Woot To The AP: Nice Story About Our Sale — You Now Owe Us $17.50

http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/06/woot-ap/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook

by dwynings • 16 years ago

314 46 16 years ago

techcrunch.com

vegasbrianc• 16 years ago

Typical double standards by the AP. Great to see Woot having some humor with the matter.

FiReaNG3L• 16 years ago

The AP just act like the dinosaur they are, no wonder they're worried about going extinct

_delirium• 16 years ago

An interesting study I wish I could read is: who exactly is the AP, and what motivates them? They aren't a for-profit company with the normal ownership and corporate structure, but a cooperative of newspapers. But surely it's not something as nebulous as "all newspapers in the U.S., acting collectively" that makes the decisions; I'd imagine most newspapers in the US see the AP roughly like we do, as this entity that someone else runs, who they just get content from and don't have any real control over. But then who makes the decisions, what influences them, and why?

iag• 16 years ago

Wow props to Woot to sticking it to AP. The woot writers should write a book of all the funny comments that couldn't go on the front page. It must be pretty epic.

madmaze• 16 years ago

I totally agree =) Woot should get a good pat on the back. I curious to see whether AP responds.

ynniv• 16 years ago

Does TechCrunch add anything to this story? Seems like we could have just linked to Woot.com instead of a page of quotes and a quip that TC doesn't talk about the AP.

iamdave• 16 years ago

It's TechCrunch.

chime• 16 years ago

It brings the story to attention, just like HN does. TC does it with link + headline + text + discussion. HN does link + headline + discussion. I don't see a problem with that.

Edit: Why the down-votes?

tptacek• 16 years ago

Probably because you can say the same thing about all blog spam.

zck• 16 years ago

They're a news aggregator; there's no reason to post this article here. If they had additional commentary, then there might be. Like the guidelines (http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) say, "Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter".

natep2• 16 years ago

The link will still point to this story tomorrow.

Honest question, do you know if each blurb on the front page of Woot has a permalink?

hundredwatt• 16 years ago

http://www.woot.com/Blog/

pavs• 16 years ago

I can't help but feel that TC has become the ebaumsworld of tech blog. Nothing interesting, intellectual, relevant; just grab whatever you find on the internet, copy paste 90% of the contents and BAM you have a blog post.

I think TC suffers from the same disease as Gizmodo, where the "authors" are encouraged to do whatever they want as long as it brings in traffic. They get bonus on traffic, who cares if its silly even for high-school standard.

jkincaid• 16 years ago

This is totally false. We don't get a bonus based on traffic, and we never have (and hopefully never will).

dzlobin• 16 years ago

You call out TC for adding nothing interesting or relevant, and go ahead to say the same thing that 12 other people say at every TC post on HN. As well as adding a false statement about their process.

We get it, a lot of people don't like TC.

tcdent• 16 years ago

Yes, Linking the TechCrunch article here was unnecessary. Saying they are unnecessary, though? People follow them because of the stories they bring in, wether interesting commentary was added or not. How else would someone who doesn't read the Woot blog on a regular basis find out about this?

jeebusroxors• 16 years ago

Well they DID casually mention they did this same stunt years ago...

and it’s actually similar to something we did a couple years ago, trying to charge the AP $12.50 for their usage of quotes from us.

aaronbrethorst• 16 years ago

Anything that keeps MG Siegler from writing another post about Apple, Foursquare or Twitter for even a few minutes is a huge win in my book.

robobenjie• 16 years ago

I actually visited woot.com today, saw the headphones and moved on. It wasn't until the techcrunch article pointed me back to it that I read the whole thing. The TC points you to the right bit.

Although I suppose that could have been done with a clever title.

VengefulCynic• 16 years ago

The only thing better than this would be if Woot took the AP to Small Claims Court over the bill.

URSpider942• 16 years ago

That would be a priceless win-win situation. Either AP would have to take it on the chin and pay up to Woot, or fight the case, win, and create precedent that fair use of online material in a news report is not a copyright violation.

mahmud2• 16 years ago

You're missing a third possibility: take the case to court and, lose.

philwelch• 16 years ago

Stare decisis--the legal doctrine upon which binding precedents are made--is not something that I think would apply to small claims courts. You wouldn't have a precedent unless it reached a federal appeals court.

Also, since copyright is federal law, you may need to sue them in federal court to begin with. Do the feds even run small claims courts? I don't think they do.

JadeNB• 16 years ago

I am embarrassed not to be able to decode what's going on here. The backstory and such, yes, I understand, but what's this about an e-mail receipt for headphones? Did Woot buy headphones and bill them to the AP? Is Woot saying that the AP has to go out and buy the headphones themselves, then prove that they've done so?

I know that it's a joke, and I (think I) get the major thrust of it, but I just can't seem to understand what's the actual suggested mechanism of the alternative payment scheme.

CrazedGeek• 16 years ago

Woot's telling the AP that, if they buy the two-pack of headphones and send Woot the receipt, Woot will let the $17.50 citation charge slide.

David• 16 years ago

Visiting woot.com might clarify things.

Woot's business (from their FAQ page: http://woot.com/WhatIsWoot.aspx) is about selling one item a day, at a really good price. The Sennheiser headphones are today's item... and in that space where they're calling out AP, they usually talk up the day's product. They work in the sales pitch later in the text, though it isn't included in the TechCrunch article.

So their alternative payment is buying their product instead of paying them directly. (But really, it's just a lead-in to the marketing pitch they usually have. I think. It's my first time there, too.)

GBond• 16 years ago

I like concept here of creating controversy and buzz and shifting the attention to selling. The blog post serves 2 purposes: sticking it to AP AND selling the latest Woot deal.

They did something similar with the Amazon deal announcement with the Kindle deal.

Woot To The AP: Nice Story About Our Sale — You Now Owe Us $17.50

Related Stories