Friday, April 10, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
AP on Mission to Become RIAA of News?
On Monday, The Associated Press Board of Directors announced the launch of an "industry initiative to protect news content from misappropriation online". AP Chairman Dean Singleton said the AP will "work with portals and other partners who properly license content – and would pursue legal and legislative actions against those who don‘t." In addition to reducing rates, revising package plans and offering a loyalty discount, the AP seem to be taking an ill-advised cue from the RIAA's "How to Sow Discontent Among Your Customer Base". To wit, a rural radio station and AP affiliate, WTNQ-FM 104.9 in Lafollete, Tennessee, was contacted by the AP with an e-mail "cease and desist" regarding AP YouTube videos embedded on the station's website. Frank Strovel, charged with maintaining WTNQ's site, chronicled the exchange on his blog, Left of the Dial.
Strovel writes: I called [our AP Regional Radio Representative]. I said, “How is it a violation of a license agreement if you are actively posting the video on YouTube — on a channel you specifically created to share content — with embed codes for people to post in their websites? Are you telling me that you put it there for people to use... but if they USE IT they’re violating your rights?”
The basic reply was, “Well, I’ll have to investigate that issue further but in the meantime you need to pull all of our videos off your site.”
I asked, “Is it because we’re a radio station? What if I posted one of your videos from YouTube on my personal blog? Would I be in violation of your rights?”
Again, no definite answer. The guy is stumped. But I must take down the videos I posted. And he told me that now he is noticing that other stations are doing the same thing and they’re “looking into that”.
So they singled us out? A small, rural station?
OK, so yesterday I pulled the videos. Today, we talked again. He still had no answer as to why they are posting content on YouTube for embedding when it’s apparently a crime to do so. I think I’ve set his office into a bit of a tizzy. He said he has talked to his superiors and still has no answers to my questions but they are “looking into the matter”.
After the episode attracted the attention of the blogosphere, the AP apologized to Strovel and informed him that WTNQ can embed AP vids.
The inherent absurdity of this episode is probably already obvious to y'all. First, this station is an AP affiliate; the AP is alienating their customer base with their ignorance of their own policies coupled with their ham-handed attempt at enforcement of said policies. Second, by creating a YouTube channel and leaving their embed codes enabled, the AP should be abiding by YouTube TOS; namely section 6-C, wherein the TOS states: "For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions. However, by submitting User Submissions to YouTube, ... you also hereby grant each user of the YouTube Website a non-exclusive license to access your User Submissions through the Website, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such User Submissions as permitted through the functionality of the Website and under these Terms of Service." Finally, if the AP wants to control and profit from the use of their video content, why don't they develop their own user-friendly content delivery network? Instead, the AP piggybacks off YouTube's CDN, fails to utilize tools to disable embedding, and then cries foul when one of its affiliates uses the service as it is offered.
Just, wow.
Strovel writes: I called [our AP Regional Radio Representative]. I said, “How is it a violation of a license agreement if you are actively posting the video on YouTube — on a channel you specifically created to share content — with embed codes for people to post in their websites? Are you telling me that you put it there for people to use... but if they USE IT they’re violating your rights?”
The basic reply was, “Well, I’ll have to investigate that issue further but in the meantime you need to pull all of our videos off your site.”
I asked, “Is it because we’re a radio station? What if I posted one of your videos from YouTube on my personal blog? Would I be in violation of your rights?”
Again, no definite answer. The guy is stumped. But I must take down the videos I posted. And he told me that now he is noticing that other stations are doing the same thing and they’re “looking into that”.
So they singled us out? A small, rural station?
OK, so yesterday I pulled the videos. Today, we talked again. He still had no answer as to why they are posting content on YouTube for embedding when it’s apparently a crime to do so. I think I’ve set his office into a bit of a tizzy. He said he has talked to his superiors and still has no answers to my questions but they are “looking into the matter”.
After the episode attracted the attention of the blogosphere, the AP apologized to Strovel and informed him that WTNQ can embed AP vids.
The inherent absurdity of this episode is probably already obvious to y'all. First, this station is an AP affiliate; the AP is alienating their customer base with their ignorance of their own policies coupled with their ham-handed attempt at enforcement of said policies. Second, by creating a YouTube channel and leaving their embed codes enabled, the AP should be abiding by YouTube TOS; namely section 6-C, wherein the TOS states: "For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions. However, by submitting User Submissions to YouTube, ... you also hereby grant each user of the YouTube Website a non-exclusive license to access your User Submissions through the Website, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such User Submissions as permitted through the functionality of the Website and under these Terms of Service." Finally, if the AP wants to control and profit from the use of their video content, why don't they develop their own user-friendly content delivery network? Instead, the AP piggybacks off YouTube's CDN, fails to utilize tools to disable embedding, and then cries foul when one of its affiliates uses the service as it is offered.
Just, wow.
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