Recently, the Associated Press announced that they were going to war against "misappropriation" of their content.  AP Chairman Dean Singleton made the drama-queenish declaration: ""We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories".  And they are apparently moving forward with software to help track down the work-stealing miscreants responsible.

Ars Technica recently explored what the AP has up it's sleeve in an interview with AP news editor Ted Bridis - published in an article yesterday that gives a great update on an issue that may have a significant impact on the blogging community.  Depending on who you listen to, either bloggers have nothing to worry about .... or can expect a RIAA vs. Napster battle over fair use. (be sure to check out the whole article - my summary doesn't really do the topic justice)

Bridis explained that the news company is going to update its staff about its mysterious new misappropriation heat-seeking system soon via an internal webcast.

"The guidelines are coming," Bridis promised. "AP's main concern are not the bloggers that excerpt a relevant passage, and then derive some commentary. What happens an awful lot is just wholesale theft. So those are the ones that will find the cease and desist letters arriving."

Now, that doesn't sound so bad.  But a lawyer on the receiving end of a recent AP smackdown isn't as convinced of AP's good intent:

Cadenhead was less sanguine about the future, even after he settled with AP. "If AP's guidelines end up like the ones they shared with me, we're headed for a Napster-style battle on the issue of fair use," he warned.

The final conclusion is that we'll know more in 2 weeks.

"We're going to be learning more ourselves about exactly how the technology is going to work" in about two weeks, Bridis said. But about this he is sure. "You can't just taken an entire AP wire feed or even an entire AP story, or even half of an AP story, necessarily, and republish it or repurpose it," he said. "We need the money. The industry is falling apart."

Honestly, I don't think this will have much impact on the posters here at TPM.  Rarely do any posts go beyond what I consider fair use.  That said, there is an awful lot of wiggle room in their statements to be pretty aggressive against commentary based on AP content.  This is certainly an issue to watch.


Quick Site Plug: Ars Techinca is by far my favorite source for information on tech policy.  They cover energy legislation, privacy issues, electronic policy, and provide the most consistent tech-related stimulus spending coverage around.  If these topics are of interest, the Ars "law and disorder" section is a very solid addition to a news-junkie's virtual rounds.