A couple of bloggers have gotten their panties in a bunch because the Associated Press, a coop that offers original reporting to its 1,500 member newspapers and syndicates to other outlets, is asking that they go a little easier on the copy-paste. TechCrunch's Michael Arrington is having none of it!

[T]hey are trying to claw their way to a set of property rights that don’t exist today and that they are not legally entitled to. And like the RIAA and MPAA, this is done to protect a dying business model — paid content.

Funny, TechCrunch syndicates content to the Washington Post, so we're to assume that Arrington's doing it gratis. I'd just hate to think that august news organization is paying for his content. While the AP's legal effort is hamhanded, by ignoring the coop's cease-and-desist letters and forcing the issue of copyright law's "fair use" exemptions, bloggers might have an opportunity to get courts to clarify murky fair-use guidelines. But why do that when it's so much more fun to troll an organization doing scads of actual journalism around the world?

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