As you might expect with a press club, there’s a story behind this.
The
Press Club of Cleveland is currently being threatened with legal action
by The Associated Press and its law firm, Higbee & Associates, over
an alleged copyright violation. The alleged violation involves the
Press Club republishing a Northeast Ohio newspaper’s Sports section
front, which included an Associated Press photo, as part of our efforts
to celebrate the best in journalism in Ohio.
Thus
far our appeals to AP and to the law firm that we had the newspaper’s
permission to reproduce the page, that the Press Club is a nonprofit
entity that realized no income from the noncommercial use of this
newspaper page and that, c’mon, this is about celebrating journalism
have all been rejected.
While
we continue to try to make our case – and avoid paying the settlement
that the law firm has offered and the lawsuit that the law firm
continues to threaten us with – we have reluctantly decided to remove
all our awards material to avoid any other such claims.
We
take copyrights and the protection of journalists’ work very seriously.
We also take seriously the opportunities to feature that good work –
and encourage more of it.
We hope to restore our award winners on our website soon.
And, no, the absurdity of all this is not lost on us.