Conservative Politics Today

Thanks to the Media Bloggers Association (MBA), the Associated Press has agreed not to pursue any further legal action against Rogers Cadenhead, of the Drudge Retort. Robert Cox, of MBA met this week with Associated Press’ Vice President for Strategic Planning Jim Kennedy. Mr Cox was able to persuade the AP to drop any further legal action against Cadenhead.

This blogger has learned much from Mr. Cox. Cox has seen all documentation related to this case, and due to the noise made and inaccurate information raging through the blogosphere, he has taken the unusual step of going public with certain information, such as the following:

1. The MBA did not take it upon themselves to jump into the fray. Cadenhead solicited legal help from them in his efforts to fight the AP.

2. The MBA, having stellar legal counsel, willingly contacted their own attorney Ron Coleman, as well as Harvard Law School’s Citizen Media Defense Project and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

3. After contacting these groups the MBA was able to get the AP to drop any further legal action against Cadenhead, related to these recent DMCA’s.

4. The AP is not actively seeking bloggers who they believe violate copyright laws.

5. Cadenhead was placed on the AP’s radar back in April of this year, because he posted entire articles and exact headlines of AP stories- which all parties agreed was copyright infringement.

6. In June Cadenhead received another takedown order from the AP. This time he did not cite entire articles and headlines, and he believed 9 of 10 to be covered under fair use. At this point, Cadenhead contacted the MBA, and went public with his version of the story.

7. The AP is not charging bloggers for citing articles. It is for business usage such as reprint permission to corporate clients. Cox states this is common practice.

I would like to thank Robert Cox for taking the time to inform bloggers of the actual events and outcome. I would like to thank the Media Bloggers Association for all they do. Prior to this event I was not familiar with the MBA, or Mr Cox. Now that I know who they are and what they do, they have my utter respect and appreciation.

Read Mr. Cox’s updates here: