Court Upholds AP "Quasi-Property" Rights On Hot News 169
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "A federal court ruled that the AP can sue competitors for 'quasi-property' rights on hot news, as well as for copyright infringement and several other claims. The so-called 'hot news' doctrine was created by a judge 90 years ago in another case, where the AP sued a competitor for copying wartime reporting and bribing its employees to send them a copy of unreleased news. The courts' solution was to make hot news a form of 'quasi-property' distinct from copyright, in part because facts cannot be copyrighted. But now the AP is making use of the precedent again, going after AHN which competes with the AP, alleging that they're somehow copying the AP's news. The AP has been rather busy with lawsuits lately, so even though the AP has a story about their own lawsuit, we won't link to it."
I call it plagiarism (Score:5, Informative)
Instead of this fancy legal term of "hot news", I use another term for what AHN is doing to AP: "plagiarism". According to nolo:
putting your name on someone else's work is still plagiarism and is unethical within artistic, scientific, academic and political communities
I guess the press is not one of those communities. I'm not a big fan of lawsuits: I was sued once by a company that wanted to put me out of business and they almost succeeded. Being right doesn't matter, it's whoever has the deepest pockets.
So in this case, I'd much rather have the community (the readers) shun AHN. It's important for everyone to know what is going on, and let the public make their own choices.
--
FairSoftware.net [fairsoftware.net] -- where geeks are their own boss
Re:I call it plagiarism (Score:5, Insightful)
At what point does this end though? You can't own a fact.
It's currently raining in NY (c) AP 2009?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Now that you've already posted it in public, it's not "hot" news anymore.
Re:I call it plagiarism (Score:5, Interesting)
At what point does this end though? You can't own a fact.
You can sue over them though, as the Big sports associations have:
This one covers "Hot scores" [wired.com].
Back in 1996 this was apparently a controversial thing. Info here about owning facts here [cptech.org] and on the same site here [cptech.org].
And there are still attempts to sue fantasy sports like this one [yahoo.com], but I've never heard of this kind of suit being won by the plaintiffs.
Stranger things have been upheld in court.
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That's a slightly different topic which is statistics.
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It ends at the point you no longer have a competitive advantage from having the "scoop." If I remember the case right, the court correctly noted that the facts can't be copyrighted, and instead carved out a narrow common law right to "hot news" based on a three-factor test I don't remember. There's really not much of a slippery slope here.
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If you reword it it's neither plagiarism nor copyright infringement. If you blockquote a portion of it it may or may not be fair use. But if you copy the whole thing word for word it's copyright infringement, and if you do that withoout attribution it's also plagiarism.
You can't own facts, nor can you really own literary works; you can only hold copyright, which gives you a limited time monopoly oon its publication.
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No, copyright already protects expression, this "hot news" protection must go beyond that.
And your capitalism thing there sounds fairly communist. Only in a communism is does your amount of work matter. In a capitalism you're just as free to sell something for $1 or $1M, if you find it or spend your entire life making it. The price paid, and thus value given for your time, is totally dependent on value you provide to the customer.
Many things of high value fall into our laps every day. If, for instance, you
!plagiarism (Score:5, Insightful)
Covering the same story is not necessarily plagiarism, copying it verbatim would come directly under copyright but AFAICT that's not the case at issue.
Anyway:
The AP has been rather busy with lawsuits lately, so even though the AP has a story about their own lawsuit, we won't link to it.
It made for a good joke but the AP doesn't seem to be covering this story (I was going to post the link but I can't find one).
Re:!plagiarism (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they sent themselves a DMCA takedown notice.
Sounds like they have a copyright claim. (Score:2)
If they're reading the AP's articles, then altering them, why doesn't the AP have a copyright claim that the AHI's articles are derivative works of the AP's?
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Because the AP's articles are derivative works of Current Events.
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Because they don't get exclusive rights in facts. I could copy all the facts from the leading biography of Pres. Obama and publish my own book based on those facts, and nobody would have a claim.
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But if they're reading the articles and loosely republishing them, then isn't their expression of those facts a deriviative work of the AP's expression of those facts? (That's copyrightable otherwise your software wouldn't be.)
