I like to think to think that as I continue to write for WPW, I'll provide insightful reads to your day. Encouraging thoughtfulness is a good thing, but sometimes you should just sit back and laugh...

Today's chuckle comes by way of...wait for it... the Associated Press. Man, they're really staying in the limelight this week. If you didn't read about the AP's prior shenanigans, read this newsletter.

If you thought the AP's lashing out against inbound links from search engines was outrageous, wait until you hear this. The AP now has an ax to grind with YouTube. That doesn't sound too surprising, does it? So, are people taking AP's video content and masquerading it as their own?

Oh, if only it were that simple. I'll allow the tweet of Frank Strovel, an employee of an AP affiliated radio station, and lead character of the story to tell the tale...

"I was on the phone arguing w/ AP today. We were embedding their YouTube vids on our station's site. We're an AP affiliate"

The official story is being reported on TechCrunch and it's quite an amazingly funny read. To expand on Strovel's tweet; the AP sent WTNQ-FM (Strovel's station) a cease-and-desist order for the videos they were using on their website. So, now we need to use deductive reasoning to find out why they sent the order. Of course, that's like using reasoning to figure out Peter Griffin's actions on Family Guy.

More than likely the story has a boring plot twist behind it. Whoever found the AP videos probably didn't realize that the AP had a YouTube Channel. Therefore, they thought someone was posting their content online without permission. Which goes to show that incompetence is one of the first steps to failure. That doesn't mean we can't have a good laugh at it though... ;-)

| JohnnyV |