On the one hand, Associated Press asserts that it wants to protect its content from abuse by bloggers. On the other hand, they’re willing to sell their content by the word to anyone willing to pay. All of which makes you wonder if the venerable AP has taken any issue at all with the manipulation of its content by one of its customers, the American Family Association.

The organization is using software to automatically replace the word “gay” with “homosexual” in all of the AP stories selected to appear on the organization’s news site, OneNews Now. (This has led to the renaming of Olympics-bound track star Tyson Gay into Tyson Homosexual; pro basketball player Rudy Gay got the same treatment.)

The blog where I learned about this is as politically-minded as the American Family Association, the 31-year-old organization founded and still run by Rev. Donald Wildmon. The AFA is focused on “traditional family values” and wields considerable clout because of its large, voting constituency. But while I am troubled by the message the search-and-replace effort is meant to convey—I’m equally dismayed at the wanton abuse of content. Presenting AP-branded content without disclosing that it has been altered is plainly immoral

Personally, I find the AFA’s actions deplorable on a number of levels. My friend Pete Shinbach, who directed me to the story, reminded me of the time AOL blocked the word “breast” as part of a decency filter, denying women access to breast cancer support groups and content (not to mention blocking access to recipes for chicken breasts). You would think we learned back then, wouldn’t you?

But this blog is about the communication business, not my personal political or ethical views, and in that context, it’s the AP I wonder about. If it’s an abuse of intellectual property to run more than four words without anteing up, isn’t it an abuse for somebody to buy the content and then rewrite it to serve partisan purposes?

I don’t know that the AP is not taking any action to curtail the AFA’s practices. But I have done some searching and haven’t yet found any evidence to suggest the AP has ever commented publicly on the issue. The right move would be to pull the plug; stop providing the AFA with content based on a flagrant breech of contract.

But then again, times are tough for the print journalism business, and if the AP is looking to bloggers to pay by the word to quote their content, how anxious would they be to turn away a paying customer?

Given the recent dustup in the blogosphere AP could do itself a lot of reputational good by taking a stand. While the politics of the AFA would undoubtedly wind up being a significant factor, it’s really not about that; I would hope AP would take just as strong a stand if it were a left-wing organization replacing the word “Republicans” with “Right-Wing Extremists.”

No, it’s not about politics; it’s about principle. If AP wants us to believe its pratices are all about protecting intellectual property, the same standard should apply here.

Over to you, AP.