And I Thought Rupert Murdoch Thought Copying Stories From Other Publications Was 'Stealing'

from the tsk-tsk dept

You may remember, not so long ago, Rupert Murdoch was running around claiming that other publications "stole" from him. He gave a speech where he warned:

"The aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content."

Of course, around that time, we highlighted the fact that Murdoch, himself, owned a whole bunch of aggregators, many of which acted much worse than the sites -- such as Google -- that Murdoch was complaining about.

However, over the weekend there was a nice example of how one of Murdoch's publications clearly copied a story from another publication and did not give any credit for it whatsoever. We noted earlier how Broadband Reports broke the story of AT&T deciding to put in place metered billing. Broadband Reports got a tip with a leaked email showing the new rules, and got confirmation from AT&T. Nearly every other report on the story credited Broadband Reports with breaking the story. However, when the WSJ (via Dow Jones Newswire) wrote the story, by reporter Roger Cheng, there is no mention whatsoever of Broadband Reports breaking the story.

Now, a few quick points, I don't think that every publication should necessarily have to credit who breaks a story. It's often the neighborly thing to do, and I think that many people appreciate it when it's done. But news is news, and if it's factual, then there's no proprietary nature to it. So, my complaint isn't simply that Dow Jones/WSJ didn't credit BBR. What I take issue with is when a company comes out and states, repeatedly, that it is going to crack down on other sites that copy its work -- who often do it while providing credits and links back -- and then chooses to publish without credit, that seems hypocritical. Don't say one thing and do another.

Of course, some others will (correctly) point out that Cheng appears to have contacted AT&T himself, and added a few tidbits to the story (even if it's been pointed out that he seemed to unquestionably accept AT&T's claim of congestion). So, defenders will claim this is "okay" because he did "additional independent reporting." And, again, it's great that Cheng did additional reporting. But it doesn't change that it appears BBR had the original report, and got the info out there. Even with the additional reporting, it appears that the WSJ was able to create a news report off of a lead from BBR. And this goes right back to the claims of Bill Keller last week in which he seemed to be saying when the NY Times builds off someone else's work, that's journalism. When new media sites do it, it's piracy. It's too bad that these newspapers claim that they're so against such things, but have no problem doing it themselves. Again, most of the actual actions that they do are fine... by themselves. But doing those things after claiming to be against them in others... that's hypocrisy.

Filed Under: copying, credit, journalism
Companies: news corp.

Long Time Academic, Regular Op-Ed Writer, Claims He Had No Idea He Was Supposed To Attribute Text He Plagiarized

from the um,-wow dept

This one is just bizarre. Romenesko points us to the news that the director of the University of Utah's Middle East Center, Dr. Bahman Baktiari, who regularly writes op-ed pieces for various newspapers, has been accused of plagiarism. His defense? He claims he had no idea he was supposed to attribute the content he copied. Plagiarism cases turn up here and there, but I think this may be the first time I've seen someone -- especially from an academic setting -- claim that they didn't even realize they were supposed to make it clear they did not write the content. And, it's not even like he picked obscure publications to copy. What brought this all to light was an op-ed he wrote for the Salt Lake City Tribune, which used at least four unattributed sources, including both the NY Times and the Economist. I guess that means if you're a student in one of his classes, you're now off the hook to copy at will without attribution...

Filed Under: attribution, bahman baktiari, credit, plagiarism

BofA Tries To Foreclose On Home Despite Not A Single Missed Payment

from the merry-christmas dept

Perhaps rather than worrying so much about Wikileaks, or buying up hundreds of domain names involving various combinations of their top executives along with "sucks" or "blows," Bank of America should get its actual banking house in order. Consumerist has the story of how Bank of America tried to foreclose on a couple's home despite the fact that they'd never missed a payment (and the foreclosure was targeted for Christmas Eve, no less). The CT Watchdog site has all the ridiculous details, which get more and more ridiculous as you read through them.

The short(ish) version is this: the couple applied to refinance their home mortgage, as many people have done recently thanks to low mortgage rates. The plan was to use the refi to pay for some home improvements and to consolidate their debt by paying off whatever other debt they had. They asked the BofA rep they were working with for "the cheapest option," and the BofA rep simply put them into a program used for loan modifications -- specially developed for people who are behind on their mortgages, even though this couple was not. When they received the paperwork for this, they decided not to go with this program, because it had additional escrow costs and home insurance payments they didn't want -- so they instead decided they wanted a conventional mortgage.