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Another news service covering a story is legitimate news. I've many times seen or heard an article or broadcast claim "[other news service] is reporting that..." I think the problem is that AHN is leaving out the "AP is reporting that..." part.
The notion that advertising the original news service is as or more important than the news itself is not newsworthy to me.
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Thanks, I guess it's because the story is a week old!
I didn't try to look that far back, their search interface isn't very useful.
it is not plagiarism (Score:5, Informative)
The press isn't one of those communities because the press doesn't deal in the kinds of concepts you can plagiarize. If AHN copied AP text verbatim, you might say that they plagiarized the writing, but then they would get sued for copyright infringement. But they are merely stating the same fact as a fact stated in an AP news story, and it's a fact that, unlike a scientific experiment, didn't require creativity to observe--it merely required presence.
So, I don't think it's plagiarism.
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If they were at a new-event, there is no problem with them creating their own copy (words) and publishing. The entire news industry is based on exactly this.
The problem with AHN is that they are not sending reporters to stories, they are merely copying AP stories.
The Associated Press actually is set up for exactly this purpose (other outlets using their stories); but AP wire-service subscribers are held to certain
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The problem with this is that AHN isn't present. They are merely lifting AP stories.
The problem with AHN is that they are not sending reporters to stories, they are merely copying AP stories.
I see what you did there.
But what if they weren't just getting their facts from AP stories? What if they also got facts from another hot-news source that had information the AP didn't? Shouldn't they be able to combine the facts from two stories in a new narrative to create a more complete story?
It seems other useful actions may run afoul of this, including providing a translation service. Are only the people who read a hot news item's original published languages deserving to be informed?
I read the news to
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But what if they weren't just getting their facts from AP stories? What if they also got facts from another hot-news source that had information the AP didn't? Shouldn't they be able to combine the facts from two stories in a new narrative to create a more complete story? It seems other useful actions may run afoul of this, including providing a translation service. Are only the people who read a hot news item's original published languages deserving to be informed?
Well, isn't the point that they're NOT doing these things? If they were, perhaps the suit would not have come up...
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But what if they weren't just getting their facts from AP stories? What if they also got facts from another hot-news source that had information the AP didn't? Shouldn't they be able to combine the facts from two stories in a new narrative to create a more complete story?
What you are describing is common and accepted practice for many end-user publications (often a staff-writer for a publication will get multiple versions of the story and write a story from the raw facts. This is especially true of weeklies where a nightly deadline isn't as critical, or a local perspective may be placed on a national or regional breaking news item.
Time is critical with breaking stories (print deadlines, television air times, etc.) - having a writer gather the same information, confirm t
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Is the company misrepresenting themselves as being the original witnesses? Or are they just not pointing that out? AP customers should just say "Straight from AP - faster and more likely to be correct".
But the success of AP and their business model isn't relevant. It's a free market. If the current model isn't profitable let companies adjust. Nobody promises you you'll have the same job in fifty years, so why should we do that for companies?
Think about the hassle this law will cause. A whole new type of int
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You have to consider what is best for society. If news is unprotected, then it's in everyone's best interest to copy the facts from another source. It's a prisoner's dilemma, and unfortunately greedy companies ALWAYS choose to defect, which means anyone who isn't a sucker will have to either defect as well (leaving us with no source for news whatsoever) or change the rules of the game (which the AP is trying to do).
More power to them.
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If we're trying to do what's best for society why don't we let the artificial news market die and simply setup an organization like the BBC.
If it can't be done profitably and yet we all insist on doing it then it sounds like a fit for a co-op, or government project. Not run for profit, but because we think free news is more valuable than some amount of tax money.
Maybe the AP is bloated. We'd never know if we simply gave them welfare (like our airlines, auto companies, farmers, etc... ugh!) We'll find out th
sure, but plagiarism isn't illegal (Score:2)
Unethical, yes, but that's policed, to the extent that it is, by professional communities among themselves. If someone proves an important new theorem, and I claim to prove the same theorem the same way the next month, no reputable math journal would publish my plagiarized paper. But if I put a PDF online, I wouldn't be committing a crime, either.
