We’re not naming names, but many bloggers quote liberally from Associated Press stories. Sharing news from the mainstream media, and then digesting it and editorializing on it, is a big part of what we do. And the AP is a big part of the mainstream media.

So our ears perked up when we read that the AP is meeting with the Media Bloggers Association to discuss “standards for online use of AP stories.” We imagine there will be quite a few lawyers at the meeting, and an extensive conversation about fair use of copyrighted material.

From the (*gulp*) AP:

Wendy Seltzer, a legal scholar and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, said it was encouraging that AP wanted to find an arrangement with bloggers to facilitate a mutually agreeable way for them to use AP content.

It sounds like the AP is looking to the future. The AP is likely thinking about new sources of revenue, and charging online outlets for use of their stories could offer the AP a way to make up for cuts from shrinking newspaper budgets.

But [Seltzer] cautioned that the news organization, a not-for-profit cooperative owned by its member newspapers and broadcasters, should not try to go beyond what’s legally permissible.

“If they take those guidelines and start using them to refine the way they make complaints, and if they closely match the law, then it’s helpful — it’s a restraint on their own legal department,” Seltzer said.

“If they were on the other hand to say, you may use 10 words only and any time you use 11 we’ll send a takedown notice, that wouldn’t be helpful,” Seltzer said.

Wendy, next time, could you tighten up your quotes to 10 words or less?

More discussion and speculation after the jump.

The AP article indicates that the Associated Press is concerned not just about the use of its material, but also the context in which it is used. Since the nature of blogging is to abbreviate the news process by pulling isolated paragraphs, the context issue could be problematic for bloggers.

Kennedy said the AP had both a journalistic concern about preventing AP news from being quoted out of context and also a business concern about protecting the value of AP’s news from being diluted if its key elements are made available from places that aren’t licensed.

“We need to protect our content, no matter who’s using it, but we also recognize that the bloggers perform a really important function on the Internet in terms of increasing the engagement of the audience online, and we want to facilitate that,” Kennedy said.

Yup, we sure do. Thanks!

From the sound of it, the Drudge Retort rubbed the AP the wrong way, and sparked the need for the summit between AP and the bloggers. AP sent the Retort (not to be confused with the Drudge Report) a legal notice to take down several postings using AP material.

AP does not do us the favor of reporting on the nature of those offensive Retort posts. Otherwise, we would totally do our best to quote them out of context and make the AP sound like overreacting corporate types who are “going after a small blogger.”

Update: Additional thoughts from Professor Dan Solove appear at Concurring Opinions.

AP to meet with blogging group to form guidelines [Associated Press]