This past week the Associated Press announced that they were sick of being a relevant, widely quoted and important news source, and that the internet is clearly a passing fad, full of criminals who need to be annoyed, harassed and sued. They didn't used those words of course, but that's the upshot. By taking legal action against the Drudge Retort for quoting headlines and a sections of an AP article, they have clearly stated that fair-use has no place on the internet as far as they're concerned. Worse, their response to the backlash has been to announce forthcoming guidelines on how to quote from the AP and avoid getting sued.
Not that we're a big media outlet, but we have occasionally linked to an AP article or two here at KPAO. Until the AP changes their policy and issues a statement indicating that they were wrong and have gone back on their medication, I have decided to update KPAO's policy1 on referencing AP articles. It used to be "stay within established fair use case law." It now reads "go fuck yourself."
Many far more influential bloggers are taking a similar stance .
1 Copies of our policy manual are available for review in our New York office.
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