Ass. Press trying to finish itself off

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 | Media Behaving Badly |

So the Associated Press is threatening legal action against an AP affiliate using its content, even when the AP itself uploaded said content to YouTube and enabled the sharing and embedding permissions.

From Michael Silence, who has been covering the shenanigans:

Nashville’s Christian Grantham interviews Frank Strovel, a LaFollette journalist and blogger, on AP’s cease and desist order served on WTNQ-FM of LaFollette.

Here’s part of what Grantham has to say about the situation: What is happening to the Associated Press? Does AP seriously have executives and attorneys who are this clueless about their own operations, the law and the internet in general? What kind of copyright attorney doesn’t even know what is and is not legal to do with embedable YouTube video?

This is exactly the kind of thing Clay Shirky was talking about:

Revolutions create a curious inversion of perception. In ordinary times, people who do no more than describe the world around them are seen as pragmatists, while those who imagine fabulous alternative futures are viewed as radicals. The last couple of decades haven’t been ordinary, however. Inside the papers, the pragmatists were the ones simply looking out the window and noticing that the real world was increasingly resembling the unthinkable scenario. These people were treated as if they were barking mad. Meanwhile the people spinning visions of popular walled gardens and enthusiastic micropayment adoption, visions unsupported by reality, were regarded not as charlatans but saviors.

LATER: The AP backed down. Score one for the good guys.

Tags: youtube