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But if you rewrote someone else's findings to be understandable you'd probably get published, if your work was helpful.
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You answered your own question.
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I'd just like to hear it from the person actually doing it, in order to decide how to respond. Why would someone want to bypass a user's preference to not see signatures, especially since it requires extra work?
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I'd just like to hear it from the person actually doing it, in order to decide how to respond. Why would someone want to bypass a user's preference to not see signatures, especially since it requires extra work?
There is a script floating around which will automatically insert a sig on slashdot posts. It doesn't have to require ongoing work.
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It's called ignorance (mine). Most posts I read here have a signature, so I sign my posts just the same way I was doing it 2000 years ago on Usenet (except it seems that one line is the etiquette here, versus 4 lines - good choice by the way, one liner is better).
And then one day you realize that you don't have to type it by hand, there is a feature (is it under preferences or profile I guess).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The signature in question appears to be an advertisement for a web site. Advertisers in general try to force people to see their ads. In other words, the signature is spam, and typing it by hand (or script) bypasses the spam filter.
This just in... (Score:4, Funny)
... I'm about to be sued by Associated Press for this hot news item. More at 11
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Any particular reason for precisely naming the film at 11?
Not that I'm knocking Scum, it's a fucking masterpiece; indeed it broke the system.
Who's the daddy now?
New Internet Rules (Score:3, Insightful)
If it can be taken, copied, borrowed, whatever - it will be. It is not physically or technically possible to prevent this from happening.
That means you are left with civil court remedies, which generally take too long to get anywhere and the penalties may be wholly out of line with the benefits. Basically, you can drive your competitors out of a billion-dollary business and get fined a million dollars. Sounds like a great business plan.
Alternatively, civil court remedies can be wholly out of line the other way, where the benefit to the offender is $1000 and they have to pay a $250,000 fine.
We have spent the last 20 years educating the population that "borrowing" and "sharing" is good and fine and as long as it is on the Internet nobody is harmed. Can we not understand that this is going to carry over into all walks of life. If it is OK to share music across the planet at home then at work it is going to be OK to share web content, or any other content you can lay your hands on.
Plagiarism? Sure. But people buy term papers on the Internet all the time, so don't expect they will feel any shame about this sort of activity either.
Sharing is not plagiarism (Score:4, Interesting)
I just thought I should point that out. Plagiarism is claiming someone else's work as your own. Sharing does not imply plagiarism. The vast majority of copyright infringement is *not* plagiarism.
One of the foundations of international copyright (and an aspect of it not strongly respected by the United States) is moral rights, including the right of the author to be given credit. I find it ironic that vigorous enforcement of copyright actually creates an incentive for sharers and borrowers to obscure the source or credit of material. This makes their activity harder to detect, and easier for them to defend ("I got this from AP" is kind of a dead giveaway).
If copyright law was closer to actual social practice, this kind of plagiarism would likely be much less common.
Personally, I find clear cases of plagiarism to be utterly dishonest and far worse than sharing.
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I think even much of the anti-copyright crowd is still against the idea of attempting to profit off someone else's wo
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Plagiarism? Sure. But people buy term papers on the Internet all the time, so don't expect they will feel any shame about this sort of activity either.
That seems to be insidious and corrosive though. You better hope that any physician you get had better scruples than that. The same goes to your car mechanic or commercial airline pilot too. You don't want people that should have failed those tests to go on and get employment, which could have devastating consequences.
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If you have too much sharing, then there is no longer a means for sales.
No, that's going too far. People sell copies of public domain works all the time. Go to any decent bookstore, and you'll find copies of Dickens, Hugo, Twain, etc.
Frankly, it's not for you or anyone else to judge how they choose to profit from their creations.
Well, to some extent it is. The people empowered the government to enact copyright laws meant to benefit the people. Copyright doesn't originate from authors, and is not meant to se
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Public domain works are public domain, so there's no issue with a copyright owner staging a protest. It's irrelevant.
Not at all; the complaint was that without a copyright, sales were impossible: "If you have too much sharing, then there is no longer a means for sales." The sale of copies of public domain works disproves that.
