That could be a phrase you see less often around the blogosphere.  In a truely bone headed move, the Associated Press has shown that they are not much different than the MPAA and RIAA, where they try to hold old media standards to the web, because they don’t think they are getting paid enough by everybody.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Last week, the Associated Press sent the Drudge Retort seven DMCA takedown notices, demanding that the site remove excerpts of AP articles ranging from 33 to 79 words that were linked through to authorized copies of the AP stories.

See what I did there?  I quoted another source, attributed it to them, and linked to the full article, providing potentially more traffic to them.  I did not steal their story, I followed what has been considered Fair Use, even before the days of the Internet.  Before you would have a Reference Page, Foot Notes, etc.  You needed to ensure your credited and cited your sources, but it has always been fair use to quote another source.

Not so according to the AP.  They want you to link to them, AND NOTHING ELSE.  After the inital lashback against their tactics, the A.P. backed off (sort of) according to the New York Times.

 After that, however, the news association convened a meeting of its executives at which it decided to suspend its efforts to challenge blogs until it creates a more thoughtful standard.

“We don’t want to cast a pall over the blogosphere by being heavy-handed, so we have to figure out a better and more positive way to do this,” Mr. Kennedy said.

Mr. Kennedy said the company was going to meet with representatives of the Media Bloggers Association, a trade group, and others. He said he hopes that these discussions can all occur this week so that guidelines can be released soon.

Now, reading this at first, it sounds like maybe they learned their lesson, but in “hopes that these discussions can all occur this week so guidelines can be released soon” tells me that they are only trying to find a new tactic, because after all there are already guidelines in place as I said earlier.  It is known as Fair Use and it is already codified by the U.S. Copyright Office.

On a bit of a side note, I would love to know who decided that the Media Bloggers Association should have the right to negotiate this.  I mean, no offense to Mr. Cox and those that are already members, but I don’t know you.  You stopped accepting memberships, because you don’t even have a clear set of policies (by your own admission), and while you may very well have the best interest of bloggers in general, I do not find this to be an acceptable situation.  Suffice it to say, as an independent blogger, and not a member of your organization, I do not find that I will feel obligated to follow any guidelines set forth by this meeting and your “agreements” with the Associated Press.

It is also probably germane to point out that the Associated Press is owned by its 1,500 daily newspaper members… those very same people that have not yet been able to find a way to use the web properly and continue to bleed red ink (while blaming the Internet in general and Bloggers specifically for their eroding fortunes).  These same people that fight and attempt to keep bloggers from getting credentials because they are not part of the media.  Seems to me, they want to have their cake and eat it too.

There has been “chatter” particularly from those trying to find some way to salvage anything that might look like a legacy for President Bush that are desperately trying to cling to the notion that they U.S. economy is in or headed towards a recession.

They point to things like the old outdated definition that a “recession” is 2 or more quarters of decline in the country’s Gross Domestic Product.  Most economists however do no like this definition since it does not take into consideration unemployment rates or consumer confidence.  There are of course a couple of problems with this.

First and foremost is the fact that “domestic” companies no longer directly reflect on how strong the economy locally is since so much production has been moved overseas or “outsourced.” So while Mattel can can reap huge profits selling us lead paint based products, the benefits are not seen in the domestic job market since all these toxic products are made in China where they can pay slave wages and not worry about silly little things like safety standards which only “erode profits.”

Finally, any attempts by workers here to try and unionize and earn a fair wage are thwarted by union busting activites. Wal-Mart is well known for hiring consultants that threaten workers trying to unionize, and even (as much as it pains me to say it), Starbucks has seemed to taken to firing employees that are active in unionizing efforts there. Wal-Mart doesn’t surprise me since they tend to be ruthless with everybody, vendors and employees alike. Starbucks on the other hand makes a big deal over their “fair trade coffee.” So essentially, they are concerned with workers getting a “fair wage” in some third world country for picking the beans, but here at home, well that is a different story all together.

I am getting a bit off topic, but really the point is, I am not surprised that the “well to do” (and those that blindly follow them regardless of their own reality) do not see a recession. They look at their stock portfolio, and as long as Mr CEO is turning in 15% and up growth in the stock, they couldn’t care less how it is done. Unions have garnered a bad reputation (some of it admittedly it deserved), but are really there to even the playing field to give the workers some bargaining strength against these large corporations that couldn’t care less about workers. Workers here are viewed, not as assets, but as “expenses” and that is just wrong. And of course, if you are not struggling to make ends meet, you don’t care that your meal dollar isn’t stretching because food companies are making products smaller while keeping the prices the same, because as long as those stocks are profitable, well you will just buy more food.

By these definitions, there will never be a “recession” again. Idiots will continue to tell us how we are doing “well” but just don’t know it. There used to a joke that went something like, a recession is when your neighbor loses his job, a depression is when you lose yours. It is overly simplistic, but I think explains the chasm in opinions quite well.

Maybe the government should have just let Bear Stearns fail and go insolvent. Maybe then some of these people would have gotten a clue that there is a problem. As a parent this lack of vision scares the hell out of me. Not only for me, but for the children of tomorrow. As we become a “service” society, we are heading towards a two tier model. There will be those that “have” (the bosses, CEOs and other executive types) and those that serve them (wait staff, valets, security guards, etc) and nothing in between. The middle class will be wiped out, outsourced overseas and be told that it didn’t happen.