As we reported last week, the Associated Press sent a copyright complaint to a harmless little left-wing news aggregating site demanding they remove posts that featured "39 to 79 words" of their precious, precious copy. Over the weekend, after outrage from various blogs, they retreated. But they're not giving up! Blogs will bow to them! They will set standards, and blogs will naturally decide to follow these standards on their own accord, because that's how bloggers act!

On Friday, The A.P. issued a statement defending its action, saying it was going to challenge blog postings containing excerpts of A.P. articles "when we feel the use is more reproduction than reference, or when others are encouraged to cut and paste." An A.P. spokesman declined Friday to further explain the association's position.

Now they're not setting these standards yet, and they say they won't go around suing bloggers, but that has not stopped outraged internet people from announcing their intention to give the AP exactly what they want. It's boycott time! Jeff Jarvis will fuck you up.

* Remember, AP, you declared war on the bloggers. Remember that.

* I don't really give a damn what your guidelines are. I have my own guidelines. I stated them below. The point of fair use and fair comment is that there can be no set guidelines. That's just ridiculous.

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* One last bit of advice for the AP before I get on my plane: Back off.

The moral here is that no one understands fair use, at all. Not the copyright holders, or the bloggers. Or the courts?

Will Gawker join the boycott? Yes. From now on the only wire service we'll link to is UPI, because their reports have that hint of nutty Moonie-owned desperate madness that we love.