Fair Use for Fair People

Anil Dash on the AllThingsD kerfuffle:

The Associated Press announcement addresses pricing, licensing, and legal threats. There is no statement made about the credibility of the information being published through these online channels, nor whether the act of aggregating and disseminating news this way has an impact on its accuracy or accountability.

I agree, entirely. What is at issue here is the attitude. My favorite writers right now (such as John Gruber, Merlin Mann, Andy Baio) are my favorites precisely because they care about one thing: creditability. They want their opinions and ideas to be credible not due to their stature as people, but due to the strength of their ideas and words themselves. This matters.