It exists to permit a monopoly holder to engage in economic exploitation of their works in exchange for them providing their works to the public.
Well, not quite. It exists to provide t
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It does not. No one pays for access to works of Shakespeare in electronic form
And? The complaint was that sales were impossible, not that one specific kind of sale couldn't compete. Don't go changing the facts to support a failed argument.
and the sales of paper copies do not provide any revenue for the creator--which is the purpose of copyright.
No, the purpose of copyright is to promote the progress of science. It may accomplish this by the means of directing revenue toward the copyright holder, but that's
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No, the statement was that remuneration to the author (sales) would not occur with excessive sharing.
No, the statement was:
If you have too much sharing, then there is no longer a means for sales.
I don't see anything there indicating whose sales, or how remunerative the sales have to be. Just that sales are, in fact, possible. I myself have spent money on copies of Shakespeare, as have many others. The publishers find it rewarding enough to keep churning out copies. Shakespeare doesn't see a penny of it. Still, other than the fact that he's dead, nothing is stopping Shakespeare
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IT HAS BEEN CLARIFIED
Sure, but even as clarified, it's still demonstrably incorrect.
A work, when created, is solely, exclusively, permanently private, owned as to all applicable legal rights by its creator. Any use of that work is a legal injury.
No, I disagree. A work, having been created, may be kept private. But they often aren't, and once revealed to the public, it is no longer shielded by whatever privacy rights that were employed to do so. And while a particular party who infringes on those privacy rig
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'Demonstrably' presumes a demonstration, which you have not achieved.
The Romero example; it's a public domain work, many publishers sell copies, and the author sells copies as well.
Of course, I advocate the legalization of otherwise infringing non-commercial behavior engaged in by natural persons. So while there would be some effect on the market for authorized copies of the work, whatever market remained would still largely be monopolized by the copyright holder. So really, the example goes a little furth
Message (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Message (Score:5, Funny)
Can we instead quasi-fight for our quasi-right to quasi-party?
Some more analysis links (Score:5, Insightful)
from Harvad Law (emphasis mine):
But this doesn't really matter anyway, since if you read on in the link I provided, you'll see that federal common law was abolished, so what matters is the specific state law. New York common law establishes strict criteria for the application of the misappropriation doctrine to "hot news" (see National Basketball Ass'n v. Sports Team Analysis & Tracking Systems, Inc. [fmew.com] [warning: site is ugly as sin] for how a recent plaintiff's claim was found to be lacking)... and this seems to meet all of it. It made me chuckle, however, that in that link one of the biggest supporters of the defendant in that case was the AP.
At any rate, I think we need to have either sweeping federal law specifically creating this property, or we need to have no right to "hot news" as quasi-property. The problem with the latter is then there is no incentive to do fact reporting at all, since it would be impossible to recoup the costs of it. The idealist in me says "Boo to treating information as property" but the realist in me says "Yay to having paid reporters".
Meanwhile, the cynic in me says "It doesn't matter, we'll only see the news they want us to see", the paranoid in me says "We'll only see the news THEY want us to see", and the dadaist in me says "News? Art.".
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No incentive at all? So the fact that most national stories that papers do publish don't generally raise such an issue means nothing to you?
The incentive is there. Beat the other papers to the scoop, forcing the other papers to follow rather than lead.
Re:Some more analysis links (Score:4, Informative)
It's common knowledge in news publishing that in-depth reporting is disappearing. There have been reporter layoffs coast-to-coast, and more papers than ever are simply paying their subscriptions to the AP or Reuters or another news service, then copyediting the AP article (and crediting the AP, of course). This alone is severely limiting the quantity of quality news (especially local news).
However, facts are facts. Since they cannot be copyrighted, this quasi-property status is all that keeps someone from grabbing the facts from the AP Newswire, and reporting on it themselves. This can be done as quickly as someone who is giving attribution to the AP, so the competitive advantage you allow for (which enables the profit) is moot.
If we work from your example, a publisher protects their profit by use of secrecy. This doesn't work for a newswire, whose very business model depends on others' having access to their reporting.
