How to avoid threats from slimy AP lawyers

Still following the story over at Snapped Shot, where Brian Ledbetter was contacted by an AP lawyer and threatened into shutting his site down. The blogosphere has reacted. First up, a suggestion by BC, the Imperial Torturer at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler (comments section):

Here’s a suggestion for a “workaround” to the entire situation… Just do a little “ShopJob™” on each and every photo that’s used and “satire” can be used as “cover“, since “satire” is covered under “Fair Use“. That way, everyone would be covered by “The Letter of the Law":

Next, as predicted, Buckley and Potfry over at The Nose on Your Face have been all over this. Here, they have uncovered a transcript of the meeting where the decision was made to go after Ledbetter:

TNOYF presents it here in its entirety, and, in the interest of maintaining journalistic authenticity, we’ve used only Associated Press photos for the purpose of this re-creation.

the Associated Press Visual Sensitivity Department's Mahmoud Abbas

Crap. I just used an AP photo without proper license.

The list of bloggers who are covering this grows...