's content licensing scheme, run by a company called iCopyright, which asks for payment for text snippets as short as five words, includes toughly worded copyright warnings, and has Terms of Use that seem to ban any criticism.

"Welcome to a world in which you won’t be able to effectively criticize the press, because you’ll be required to pay to quote as few as five words from what they publish," writes Doctorow.

I sympathize with these critics. Such restrictions, if enforced, would be intolerable. 

The price structure and terms of use was chosen by AP, while the "Honor Copyright" page (source of image at right) was authored by iCopyright, a copyright licensing company. It's not unusual for media companies to outsource the reprint side of their business; they're just not equipped to deal with it.

The AP's problem is that sometimes the headline is the whole story; the AP pays a lot of money to have a network of reporters so that someone is there when the bombs go off. It's looking for ways to get paid for that network in a declining market.

Sending takedown notices to bloggers who post 50-word quotes is not the right way to do that; the right to quote is a fundamental freedom, as I quoted Lawrence Lessig saying yesterday. But I can relate to the ambivalence of NYT Bits blogger Saul Hansell on this issue; like him, I'm both a reporter and a blogger. Like him, I'm concerned about the level of vitriol in the blogosphere about this issue, and I hope cooler heads prevail and seek a negotiated solution.

UPDATED: Post was updated to reflect some clarifications brought by an iCopyright employee (comment below). I speculated that iCopyright could have authored the Terms of Use, but those were chosen by AP. The publishers who work with iCopyright choose pricing, word intervals, terms of use, and other licensing options. Of the material I referenced, only the "Honor Copyright" page is authored by iCopyright.

 

Comments

[Tyson O'Donnell]

Hey Joe,
I’m a product marketing intern for iCopyright and I just wanted to clear up some information referenced by your blog. iCopyright provides the technology; were not the publisher. We provide the means for publishers and bloggers such as your-self to allow people to instantly license materials for commercial use. What the prices are, the word intervals are, and what licensing options are available is all customized by the publisher.
A new tool we just launched is ACID (automated content infringement detector). This technology allows content creators to find all uses of their products on the internet. It is a good tool to hunt down and eliminate blog scrappers, copy scrapers, and other blogs purposefully stealing content for commercial purposes. iCopyright however does not dictate to the publisher who is infringing and who is within fair use, or who to send take down notices to. That is to the publishers discretion, were just the technology.

Kind Regards,

Tyson O'Donnell
206-484-8561
Tyson@iCopyright.com
http://Creators.iCopyright.com

[Joe Mullin]

Tyson, thanks for your comment. Post has been updated.