Turnabout is fair(-use) play

The Associated Press has been rattling sabers of bloggers quoting (even with credit and links) from AP articles, claiming that any quote longer than 5 words costs money:

• 5-25 words: $ 12.50
• 26-50 words: $ 17.50
• 51-100 words: $ 25.00
• 101-250 words: $ 50.00
• 251 words and up: $ 100.00

Which is of course patently absurd, (note that just quoting their price menu would cost me $12.50 because it's over 5 words!), but the absurdity deepens, now that they've been caught with their own hand in the proverbial cookie jar: the AP had a long history of quoting more than 100 words from bloggers -- and not even linking back to the original blog. Now, in a bit of ultimate irony, the AP's own article about this brouhaha quoted (without linking) twenty-two words from TechCrunch. That's 18 words more than the supposed four word "limit" the AP has suggested. With an ironic chance that wide, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington couldn't resist, and asked his lawyer to send a DMCA takedown notice to the Associated Press, along with a bill for $12.50
(via TechDirt)

You can read TechCrunch's hilarious take on this as well, but I'll refrain from quoting them based on their feisty legal department.