AP Beginning New Crack Down on Blog Critics?
Posted on February 29, 2008
AP Shuts Down Blogger With Threats of Legal Action
Well, here is what might be a landmark case for the blogosphere, for the Internet, and for the future of our new media, citizen journalism. The AP has just sent a cease and desist letter to Brian C. Ledbetter telling him to stop using their copyrighted images on his website, snappedshot.com.
Snappedshot.com is a site predicated on criticism of photo-journalism. In pursuit of his criticism, Mr. Ledbetter uses photos from across the web that he thinks are doctored or misleading in some way. He then reports his opinion on the bias he sees therein.
Because of this pending legal action, snappedshot.com is now been placed on hiatus until the situation can be cleared up.
So, here is the issue facing us, folks: can we use copyrighted material under the commonly observed fair usage rules without getting hauled into court? After all, Mr. Ledbetter was not making money from his website and he used those photos in order to critique them, not to enrich himself. That would seem to be the very definition of fair use, would it not?
Now it comes down to whether use of the AP’s photos in order to do social commentary and criticism is fair enough to be considered fair use?
Worse, if this tactic works, can it not be used by every mainstream news source out there to silence criticism of them?
I say we have the makings of an important ruling on whether we bloggers are free to criticize the MSM without being dragged in to court at the whim of any MSM bigwig.
We’ll try to follow this story and see where it goes.
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, Liberal Media/Bias, News
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4 Responses to “AP Beginning New Crack Down on Blog Critics?”
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It seems on the surface this case is an example of fair use. AP may know this but just the threat of a lawsuit is enough to shut most people up even if the plaintiff is on shaky legal ground. It’s time to create a loser pay all system for lawsuits in this country. That would weed out a lot of the frivolous lawsuits that plague our court system, and put regular people on more of an even playing field, since it may make lawyers more likely to defend people against frivolous lawsuits who may not have the means to pay.
I like the way Ken Bingham expressed the need to curb frivolous law suits; sort of like the use of the instant replay option in the NFL, use it frivolously and it costs the team a valuable time out.
This particular law suit needs to have some serious lawyers step up to the line to insure the very best minds are working for everyone’s “fair use” of materials.
The AP as left-wing as it pleases
Van Gogh is murdered again…
In the case of the Danish cartoons the MainStreamMedia bows down, and in so doing hides the triviality of the complaint by hiding how tame the cartoons really are as well as failing to report on the fakes that fuel the faux outrage.
In the case of the AP photographs, one of the monoliths of the MainStreamMedia is hiding it’s own collaborative propagandist efforts by hiding that very propaganda from criticism.
It’s really no different then Mark Steyn being sued for quoting the Jihadists, only the excuse to attack varies slightly, but the intent to evade criticism for naked support of terrorism is the same.
Youtube’s bowing to Pakistan is simply another example…
Today’s example?
“AP Blares: “33 Palestinians Killed in Clashes” — and, um, by the way, they started it” - Andrew McCarthy