The blogging world is all a-twitter (if I can mix the technological metaphor) over recent actions by AP to enforce their copyright on materials they put online, and asking bloggers to take down quotes from AP.
The meeting comes after AP sent a legal notice last week to Rogers Cadenhead, the author of a blog called the Drudge Retort, a news community site whose name is a parody of the prominent blog the Drudge Report.
The notice called for the blog to remove several postings that AP believed was an improper use of its stories. Other bloggers subsequently lambasted AP for going after a small blogger whom they thought appeared to be engaging in a legally permissible and widely practiced activity protected under “fair use” provisions of copyright law.
AP is planning now on working with “a bloggers group” to set some guidelines — though even that misstates it some, since what’s being sought after are some agreed-upon limits on “fair use.” The Fair Use doctrine basically says that one can use copyrighted material in limited ways without any permission, including excerpts for review, for research. More specifically, in US copyright law:
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections and , the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:
- the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
- the nature of the copyrighted work;
- the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
- the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
The problem is, of course, that this provides guidelines, but no hard and fast rules. The latter is probably not possible, but that’s made Fair Use a very gray and squishy area in the courts.
What’s the applicability here for blogging? Let’s say that the AP puts out an article about something that Bush has done (again).
If I just mention that the AP has an article about something Bush has done (again), that’s not even in the realm of copyright law (though some on the fringe would argue that if I link directly to the article, I may be violating a copyright on the site that posted it).
On the other hand, if I quote the entire article (#3), most people (including AP) would probably not consider that Fair Use — though, again, that might be mitigated over whether my doing so has any commercial impact (#4), whether it’s just a short news blurb that can’t be easily quoted without quoting the whole thing (#2), and whether I’m doing it as a money-making enterprise (#1).
Most folks would agree that turning around and selling that article to someone else is not Fair Use, since it’s taking commercial advantage of the material without permission (or payment) (#1), and potentially reduces the market value of the article to AP (#4).
On the other hand, what consitutes a money-making enterprise. I have Google Ads on my page, and a donation button. Does that change the commercial nature of what I do here? Does the amount of money I’ve pulled in (trivial) make a difference?
And, of course, there’s a huge middle ground between quoting nothing and quoting everything. And there’s why I’m doing it (“criticism, comment, news reporting” seems to sum it up).
(This all also applies copyrighted images, too. Ahem.)
So while it’s probably useful for AP to meet with “bloggers” and develop some guidelines — those guidelines aren’t going to be hard and fast rules, because they cannot be any more hard and fast than the law provides for (and than the courts will apply the law). What they will be useful for is as an indicator of where AP will begin to scrutinize something going on, as a warning perhaps — and will also provide a basis for further discussion with AP, and other media groups, about different interpretations and expectations regarding Fair Use.
That’s not at all a bad thing — as long as AP doesn’t think it’s actually settling anything by doing it.