In essence, there are two levels of publication -- once by the AP to news outlets, and once by the news outlets to the public. No "hot news" provision means that the AP's customers (the news outlets) don't need to pay the AP, or even attribute stories to them. Thus, the AP can't pay reporters, and we have even fewer reporters to dig up the facts.
Eventually, all news outlets will be just like the blogosphere, with a dearth of quality reporting, and endless bloglink circle jerks.
I, for one, appreciate the value of the fourth estate.
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The Age won't get much advantage from sending reporters to the USA. But historically they only did that because I couldn't buy the New York Times in Melbourne.
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The news still has to be carried by one or more newspapers before the papers that don't subscribe to AP can relay the facts represented in AP news stories. That means the AP gets paid, just as it's been getting paid all this time. The "hot news" doctrine is as about as unnecessary as it is rare, and the AP can survive without it.
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The fact that the hot news doctrine is rarely invoked coupled with the fact that AP is still around suggests your objection is entirely without merit. The AP is doing fine without the hot news doctrine, so let's get rid of it for good.
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The fact that there have been few murders lately means that the prohibition on murder isn't needed. People who don't want to be killed are doing just fine without laws against murder, as evidenced by the fact that they so rarely have to be enforced; we should get rid of them for good.
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I'm saying that your claim that journalism cannot survive without the hot news doctrine is absolutely ridiculous, given that it's survived all along pretty much without it. I don't care to get into arguments about nuclear weapons or, as with the poster below you, murder convictions. I only care about the claim that corporations should be granted an exclusive right to facts under the guise that their business model becomes impossible for failure to do so.
If I didn't explicitly address the cost of journalism
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Actually, given all that you wrote, wouldn't the demise of AP mean there would be more reporters to dig up facts? Because without AP, a newspaper wouldn't have the
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The AP is a way for them to cut costs by sharing the expense of reporters. One AP reporter is far more efficient for raw facts than twelve reporters getting the same facts for twelve papers (though, of course, variety and depth suffer -- but that's another discussion).
Newspaper revenues are tanking, and if the newswires go bye-bye for lack of revenue, news reporting as we've known it is gone forever. Compare the papers today to t
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Ha. Newspapers are firing the journalists, because they can get basic news from the AP, or Reuters.
Authors are what sell print media, since that content is not available from the newswires... and they can keep the stories secret until publication.
News reporting is being outsourced to the newswires. Since all the papers get their news from the same sources, timeliness doesn't matter anymore... and the competitive advantage from timeline
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Why? What convinced you that this is an actual, real, problem that will de
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I fail to see why someone such as yourself would dismiss that case law out of hand without reading more about it... instead you sit on your moral high chair and demand that proof be brought to you.
I have no problem with you being sceptical... but it's intellectually lazy for you to be sceptical but to demand that others address it for you. Instead of placing a burden of proof, why not aim for gr
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I don't like your two choices. Why not give everyone in America X dollars to appropriate as they see fit to their favorite fact observer(s).
I can see it now... (Score:2)
Just imagine...
Massive Asteroid Headed for Earth.
In other news: AP victorious in pre-publication motion to prevent competitors from carrying asteroid story.
Re:I can see it now... (Score:4, Funny)
protecting information: here's the deal (Score:5, Insightful)
We have IP for a reason: it helps make social structures work better. As a society, we make a little deal, and that deal is a different in each of the 3 broad categories of IP protection: copyright & trademarks, patents, and trade secrets.
In the copyright area, the deal works like this: the Content Creator gets a limited time right to exclusively control profits, distribution, performance, derivatives and use of the work they create as a proxy for the "property right" they would normally get to claim if they had created a physical thing. In return for this exclusive control, the Content Creator gets both benefits, but also pays a downside. The benefit is they get to profit and control the results of their efforts. The downside is that after that limited time is over, the information always gets released to the society at large. In the long run, society benefits from this deal in two ways: it promotes the creation of works based on information: digital media, software, literature, music, movies, etc. ...in today's world - most everything relating to media, computers, and electronic art. The second, important benefit is that society gets all the information after the limited time is over. It all becomes public domain.
