24 July 2009

Why Friends Do Not Let Friends Link to the Associated Press

So, the AP continues on its jihad against fair use of its work.

They are looking at including "beacons," which will track just who reads which article, in their work.

When they appeared on Facebook, there was a revolt over this.

I would also note that it appears that their target appears to be Google News, ""The problem we have now is that our stories are getting scraped and reused in large quantities by aggregators who haven't paid any license fees," according to Jane Seagrave, Senior VP for global product development at the AP.

You know, if they get what they want, Google news, and other news search pages, will drop them, and they will vanish from the public consciousness with barely a ripple, so go ahead, commit Seppuku.

The problem here is two fold, their clients, the newspapers, are getting their asses kicked by Craigslist and its ilk, and 2nd, major news sources, including the AP, have decided that having the one side tell the truth, and having the other side lie, in an article is balanced journalism.

It's not, it's stenography.

This sort of sh&% is why whenever I come across an AP story, I look for an alternate source, using those "aggregators" that they hate so much.

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