If you've been keeping up with how the Associated Press has been bullying bloggers who publish excerpts from its work, you may have read about their new craptastic idea, which is to charge bloggers by the word. Lest you think this is extreme, well, the first four words are free.

Michelle Malkin makes an excellent point, in a hilarious piece where she calculates how much the AP owes her for reprinting parts of her posts, that it's not often an issue unites both the left- and right-wing blogosphere. From Daily Kos to Little Green Footballs, everyone is weighing in on this one. Malkin also links to some of the funnier posts from other blogs about the AP's latest inane idea. It's worth reading - you can find it by searching "Associated Press" on her website. Just as we don't link to AP around here, we don't link to Malkin either....

[Note: Thanks to Union Girl for letting me guest post on her blog. Hopefully you'll see me around here from time to time!]

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Mostly, it's because of stunts like these:

Bloggers beware, Associated Press are on the warpath, starting bogus copryright suits against those linking and quoting even the merest fraction of an AP news report. Roger Cadenhead of the Drudge Retort:

I'm currently engaged in a legal disagreement with the Associated Press, which claims that Drudge Retort users linking to its stories are violating its copyright and committing "'hot news' misappropriation under New York state law." An AP attorney filed six Digital Millenium Copyright Act takedown requests this week demanding the removal of blog entries and another for a user comment.

You can read more and join the boycott yourself.

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