Copyright is good, and we need it. Many have argued and manipulated the system to change the amount of time - but that is another story. Many have argued about how much of what one creates can be controlled, and how - and we have fair use cases that cover exactly that.
So we already have the deal. The deal works (some might argue poorly). I don't see a valid need for another, different deal.
Just because AP runs a large business and spends money doesn't mean they (or anyone) can cut a new deal. In this case, the whole idea of "hot news" is about controlling very specific, small pieces of information: scores, facts, headlines. In my opinion after a very brief read: the balance between what is good of society and what is good for the Content Creator is not met.
Re:protecting information: trade secrets (Score:3, Insightful)
Unpublished news is like unpublished scientific discoveries or product developments. Trade secrets are property of the employer and the employee giving them to anyone else is simple theft and the receiver is at least a receiver of stolen goods, or may be complicit in the theft.
How can a republisher have any advantage? They have to change the words, most likely reducing accuracy. If they can prepare a prettier p
Re:protecting information: here's the deal (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We have only had the legal concept of IP for a few hundred years now. Are you saying social structures didn't work before then? I think the ancient Egyptians, Mayans, Greeks, Romans, Chinese, and many other civilizations too numerous to mention would probably disagree with you on that one.
They also lacked a way to efficiently copy information. IP law, in the form of author's privileges, appeared as early as the 15th century in the west, following the invention of the movable type printing press.
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IP law, in the form of author's privileges, appeared as early as the 15th century in the west, following the invention of the movable type printing press.
It looks like [wikipedia.org] it actually started as publisher's privileges:
Re:protecting information: here's the deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds strawman-ish. "work better" doesn't have to mean mean things didn't work at all before. Not only that, the landscapes were very different. There wasn't a mass market for prerecorded/preprinted media because it was too expensive. I don't think as big of a proportion of the society worked at creating works of art, books, music, movies either. Before a couple centuries ago, most people's employment was in food production, now, food production employs less than 5% of a modern developed society.
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Copyright is good, and we need it.
Has anyone actually shown that overall creative output increased as a result of the adoption of copyright, like the theories say is should have?
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At least on the surface if you look at employment, a greater percentage of the population is involved in "creative" tasks compared to the past. Historically people were involved in purely labor intensive tasks (eg farming, construction); automation and mass production have rendered these types of tasks obsolete.
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Entities should not legally be allowed to own copyrights for living artists' and authors' work.
the MPAA's member companies should not disallow writers to hold copyrights on their work.
We should not be legally allowed or able to sign away our rights on the dotted line.
Copyright was thought up as a way to protect authors' and inventors' work. It was meant as a way to prevent plagiarism and protect the rights of the original creator.
The whole system has been bastardized and gamed to cut the creators out of th
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Most creative works are not the result of one person; it takes a large number of people, if each retained the copyright for their portion you would create a bigger legal mess.
People should be allow to sign away their copyright. It's a fair exchange where they get a firm return and not deal with the risk if their product is a commercial failure. The **AA doesn't go to the artist and ask for millions of dollars if their song/movie bombs.
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Copyright is good, and we need it.
Oh, wonderful. Propaganda without numerical evidence being asserted for the zillionth time. Your scientific evidence for this practically neanderthal spam is?
Perhaps the benefit of allowing billions of people to share outweighs the dubious benefit of allowing very small numbers of people to profit. In a society of billions it is a statistical certainty that millions will want to create for reasons other than what the copyright monopoly gives and that may be a net win.
I ge
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When copyright is perpetually extended, the manipulation of the system is the main story. Nothing created after 1920 will ever enter the publice domain again unless the creator releases it. Copyright is now a legal instrument for a small number of people to control all of our culture.
Come on now (Score:2)
"we won't link to it."
I know you are making a joke, but we shouldn't participate in this bullshit by limiting what we publish [ap.org].
Another sign of the failing news industry (Score:5, Insightful)
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The Associated Press is a not-for-profit organization comprised of hundreds of newspapers and television stations around the world. Members of the cooperative pay to subscribe to news that they would ordinarily not be able to cover because of limited resources. They also contribute their own resources to the wire service. If there is a tornado in some small town in Kansas, the AP will "pick up" the story from the local n
And I thought the Ninth Circus liked to... (Score:2)
...legislate from the bench.
