When a site such as LGF agrees with Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake on a matter, and the blogosphere rises in almost unanimous umbrage at an old media entity, it is quite likely that said media entity is behaving very badly indeed. In this case, it is the Associated Press, which has a history of sending cease and desist letters to various sites for publishing so much as one short graf from one of their lengthy stories in a blog post or comment, and screaming copyright infringement. (It was almost seven years ago that the mgmt at an atheist forum I participated in at the time announced commenters could no longer do anything but link to AP, so intimidated were they by a letter AP had sent to About.com — host of the atheist forum — threatening to sue.)

The NYT provides the best detailed account of AP’s most recent ham-handedness, while Whiskey Fire holds the prize for most entertaining.

Bloggers left, right and everything in-between are boycotting AP. I intend to join — we boycotters won’t quote, and we won’t even link to an AP story:

Visual from Unassociated Press. Go there to sign a petition demanding AP be reasonable, should you be so inclined.