A bunch of stupid bullies who don’t understand the concepts of “fair use” and “internet” (or more likely, understand them very well but don’t like them), think they have enough clout to dictate terms. Well, the millions and millions and billions of Wetmachine readers will have to find their own way to AP stories from now on. I’m not going to link to them. Take that, you wankers!
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But while the uproar has swayed much of the public to Johansson's defense at a time when #genAI is increasingly under scrutiny, this may not quite be an open-and-shut case should she decide to sue . Read the breakdown from @M_F_Rose in her latest article:
The release of @OpenAI's new digital assistant "Sky" stirred controversy after actress Scarlett Johansson alleged that the company had infringed on her rights by using a soundalike voice of hers after she'd declined to voice it herself.
Just saw @MargotSusca fantastic interview with @adamconover about the death of local news at the hands of hedge funds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N21YfWy0-bA A theme I have written about *a lot*. Like this blog post from 2018: https://wetmachine.com/tales-of-the-sausage-factory/we-need-to-fix-the-news-media-not-just-social-media-part-i/ This has been a long time in the making.
I wrote yesterday on the terrifying escalation of antisemitism in Canada, citing events just over past week. Now there is more: last night a firebomb attempt at a Vancouver synagogue. Daily antisemitic incidents is who we are now.
https://www.jewishvancouver.com/important-community-updates-may-20-2024
https://x.com/mgeist/status/1796233336203194446
As Open Source Journalism continues to grow, the shoe will be on the other foot in about 10 years. Then when AP wants to source a story from some video blog they will get sued. Which by the way Michael Yon did that very thing against Reuters.
As I understand things, AP was people who quoted a few sentences and then linked to the AP site.
I’ve seen a bunch of people who have been extremely liberal in their interpretation of “fair use” with respect to some Wetmachine articles from time to time. It would be more annoying if a giant concern like AP did it. But if AP wants to quote a few sentences from a Wetmachine article and include a link to the original, that’s fine by me. That’s the whole idea of the web, for Pete’s sake.
I don’t think we should boycott: I think every blogger should link to as many AP stories as possible! Maybe write a little script to generate the links automatically. Put up an RSS aggregation. Quote like hell.
Make them pay a fortune for unproductive legal action. And after bloggers jointly raise their AP’s Page Rank in Google, how are they going to claim damages?
Yes, I agree that it is a much better form of social protest to link like crazy than to boycott links. Stick it to them!