Seriously, where's the statutory basis for this new property right? Or did they pull all of this stuff directly out of their ass?
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It's common law. Which is a fancy way of saying the latter.
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My thought, too. Ugly, ugly, ugly. I think all this legislating from the bench is a consequence of the USA's senate, with its different composition from the house and procedural ugliness (fillibusters, senators anonymously delaying legislation, etc), and the president's veto power. Legislation is so hard to pass, that there has over time grown more acceptance towards judges pulling these sorts of stunts.
I do not think it would likely have been accepted in most other western states. If a judge made such a ru
I'll wait for the court decision (Score:2)
...and when its in, I'll read all about it in the,....er,.....um.....
Well, maybe not.
Copy of decision (Score:2)
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Maybe they're like the NN equivalent of an AC on SD or something.
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That being said, you're absolutely right. The full, unabbreviated name should have been in there at least once.
Re:What the hell is "AP"? (Score:4, Funny)
That being said, you're absolutely right. The full, unabbreviated name should have been in there at least once.
Indeed. I'd quote the relevant passage from the AP Stylebook regarding the use of abbreviations, but they seem to have locked it up behind a paid-content wall.
Take THAT, thriving black market for standard news industry reference materials!
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The "AP" is the Associated Press. It's probably the largest news gathering organization in the world.
--AC
Re:What the hell is "AP"? (Score:5, Informative)
It's the The Associated Press [wikipedia.org], a wire service [wikipedia.org].
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Re:What the hell is "AP"? (Score:5, Funny)
Associated Press. (%Insert link to Wikipedia article.%) (%Insert random fact or two about AP.%) (%Insert funny comment to try and get modded up.%)
Ah, thank god for my Slashdot comment template engine.
Re:What the hell is "AP"? (Score:5, Informative)
I know your being cynical, but if you:
a) answered the question
b) put interesting facts in
c) put relevant link in
d) entertain people in the process
Hell, you deserve to be modded up.
This post meets a & d, but misses b and c so should still do ok. But overuse this particular d and it will cease to entertain which just leaves a, and there is no shortage of a's, which means this template, if it remains unfilled will start out funny, but as the funny wears off your moderation will trend towards redundant. ;)
Re:What the hell is "AP"? (Score:5, Interesting)
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True, but AP means so many other things depending on the context. When I was in highschool, AP meant "Advanced Placement". In the technology namespace, it means "Access Point".
Assuming people on slashdot are going to be familiar with acronyms from the journalism namespace is not really appropriate in my opinion.
Still though, googling for "AP" gives the answer on the first hit, or (god forbid) clicking the link to the article.
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Try this:
http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=ap [lmgtfy.com]
But seriously...with the context of the writeup...how in the hell could you not know who the AP is?
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Do I need to explain what IBM stands for too?
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"Not-for-profit" != "takes in no money".
Not-for-profit is more of a legal/accounting designation than a vow of poverty, and lawsuits are often to get an court ruling against improper/undesirable behavior, rather than win lots of money.
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I didn't know what AP meant either meaning it's 2 vs 1.
Re:What the hell is "AP"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, let's check the wikipedia article:
The Associated Press (AP) is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States
Perhaps this is the reason that I had never heard about "AP"? It's not being used outside your country, but I suppose USA means "The World". I guess you'll wake up sooner or later.
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I remember it well - I was an AP stringer for 12 years, and we covered news (and provided news to outlets) across the world.
Siting Wikipedia for this is just silly. Did you even think to check the AP website?
From http://www.ap.org/pages/about/about.html [ap.org]
243 bureaus in 97 countries.
1,700 U.S. daily, weekly, non-English and college newspapers.
5,000 radio and television outlets taking AP services.
850 AP Radio News audio affiliates.
550 International broadcasters wh
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Neither. RTFA.
a "hot news" misappropriation claim is viable when:
(i) a plaintiff generates or gathers information at a cost; ...
(iii) a defendant's use of the information constitutes free riding on the plaintiff's efforts; ...