TechCrunch is a blog.  A blog about technology startups.  It is run by Michael Arrington, who is someone I consider to be a straight shooter.  When evaluating a new technology, company, or service, he states what he feels about it, and does it in a fair, straightforward manner.  He is not always right in his reviews (who could be?), but he is insightful and correct most of the time, from what I have read.

In today’s post, Some Things Need to Change, he spells out what his life has become over the past few years.  Because he calls things as he sees them, he has had to deal with a great number of indignities, including physical abuse, being spat upon by strangers, and worst of all, death threats upon him and his family last summer from what turned out to be a credible threat.

I have written posts based on items I have seen on TechCrunch at least 18 times over the past couple of years.  If you look them over, you can see the range of ideas and resources that he covers.  That he is needing to take time off and decide whether to continue is understandable; the actions by others that have forced this is not.

Mike, I hope you have a restful break, and that you are able to come to a clear decision that will be best for you, your family, and the world as a whole.

An interesting situation is brewing over at the TechCrunch blog.  Michael Arrington, upset over the Associated Press going after bloggers who quote from AP stories, has argued that the AP is not taking Fair Use into consideration and has declared that he will not report on stories distributed by AP.

Extreme?  Not if you take into consideration the APs rate schedule for online quoting of their articles.  If your quote of an AP source contains just five words, you are supposed to pay them $12.50!  I doubt that there are many AP articles short enough to make a five word quote not fall into Fair Use (plus, I assume under this fee schedule that quoting just four words is free).

The new twist is that an AP article about the controversy contains a 22-word quote from the TechCrunch blog that Arrington says was “in clear violation of their warped interpretation of copyright law”.  His response:  his lawyer is submitting a takedown request and a bill for $12.50, in order to hold the AP to their own standards.

I have written about “copyfraud” before, most notably here, but this is a fantastic example as it involves a company that derives tremendous benefits from the application of Fair Use.