What they didn't realize, was that as soon as the BofA rep put them into that particular "Making Home Affordable program," (even without the couple signing the documents) BofA immediately sent out a notification (without telling the couple) to the credit bureaus indicating that the couple wanted a loan modification due to financial difficulties. Almost immediately, all of their creditors freaked out: they dropped their credit limit on credit cards, had other creditors close their account, and had other debt automatically shifted to the highest possible interest rate category. Of course, this also killed any possibility of doing the refi, since their credit score no longer would allow a refi.

After many, many complaints to BofA, the bank apologized (in writing) and promised to remove the couple from being listed in the program and correct the credit report, but the couple was on their own in getting others to know about it. Except this foreclosure notice came months after BofA apologized and promised to fix things (which it hasn't fully done yet). The couple has been calling BofA to ask why and everyone they speak to notes that they've never missed a payment at all, but that the account is flagged as "under review." No one can explain why the foreclosure was set in motion.

Yes, this is a situation where BofA didn't just screw up, but after finally admitting its original error and promising to fix it, it has made an even bigger and more egregious error.

The TL:DR version: BofA screwed up and ruined a couple's (previously fine) credit rating, destroyed their plans for a mortgage refinance, and then after apologizing and promising to fix everything, decided to foreclose on the couple's house despite the fact that they'd never been late on a single payment.

Not surprisingly, the couple is now planning to sue BofA.

Filed Under: banks, credit, foreclosing, loans
Companies: bank of america

NY Post Reporter Admits That It's Company Policy Not To Credit Blogs Or Other Sources

from the parasites? dept

Remember that Washington Post reporter last month who got all sorts of attention for claiming that a Gawker writer "ripped off" his story, despite linking to it multiple times? Many mainstream press folks sided with Shapira, in using this as an example of how blogs "parasite" newspapers. Yet, as the actual numbers show, the real relationship is quite symbiotic, with stories moving back and forth across alternative media and traditional media. And... it seems pretty clear that alternative media is a lot more likely to give credit and/or link to an original story. We've highlighted a few different cases of those traditional newspapers taking stories from bloggers without credit.

Charles Vestal points us to another such case, but in this one, the reporter confessed and noted that it was company policy not to credit bloggers. In this case, it involved a local New York City blog that goes by the charming name NewYorkShitty.com. Last month, it reported on an illegal gym in the neighborhood. A little over a week later, the big News Corp/Rubert Murdoch-owned NY Post wrote an article covering just that story that seemed pretty obviously taken straight from the original.

So, the author of the blog post, one "Miss Heather" contacted one of the NY Post reporters, who quite openly admitted to using the blog post for his story, and then said it's against corporate policy to credit bloggers with scoops. Apparently, the same applies at the NY Daily News as well:

Post policy prevented me from crediting you in print. Allow me to do so now. You did a fantastic reporting job. All I had to do was follow your steps (and make a few extra phone calls).

I won't discuss at length the policy of not crediting blogs (or anyone else). I'll just briefly explain that as long as we can independently verify every bit of info, we don't credit.

Now, this isn't a surprise, but how come that Washington Post reporter's claims of blogs being "parasites" got so much attention a few weeks ago, when it involved a clear case where the blog quite deliberately cited and linked to the original -- but a situation like this, where the NY Post blatantly got the story from a blog and admits it, doesn't get any attention at all?

Filed Under: bloggers, citations, credit, journalism, ny post, parasites
Companies: news corp.

Because The Mainstream Press Never Copies Stories From Bloggers Without Credit...

from the parasites? dept

We've been hearing all sorts of stories recently about how aggregators and blog sites are apparently "parasites" on "real" newspaper reporting. For example, the CEO of News Limited (a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.) just went on a nice little rant against bloggers, claiming that blogs are "barely discernible from massive ignorance." In fact, the idea that blogs are somehow "parasitic" to "real journalism" has been around for years.

Because of this, we're suddenly seeing a revival of the nearly dormant concept of a "hot news" protection, that would forbid other publications from "profiting" from a news source that has a hot scoop. We're seeing proposals to ban even paraphrasing the news from a source that breaks it or making profits from a story broken by someone else.

