Maryland Juice spent the last few days at the annual Netroots Nation conference. The gathering of progressive organizers, Netizens, and politicos drew a surprising number of Marylanders. But not surprisingly, in attendance were a number of staff and writers for Arianna Huffington's blogging platform, The Huffington Post.
I used the opportunity to find a Huffington Post writer and see if I could extract an apology on behalf of Arianna Huffington. After all, her company (AOL-Huffington Post) recently unleashed corporate attorneys from mega-law firm DLA Piper to threaten legal action against Maryland Juice. They claimed I was infringing on their "intellectual" property rights by excerpting an article and photo from Patch.com. The national blogs TechDirt and Above the Law cried foul, noting that The Huffington Post itself engaged in exactly the same type of blogging that they were complaining about.
The Gazette's Daniel Leaderman recently picked up on the controversy and noted (excerpt below):
Maryland Juice is still awaiting that apology from Arianna Huffington....
I used the opportunity to find a Huffington Post writer and see if I could extract an apology on behalf of Arianna Huffington. After all, her company (AOL-Huffington Post) recently unleashed corporate attorneys from mega-law firm DLA Piper to threaten legal action against Maryland Juice. They claimed I was infringing on their "intellectual" property rights by excerpting an article and photo from Patch.com. The national blogs TechDirt and Above the Law cried foul, noting that The Huffington Post itself engaged in exactly the same type of blogging that they were complaining about.
The Gazette's Daniel Leaderman recently picked up on the controversy and noted (excerpt below):
GAZETTE: State politics blog Maryland Juice (marylandjuice.com) found itself under legal attack last week from no less of a media giant than AOL, owner of both Patch.com and the Huffington Post....
....blogger David Moon posted a rebuttal explaining that not only did AOL rely on free writing from bloggers, but his actions were well within the scope of fair use provisions in U.S. copyright law....
Your move, AOL.
Maryland Juice is still awaiting that apology from Arianna Huffington....
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