While the primary focus of this blog has centered on new media vehicles and their respective contributions to the field of Integrated Marketing Communications, a recent “explosion” over copyright issues have surfaced entirely on the concept of “fair use”.
In an article recently posted on MarketingVOX.com titled “AP Takes Bloggers on in Copyright Fight; Arrington Boycotts It”, Irene Keselman, the intellectual property governance coordinator for the Associated press, sent a letter to the Drudge Retort, arguing its long quotes from AP news stories fall outside of "fair use" parameters.
The debate over “fair use” and how the content is used seemed to be the true heart of the controversy. According to Keselman, “The use is not fair use simply because the work copied happened to be a news article and that the use is of the headline and the first few sentences only.” According to influential bloggers like Jeff Jarvis and Michael Arrington, “AP doesn't get to make its own rules around how its content is used - if those rules are stricter than the law allows."
While Arrington plans on banning AP articles from TechCrunch, he isn’t the only person upset with AP’s recent fiasco. Just type “AP’s fight with bloggers” into Google’s search engine and you’ll quickly discover numerous threats to ban, boycott or fight back against AP’s proposal to charge bloggers a fee for using the content of AP articles.
If bloggers are referencing or citing another’s work, regardless of where the content originated from, I feel bloggers have a certain ethical responsibility to credit the source from which information was taken. In fact, I suggest bloggers use the American Psychological Associations Publication manual (5th Ed.) as a guide to help ensure proper credit to owners of intellectual property. In addition, I also feel a hyperlink to a referenced source is also acceptable. As long as AP receives credit for their work and the blogger provides a link to the source, then readers can decide for themselves what “spin” is more credible. After all, that’s the beauty of a blog! Blogs provide people the opportunity to express their views and have a voice on the web.
To hear more on this new media controversy, Check out the video titled “Harvard’s Advice to Bloggers on AP Copyright Fiasco”:
Bloggers Speak Out! What’s Your Thoughts on AP’s “Fair Use” Claim?
Once again, thanks for joining me this week and as always, I welcome your feedback or comments. Please feel free to visit me online at http://segment-specific-media.blogspot.com/
~ Dan
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