The Media Bloggers Assocation

Here’s something bloggers should probably be paying attention to. Rogers Cadenhead’s site The Drudge Retort ran afoul of the Associated Press by using headlines and excerpts of its stories and was rewarded with a DMCA takedown notice.

In the process of responding to the AP’s demands, Rogers was put in touch with Robert Cox of the Media Bloggers Association, who volunteered to mediate on his behalf in the dispute based on prior experience working with the AP on something else. Until this week, I had never heard of the MBA, and apparently neither had Roger, who posts his own explanation of how Cox came to be involved in his dispute with the AP.

Cox’ involvement has prompted a pretty strong backlash, for what appear to be two reasons. The first is that media coverage of the controversy has portrayed him as being a spokesman for bloggers in general, which he in no way is, and the second is that some of the other things are, to put it mildly, controversial. Teresa Nielsen Hayden has an exhaustive post on Robert Cox and his background that’s worth at least skimming to get an idea of why his involvement irritates people. Scott Rosenberg posts in defense of Cox.