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Have you heard about this? It’s a doozy.

Last week, the Associated Press filed 7 DMCA takedown notices against the Drudge Retort^†, a Digg-style social news website, alleging that its users’ practice of linking AP articles and briefly quoting headlines and leads (never more than 79 words) was not fair use.

Now, apparently the AP’s official policy is that fair use of their content means use of 4 or less words. I am not kidding. Use 5 or more, and you owe them a minimum of $12.50.

The—big surprise—resulting uproar and fledgling PR nightmare has had the AP backpedaling, saying that their initial filings were “heavy-handed,” and planning to meet with representatives from a trade group (the Media Bloggers Association^*) to come up with “a more thoughtful standard.”

Sauce for the goose
Turnabout, however, is evidently fair play:

Now, in a slightly ironic twist, the AP is taking content from a blog site. Namely, mine.

In a news item about the e-mail from Judge Kozinski’s wife that I posted on this site, an AP article lifted numerous passages.

I counted 154 words quoted from my post. That’s almost twice the number of words contained in the most extensive quotation in the Drudge Retort.

Look. A huge portion of the blogosphere is all about news analysis and discussion. Hashing and rehashing, action and reaction. Take that away and all you’ve got is catblogging and what-I-ate-for-dinner-last-night—scintillating stuff indeed. Not to mention that if the purpose of quoting news articles is almost always to react to them, how is this legally any different from quoting a book in a book review, which is fair use under the DMCA?

Well, as embarrassing as this already is for the AP, it’s bound to get worse before it gets better. And they deserve it. (Via InstaPundit)

^† No, that is not a typo. I meant to type “retort” rather than “report.” The Drudge Retort started out as a left-wing parody of the conservative Drudge Report.

^* Who? Are these guys, whoever they are, really representative of the blogging community?