information warfare mach 5,000: Think that the AP is above the law?

Associated Press Allegedly Under Criminal Investigation for Possible $195B Copyright Infringement

June 17, 2008, 5:38PM

The Associated Press recently issued a new policy stating they will fine people for violating the copyright laws, saying they will charge any blogger who quotes more than five words of AP text.

There is evidence the AP has not adequately complied with this licensing requirement. The AP has -- without permission -- allegedly illegally used, without paying copyright royalties, for using original work. There are over 10,000 re-publications of a quote which the AP was never granted a license.

The Associated Press may be found liable for infractions of the copy
right laws. The violations could touch on the millions. The issue is
not the number of times the work was published, but how many people
subsequently relied on the AP to republish, and view the original work.

Example AP Use Without Securing Adequate License

The following AP allegedly contains more than five-words which the AP has not properly attributed, nor has it properly provided funds for the use of those five words.

Sean Penn only the latest. . .
By Jerry Shwartz

Associated Press

Sunday, December 29, 2002

Notice the following paragraph (para 21), starting with these four (4) words:

"Others have suffered lesser. . ."

That paragraph contains a quote which reads,

"Beware the leader. . ."

The AP policy says only five (5) words may be used. The AP violated its
own policy when it used nine (9) words from text not originally created
by the Associated Press.

The AP has not provided funds to anyone for the use of those words. The AP's use of that quote, per the AP policy, is an unfair use of that quote.

Alleged Criminal Violations Under Investigation

The AP knows or should know the following allegations are more likely true than not:

The Associated Press was not granted any license to use this quote;

The Associated Press never provided any funds to use these words, as the AP policy says must be done;

The Associated press did not lawfully procure a license to use these words, as the AP policy requires;

The Associated Press never obtained a license to publish any of the quote, as the AP policy requires;

The Associated Press was not the original author of the quote, and did not have any power to create, generated, or self-manufacture a license for works it did not created;

The Associated Press was never authorized to use these words under any license connected with the AP policy;

The Associated Press has never sought permission, nor obtained any legal rights, performance rights, or any copyright permissions, as the AP policy states.

The Associated Press was never granted a waiver, nor are they a party to any agreement which expressly authorizes the AP to redistribute the information, as the AP policy states.

The AP legal counsel has a hard time explaining why the AP is using quotes -- with more than five words -- but is not reimbursing the public for the use of their quotes and original work, comments, and speech.

The AP's policy should be aggressively applied to the AP.

Anyone in the universe who has ever been quoted by the AP, should demand -- now -- the AP provide them with money for the use of more than five words in any AP comment.

All Quotations the AP has ever made, issued, or reported, should be subject to expansive class action lawsuits and settlement discussions.

The world should seek from the AP reimbursement and fees for any words the AP uses from anyone.

If you have been quoted by the AP, you are encouraged to share with others the quote the AP used; and share with others your views on how much money you would like to charge the AP for their non-authorized use of your words.

The AP has not been responsive to requests for a reasonable policy. In response, the public should forward information to proper law enforcement for alleged AP violations of the copyright laws.

Estimating Potential AP Financial Liability


The quote AP cites in the example was a quote the AP allegedly never lawfully obtained a license per the now-published AP policy. The quote was widely reported in 2002 by the AP. We presume all subsequent publiactions of that original work are partially linked with the AP's original alleged illegal publication absence the required license, per the AP policy.

We assume the alleged financial damages -- related to the alleged
failure of AP not to obtain a license, but allgedl illegally permit rebroadcast and review
-- is because of the exclusive AP publishing power.

There are more than 10,000 uses of the quote which may be linked with the AP's original alleged unauthorized use, for failing to obtain the proper license, per the new AP policy. Had the AP not provided the quote, there would not have been any dissemination of the quote.


There are 6.5 Billion potential readers on earth. Using the AP-licensing rules, we arrive at a licensing fee of $10 per unauthorized-derivative use connected with the AP, with treble damages. The AP knew or should have know that their licensing policy would foreseeably applied to them, but their counsel wee allegedly reckless in not assessing this risk before approving the policy.

For sake of simplicity, we assume each citizen on planet earth has read at least one of these 10,000 pages.

Also, after the AP issued it's policy, each time any read used Google in connection with this policy, they are presumed to have read the original article containing the non-authorized use.

The AP is allegedly under criminal investigation for this alleged illegal use of the quote without obtaining a license, We presume all citizens on earth have read the quote at least ten times.

The amount the AP could be liable for is $65 Billion dollars, and treble damages could be $195Billion.

Anyone reading this information is encouraged to share it with your friends, and remind the AP they must stop using your quotes containing more than five words unless the AP pays you a licensing fee.