Your throwaway line about “folks who think that everything should be free.” does not add any value to the debate. For example people who choose to use ‘free’ content such as the LOC on Flickr, but will happily pay for other services that give them value for their money. Might I suspect a quote from AP seems unlikely to fall into that category

Or, of course you comment might just be a ‘wind up’?

US COPYRIGHT ACT, Chapter 1, § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, 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 –

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) 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The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

Tell me: how does excerpting 50 words of an AP article when talking about an election *not* fall under fair use?

Positing this as an either/or is both a misdirection and an oversimplification. While there are plenty of people who feel entitled to anything for free, we don’t need to accept that view as a valid concluding point to the discussion. I see this as an unfortunate consequence to the many interesting (and shortlived) web20 services that used free as a business model.

Commodifying content, in the manner of traditional publishing/IP law (think DRM, Mickey Mouse, etc) doesn’t seem to be working. Rather than wringing our hands about the miserable freeloaders who want everything for free, I suggest we focus our efforts on a balanced approach that compensates content creators for their work while supporting fair use of that content.

But pitching this as an us/them does little to further that discussion.

The zeal expressed by copyright holders trying to maintain value in their property is matched, if not surpassed by the folks who think that everything should be free.

I understand fair use. I also understand that producers have a right to try and profit from their efforts.

While your sarcasm is duly noted, it’s called fair use: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

I posted in more detail on my blog.

Cheers,

Bill

The AP, if I’m not mistaken from my college experience, gets paid by story pick ups by newspapers. Is this their attempted entry into the online world? By having new media pay for the same rights? Seems like they missed the pricing mark then.

Sure, you could just spend a few years in a public library or surfing through the web, but you’d have no one there to help you understand how the information is organized, how to situate it within appropriate contexts, or how to acquire the skills necessary to work with and produce content of your own.

I’m not arguing that all “ip” should be “free as in beer” … certainly journalists (if they’re any good) do similar work to teachers: researching, arranging, and situating information. That’s work, and they should be paid for that work.

But information cannot be anything other than “free as in liberty” unless we all suddenly decide that democracy is a very bad idea and we’d prefer to be told only what the state feels we need to know (or the “content creators” feel we should have access to).

Hmmmm… does this mean he’ll get rid of all those ugly, user-annoying ad links on district administration dot com?