Simon over at Bloggasm tipped me off to an interview he did with Rogers Cadenhead of the Drudge Retort. There’s a couple of issues of concern that the Times article didn’t focus on:
When the AP requested a takedown of a few sentences from an article, Drudge retorted:
…that we think this is fair use. This was a small amount of quoted text and it linked to an AP story. Commenters commented on it and were evaluating the article. That’s a fundamental aspect of blogging. That’s when they told me that they don’t think that’s fair use either.
This is a surprising claim. While the DMCA forces the site owner to take the material down, it’s not clear in a case like this who would challenge the takedown (since the owner is the poster) or how conversation would continue absent the quote. It’s also the type of thing that one might not want to spend the energy/resources to fight.
This dual role of “service provider” and editor/poster wasn’t to my knowledge addressed in the DMCA takedown procedures. It leaves site owners in a precarious position of having to comply with the order, yet having to file a counter notice with… themselves? Ultimately, it probably comes down to whether the site owner wants to fight the claim.
Blogs and comments are in some ways the salon of today–if the public can’t discuss the news and issues of the day by giving their feelings and interpretations of what are largely facts our internet-based civil society will feel the impact. It just occurs to me that perhaps one of the greatest offenses of stories like this is the attempt to “micromanage copyright.” The problem here is that micromanaging is directly affecting this conversation.
Great scoop, Simon; and cheers for at least trying to get comment from the AP.