LAT: AP Should Promote Its Work to Bloggers Instead of Going After Them

The Los Angeles Times came down on the side of bloggers in their brouhaha with The Associated Press.

The AP had demanded, through its lawyers, that the Drudge Retort, a liberal take-off on the Drudge Report, remove posts that had excerpts of AP stories. The Media Bloggers Association has asked the AP for guidelines on what bloggers can use without paying penalties or fees to legally post AP stories.

In its editorial Thursday, the Times suggested that the AP consider the benefits that bloggers provide.

“A better strategy for the AP would be to promote its work to bloggers, who can help elevate it above the online news din,” the Times editorial read. “After all, the problem for most news sources isn’t that too many people misappropriate their work online, it’s that too few see it at all.”

The editorial also suggested that the AP misunderstands how the Internet has changed how people read news.

“Trying to stop people from posting excerpts around the Web is akin to asking them not to talk about a story they’ve read,” the Times wrote. “Besides, if the AP does its job well, the excerpts will whet readers’ appetites for the rest of the story, leading them back to the original.”

Read the whole editorial here.