No AP Here!

Quick, somebody ... Anybody, go out and send Dale Carnegie's book "How To Win Friends and Influence People" to the Associated Press.

This has been a gathering storm for the past few days.

It began with this;

AP Files 7 DMCA Takedowns Against Drudge Retort

I'm currently engaged in a legal disagreement with the Associated Press, which claims that Drudge Retort users linking to its stories are violating its copyright and committing "'hot news' misappropriation under New York state law." An AP attorney filed six Digital Millenium Copyright Act takedown requests this week demanding the removal of blog entries and another for a user comment.

And, in the spirit of "when you a Jet you’re a Jet all the way ...", bloggers and writers from as far as the eye could rallied around.

Here’s Our New Policy On A.P. stories: They’re Banned

AP boycott working

AP, hole, dig

The Associated Press, kind of, realized, the screwed the pooch ("Associated Press to Set Guidelines for Using Its Articles in Blogs"), which, is like calling someone an asshole, and then apologizing with "I'm sorry that you are an asshole".

It didn't fly, and Steve Benen, over on The Carpetbagger Report has a good rundown on it.

Here, on The Garlic, I can say with some confidence, we haven't linked to the AP very much (I think a bunch of Yahoo News tags may be AP content), and, if you are a regular reader, you know that, more often than not, we bypass the MSM, highligting and tagging (linking) other bloggers and writers (which we do generously - there's a lot of great stuff out there).

So, we will stand guard and definitely ignore the Associated Press and we hope, that you, our readers, will also make an effort to avoid their content.

Visit the Unassociated Press to stay on top of this, and, sign their petition.