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Current Events » in reply to Civil law is only a weapon if someone is willing to sue.

re: Civil law is only a weapon if someone is willing to sue.
NetExpert — (archived)

Why should the government be reluctant to sue AP? Its just another corporation trying to establish a monopoly like any other. Also the government doesn't need to sue. Under anti-trust law anyone may sue if there business is being effected by an attempt to control a market and fix prices. It was Sprint, not the Justice Dept. that filed the lawsuit that broke AT&T up in the 1980's.

So AP has a history. That doesn't give it the right to attempt to manipulate markets like it appears it wants to do. If their only hope for survival is to create a price fixing cartel for news then maybe its better for the market if they go out of business. Markets work best with competition and the market for a commodity like news is no different.

In any case consumers, including bloggers don't have to wait until AP makes its move to monopolize news to counter this. They could start now to switch to Non-Associated Press sources for their news links, sources like the BBC and using Google to track down the press releases. If AP doesn't want the rest of the world to link to their news stories I say less give them their wish.

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