There’s Been An Interesting Turn to AP and Drudge Retort Case: They’ve Settled. For Now.

Since the 24/7 news cycle is no longer, and it’s now a minute to minute news cycle, matters of end-game negotiation or denouement that used to take months, sometimes seem to occur within moments too.

This is an update to an earlier story at TMV yesterday which ran Robert Cox’s understanding of the legal facts behind the contretemps between Associated Press and Drudge Retort. For those interested in process as much as content, the AP and the Drudge Retort have made peace. For now. The issues about who will represent bloggers as a huge worldwide group and how remains to have several solutions in place, and more, no doubt, to come.

Back Story AP and Drudge Retort Come to Terms
Posted June 20th, 2008 by Robert Cox

In what may close one chapter and signal the beginning of another, the AP and Rogers Cadenhead of Drudge Retort have come to resolution on their dispute while leaving unresolved the central source of conflict in the case – whether the verbatim publishing of an AP headline and AP lede are, or are not, covered under “fair use” doctrine.

AP also failed to provide any public guidance on their own position and Rogers is refusing to bail them out by publishing the guidance they gave him last night in resolving his concerns including the post themselves. I cannot see how AP’s approach helps them resolve the broader implications of their posture here.

It does resolve the matter for Rogers, and therefore me and Ron Coleman, which has been the goal of the MBA all along. So, maybe we can all get some sleep tonight. It’s been a long week.

No Meeting

The much anticipated meeting yesterday never happened in at least in the sense many bloggers and reporters understood it. Instead there were a flurry of phone calls as well as internal meetings at AP resulting in an outcome that while not a clear win for anyone is also not a loss for anyone either.(cpe’s itals) No “guidelines” were established, no precedents set and no one needs to spend time in court. Most importantly, the MBA was able to help Rogers Cadenhead end up with a solution that was acceptable to him and that has always been our primary concern.

Rogers has the somewhat nebulous AP statement and his own reply: AP Settles Dispute with Drudge Retort…

To read the back story to this AP/ DR episode’s conclusion, see the rest of Cox’s article here.