Our Quote of the Day refers to the news that an AP executive sent a cease and desist letter to an AP affiliate that embedded a video from the AP’s own You Tube channel which allows people to embed its videos.
The greatest take on this comes from Cory Doctorow at Boeing Boeing:
The Associated Press, in its zeal to keep the news a secret, has begun to send legal threats to itself.
Once again, it’s easy to just dismiss AP’s concerns, but the issue of how to protect content in an age when readers thirst for more and more Internet content but don’t want to pay for it in a young Internet culture where there are now established use norms is a tough one. But the bottom line for AP is that its clamp down will likely mean fewer and fewer outlets will link to or embed their stuff since life is too short — and there are other sources to link to or embed.
As noted, this site gets tons of email from sources that clamor to have their videos embedded on TMV, or stories from their publications, websites or cable channels mentioned or linked, quoted or embedded on this site. We’ve also embedded AP videos offered on You Tube to embed but it’s clear there is too now much of a PITA (Pain In The…) Factor. We’ll try to stick to MSNBC, CBS and CNN.
FOOTNOTE: Notice our MSNBC box in the upper right hand corner. If you watch those videos, MSNBC has it set up so we can easily embed them — which we do.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.