AP vs. WOOt!; or platedlizard owes $100 to various blogs
Recently the CEO of WOOt! sent out what has to be the funniest 'We were purchased by Amazon' letter ever. Bloggers the world over quote from it extensively, and it was eventually picked up by the Associated Press. No big deal, right?

Well, there's a little problem. You see, the AP has started asking bloggers to pay them for taking quotes from their articles. This, needless to say, is not exactly popular in the bloggosphere. So of course WOOt! decided to poke a little fun at them.

The AP, we can’t thank you enough for looking our way. You see, when we showed off our good news on Wednesday afternoon, we expected we’d get a little bit of attention. But when we found your little newsy thing you do, we couldn’t help but notice something important. And that something is this: you printed our web content in your article! The web content that came from our blog! Why, isn’t that the very thing you’ve previously told nu-media bloggers they’re not supposed to do?

So, The AP, here we are. Just to be fair about this, we’ve used your very own pricing scheme to calculate how much you owe us. By looking through the link above, and comparing your post with our original letter, we’ve figured you owe us roughly $17.50 for the content you borrowed from our blog post, which, by the way, we worked very very hard to create. But, hey. We’re all friends here. And invoicing is such a hassle in today’s paperless society, are we right? How about this: instead of cutting us a check for the web content you liberated from our site, all you’ll need to do is show us your email receipt from today’s two pack of Sennheiser MX400 In-Ear Headphones, and we’ll call it even.

Now that's all bit of good fun, right? Anyone can see that it's a joke. Except maybe the AP.

This morning, Paul Colford, the Director of Media Relations for the AP sent emails to both me and Woot CEO Matt Rutledge. Here’s what we got:

MG Siegler:

Surely you’ll also want your readers to know that The Associated Press INTERVIEWED Mr. Rutledge, as this version of the “newsy little thing” you cite makes clear: http://bit.ly/cl8JlX

Meanwhile, AP staffers across the Gulf region and in Washington continue to provide comprehensive coverage of the oil spill.

You’ll find highlights of that coverage here: http://www.ap.org/oil_spill/

Cheers,

Paul Colford

That's right folks, he pulled the oil spill card. When asked for clarification Colford responded:

Root of this non-”story” ($17.50 for quotes) is 2 yrs old, as AP noted again in 2009: http://bit.ly/9ehJGZ

Thanks.

ORLY?

On final note, I am really not kidding about owing $100 for all the quotes according to the AP. See for yourself.

Edit: I apologize to the moderators for the attempted double post. My computer hit a pothole on the information superhighway.