The Associated Press digs themselves in, faster and deeper

Michael Arrington runs TechCrunch, probably the leading Internet-business blog; Teresa Neilson-Hayden is half of Making Light, one of the favorite cultural-geekerati ones. You know that you've managed to piss off pretty much the entire blogosphere when both of them go after you. See this TechCrunch article for the overview, or this one in Making Light for the deep, delicious and juicy details of what's going on.

Brief summary: the Associated Press managed to start something of a controversy a few days ago by essentially declaring their intent to sue any blogger who quotes more than four words of an AP story. This would probably have merely been a heated but significant argument over the nature of fair use, if they'd left it there.

But they then managed to turn into into a full-blown scandal by letting it be known that they were negotiating the matter with the "Media Bloggers Association". Since none of the major bloggers had ever *heard* of this "association", they started investigating, and -- well, read Teresa's long report for the details. It's horribly fun, if you like watching self-important boobs getting outed. Suffice it to say, the "association" appears to be sham by a nitwit who has been trying to turn himself into the official representative of the blogosphere, and who has succeeded in suckering the AP and New York Times into believing that he is meaningful...

The Associated Press digs themselves in, faster and deeper

Michael Arrington runs TechCrunch, probably the leading Internet-business blog; Teresa Neilson-Hayden is half of Making Light, one of the favorite cultural-geekerati ones. You know that you've managed to piss off pretty much the entire blogosphere when both of them go after you. See this TechCrunch article for the overview, or this one in Making Light for the deep, delicious and juicy details of what's going on.

Brief summary: the Associated Press managed to start something of a controversy a few days ago by essentially declaring their intent to sue any blogger who quotes more than four words of an AP story. This would probably have merely been a heated but significant argument over the nature of fair use, if they'd left it there.

But they then managed to turn into into a full-blown scandal by letting it be known that they were negotiating the matter with the "Media Bloggers Association". Since none of the major bloggers had ever *heard* of this "association", they started investigating, and -- well, read Teresa's long report for the details. It's horribly fun, if you like watching self-important boobs getting outed. Suffice it to say, the "association" appears to be sham by a nitwit who has been trying to turn himself into the official representative of the blogosphere, and who has succeeded in suckering the AP and New York Times into believing that he is meaningful...