Delicious irony^H^H^H^H^H hypocrisy...

There is this blog called Snapped Shot of which, up until a couple of weeks ago, I had never heard.

The blog, which has been around since 2006, is run by a fellow named Brian Ledbetter, and contends that the mainstream photojournalism industry is

inaccurate in its reporting, it falls for terrorist propaganda too easily, and in general, the photos that you see presented as "news" on a daily basis are nothing more than fluff. This site has, from the beginning, intended to correct that by presenting specific instances of bias or inaccuracy along with commentary as to why said photographs are inaccurate.

Just the thing to warm the cockles of the heart over at, say, the Associated Press - I can't imagine why - which recently sent the blogger a letter demanding that the site take down its images, accompanied by the usual sacred paean to the deity of the Copyright Act. The site has since done so, and as a result has experienced a quantum jump in visitors and publicity since the AP's clumsy move. Call it karma.

Now, don't get me wrong. The way I see it, if the blog was writing its own news and illustrating its stories with AP photos, I'd say the AP had a point about infringing use. But there also exists this idea of "fair use," that is addressed by the Copyright Act ("fair use...for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, ... is not an infringement of copyright.")

It would appear - at least to me and some others - that reproducing a piece of photojournalism for the purpose of criticism and comment would fall under that rubric. It would also appear that AP doesn't really believe in "fair use."

No. Wait! What I meant to say was that "AP doesn't really believe in 'fair use' when their stuff is being used." Because apparently, the AP, um, grabbed photographs of Eliot Spitzer's call girl from her MySpace page and published them to illustrate a news story.

According to Photo District News:

The AP noted that the images were "obtained from a MySpace webpage" and specified that they were to be used, "only to illustrate news reporting or commentary on the facts or events surrounding the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal." Reuters identified the images similarly, and flagged them as available only for editorial use.

Associated Press director of photography Santiago Lyon says AP consulted with its legal department before deciding to use the photos.

"Given the news value of the photographs, we decided that these were images that the public needed to see," Lyon says.

It would appear that the AP has a very, um, selective view of what constitutes "fair use."

Cheers...