The thing about fair use is that it is a fact based defense.  Every alleged act of infringement is going to be unique because the facts that matter will be different every time:  what context is the quotation used in, does the quotation contain mostly facts or mostly opinion, how much from the original article is quoted, how long is the piece in which the quotation is used...  

Two problems arise.  First, the only way to know if what you are quoting is protected by fair use is . . . to get sued by the AP!  The legal fees necessary to achieve such a victory will be huge.  Second, because every case will be unique, each fair use victory against the AP will have to be won individually.  There won't be a seminal case "striking down" the APs new rules. 

Hence, in a lot of forums (like this one) it will be easier to just comply.

BT

One blog site vs AP

Here

An added wrinkle is that truth has no copyright. Only the phrasing of it does. Only fiction is protected to the core.  This means that the actual news content of an AP article is, and always has been, public domain. Any word that is  essential to conveying the facts is protected by "public domain" (maybe not the right phrase).

If an AP article says for instance : "Joe Rockstar was arrested on charges of drug possession and DUI in Santa Monica yesterday, police sources say" , as long as that is factual information it shouldn't be protected by copyright.

If the article embellishes and gives "color commentary" that are the impressions of the journalist or opinion, then those parts are protected.

AP's short newsbursts are so trimmed of fat that they shouldn't technically have any copyright protection at all.

Their longer pieces, certainly, are covered by copyright but news organizations have used the old "reporting the news that something is news" excuse to get around violations of privacy and libelous statments ("we didn't say that you did that. We just said that they said that you did that.")  so I'm not sure how they can claim that bloggers and others can't quote their news stories as "their" news. ("AP had a news story today in which they said  --- insert extended quote here." )

It's all about money. AP makes money off the news, nothing wrong with that. But restricting access to those news on financial and copyright grounds? Please. Let's say that there's a business document detailing illegal activities at a large corporation. the AP tries to run it as news. What happens if the corporation claims copyright protection? How liberal will their interpretation of "fair use" be then?

Suck it, AP.

(Three words, gratis.)

bump for people who weren't posting yesterday.

Interesting debate on the issue, BTW. Keep it up!

Matt WOW, had no idea, will watch in the future, I understand why they are doing it, money makes the world go around, but it doesn't stop it from sucking.