A.P. Exec Doesn't Know It Has A YouTube Channel: Threatens Affiliate For Embedding Videos

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Kevin G. Barkes" <kgbarkes () gmail com>
Date: April 9, 2009 1:16:57 PM EDT
To: <dave () farber net>
Subject: A.P. Exec Doesn't Know It Has A YouTube Channel: Threatens  
Affiliate For Embedding Videos
Reply-To: <kgbarkes () gmail com>

Here is another great moment in A.P. history. In its quest to become the
RIAA of the newspaper industry, the A.P.'s executives and lawyers are
beginning to match their counterparts in the music industry for
cluelessness. A country radio station in Tennessee, WTNQ-FM, received a
cease-and-desist letter from an A.P. vice president of affiliate  
relations
for posting videos from the A.P.'s official Youtube channel on its  
Website.

You cannot make this stuff up. Forget for a moment that WTNQ is itself  
an
A.P. affiliate and that the A.P. shouldn't be harassing its own members.
Apparently, nobody told the A.P. executive that the august news  
organization
even has a YouTube channel which the A.P. itself controls, and that  
someone
at the A.P. decided that it is probably a good idea to turn on the video
embedding function on so that its videos can spread virally across the  
Web,
along with the ads in the videos.

Frank Strovel, an employee at the radio station who tried to talk some  
sense
into the A.P. executive Twittered yesterday:

I was on the phone arguing w/ AP today. We were embedding their  
YouTube vids
on our station's site. We're an AP affiliate.

And then added:

They asked us to taken them down. I asked, "Why do you have a YouTube  
page
w/ embed codes for websites?" Still. they said NO.

The story was picked up by the Knoxville News, and then by a local video
producer Christian Grantham, who captured the following Skype  
interview with
Strovel in the video below (which is not an A.P. video, so I am going to
embed it). Strovel notes that the A.P. accused the station of "stealing
their licensed content." He sounds flumoxed, as he should be. This  
back and
forth during the interview says it all:

# Strovel: And we're an A.P. affiliate for crying out loud! I stumped  
him on
that one. . . . What is really shocking is that they were shocked that
they've got a YouTube channel that people are embedding on their  
Websites.
He seemed shocked by that. 'Oh, I am going to have to look into that" is
what he told me.

Grantham: What an idiot!

Strovel: I know, I know.

Strovel had to pull down all the videos from his Website.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/08/ap-exec-doesnt-know-it-has-a-youtube-ch
annel-threatens-affiliate-for-embedding-videos/

Regards,

KGB

-----
Kevin G. Barkes
Email: kgbarkes () yahoo com
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