Things That No Longer Exist by George Ziemann -- June 27, 2008 Recently, the Associated Press suffered some sort of brain aneurysm or a tumor or something that caused it to suddenly decide that linking to their stories or quoting from them comprised copyright infringement. Then their disease progressed to the delusionary state, prompting them to declare that the principle of fair use is limited to exactly four words. Prior to this announcement, the guys over at TechCrunch made their own declaration -- The AP no longer exists. As relayed in the Washington Post, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington describes the situation. "The A.P. doesn't get to make it's own rules around how its content is used, if those rules are stricter than the law allows. So even though they say they are making these new guidelines in the spirit of cooperation, it's clear that, like the RIAA and MPAA, they are trying to claw their way to a set of property rights that don't exist today and that they are not legally entitled to. And like the RIAA and MPAA, this is done to protect a dying business model -- paid content. "So here's our new policy on A.P. stories: they don't exist. We don't see them, we don't quote them, we don't link to them." I have a whole list of things that no longer exist. And people. And places. Merely suggesting the existence of such a list seems to contradict the non-existence of each item on it, but if you start with dodo birds, it'll help you remember that the emphasis is on the "no longer" part. Reality This list is comprised of extinct animal species, people who have died and activities/occupations which, for some reason, people no longer engage in. I don't think it's necessary to elaborate much more on this. Either you are familiar with reality or you are not. My List This kind of corresponds to whatever list TechCrunch just added AP to. As you can see from the graphic, those items which have ceased to exist in reality are the only ones that have names. It is entirely possible that my 8th grade Latin teacher has moved to the reality list, but I like to play it safe. There's a rich and multi-facted story about my personal list, but for now, I'd like to limit the conversation to music. I've got at least one reader that thinks I should compile a list of the artists who are morons, along with their personal rendition of "You're Stealing My Stuff." I have a small problem with this because I've already put most of them on my list and therefore, they no longer have names. I can't talk about them because they don't exist, although I will make exceptions for the purpose of ridicule. And there are a lot of acts that get added to the list for simply being lame. If you can fill up a 30,000 seat stadium at $50-$500 per seat and you're whining about people listening to your music for free, then I don't want to mention your name, much less repeat whatever you said because it's obviously bullshit. Whether it's the dumbass country singer who accosts people at a soccer field for having one of his songs as a ringtone, or the arrogant rock star who tries to stop a perfectly legal tribute album, or the LA Times reporter who thinks that the record labels are the victims. If I walk into a record store (assuming that any still exist) or scroll through Amazon's list of CDs, the entire RIAA does not exist. I don't recognize any of those names. At this point in time, it doesn't matter what they said. I'd rather talk about people like Trent Reznor or Todd Rundgren or Janis Ian or ANYONE who is trying to move us forward instead of backwards. McCartney just got off the list last year when he moved to Starbucks. Led Zeppelin is still safe going forward because, so far, they're avoiding the label thing altogether by insisting that they're not really a band, even as Jimmy Page is trying to get a North American tour set up. I've also got a few artists on the list that have been there way before Napster brought any of this into consideration. I've been lucky enough to meet and talk with, interview, photograph and/or just hang out with for a while. Most of them seemed liked pretty nice people and my slowly-evolving Concert Scrapbook is intended to describe the experiences. But some of them are just assholes and bring an entire team of assholes with them. I can't seem to recall any of their names...