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Dear AP: The Point Behind A Data Format Is To Make The Data Easier To Use, Not Harder
from the sigh dept
The Associated Press continues its attempt to convince the world to pretend the past still exists, while trying to dress it up in a modern dress. The latest move? It's releasing a new data format to append metadata to news articles. But, it's not to make that news more useful for others to build on, like most data formats. Instead, it's an attempt to make the news less useful, by including different tags on how the content can be used. This is backwards, of course. Data feeds and metadata are designed to add value to users, not take it away. This does the opposite. On top of that, this seems to be based on the idea that people should just agree to follow the usage rules. That probably won't fly. The way most of their content is used now is legal, it's just that the AP doesn't like it. But that doesn't mean anyone has to stop linking to them or quoting fair-use snippets from their articles, just because the AP says so.