So, surely, a mainstream newspaper would never "parasite" a story from a blog without giving credit, right? We've already joked that newspapers (by their own definition) are simply parasites of the people who actually make the news they cover, but newspapers have a long history of getting their stories from other publications and rarely given credit.

To be clear: beyond common courtesy, I don't think there's anything wrong with this, and I'm calling out the following example not because I think the LA Times did something wrong. I just find it amusing that at a time when so many insist that it's the ugly mass of "bloggers" who "parasite" stories from the professional reporters, that we see the opposite. Last week, I believe I was the first publication to write about Yahoo, Microsoft and RealNetworks getting sued by MCS Music over failure to license composition rights on a bunch of songs those companies offered via their music services. That story was sent to me by Eric Goldman -- who I believe sent it to some others as well. A few other online only publications wrote about the story and credited my post, which was nice.

And then, the LA Times wrote about it, calling it an important lawsuit. Now, there are many different places where the LA Times and its reporter Jon Healey could have found that story. Others may have sent it to Healey. He may have been watching the legal filings himself. Eric Goldman (who sent it to me) could have sent it to him as well. But... what's interesting is that in describing the case, Healey links to the version of the filing that I, personally, uploaded to document hosting site Scribd for the purpose of including it in the Techdirt post. That suggests, pretty strongly (and I'm willing to find out otherwise) that Healey found out about the lawsuit on Techdirt (I know that Healey has read the site in the past, though that doesn't mean he still reads it).

Now -- again, since this will be misinterpreted -- I have no problem whatsoever if Healey did find out about it on Techdirt and if he then wrote about it and decided not to link to Techdirt as credit for where he found it. I'm not complaining about it. It's a neighborly thing to do, but certainly not a big deal in the long run. I just found the fact that this appears to be what happened rather amusing, given the claims of so many that it's the blogs who "parasite" the pros, when it appears that the opposite happens sometimes too. If some of these proposals that are floating around ever got anywhere, I could argue that the LA Times was unfairly profiting off of my "scoop." That would, of course, be ridiculous, but that's the sort of world we'll live in if those who are trying to jump on the "hot news" bandwagon get their way.

And that is the important point. News is news. Facts are facts. No one owns either. A lawsuit is just a lawsuit and if anyone wants to write about it however they want to write about it, they should be able to do so. To claim that whoever wrote about it first somehow gets to "own" the story or reserve all the "profits" from it -- whether it's by a newspaper, a new media publication or some individual -- is simply pointless.

And, the newspaper folks who are pushing for such rules might want to remember that it's just as likely to come back and bite them if such laws were passed.

Filed Under: bloggers, copying, copyright, credit, journalism, la times, news, ownership, parasites

How Should You React If Someone Uses Your Content Without Crediting You?

from the questions,-questions dept

We here at Techdirt certainly take something of an extreme position when it comes to reusing our words: we won't even stop you if you don't give us credit. But, mostly, that's because we recognize that taking credit for someone else's work is likely to backfire on you, damaging your reputation, and we believe that in the end, you'll regret it. Still, that doesn't make it enjoyable when we see someone trying to pass off our work as their own, so I can certainly understand the reaction of people who get quite upset when it happens. Still, even if you get upset, that doesn't mean you should immediately fly off the handle and threaten legal action. There are much more measured ways to approach it.

For example, Brian points us to a blog post by the folks at Common Craft, who have noticed that many mainstream media sources are using their video about how Twitter works without any credit whatsoever. The content itself is under a Creative Commons non-commercial, no-derivatives license, which it seems clear most of the media properties in question are breaking. Only one (ABC/Disney) actually seems to have followed through on the licensing terms. But still, what's impressive is that Common Craft still takes a very low key approach to it, first noting that perhaps the media's use is "fair use," and then saying:

I'm not writing to make a big hairy deal about the use of the video. The truth is, we're not sure what's appropriate or what to expect

And then asks the community what they think and how they should respond... while also naming the offending parties (NPR, CNN, CBS and KOMO News in Seattle). No matter what you think of the situation, or what Common Craft should do, I think it's fantastic to see yet another case of someone taking a much more measured and reasonable approach to such things, rather than immediately going into "threat" or "cease-and-desist" mode. Personally, I think that the approach they've taken makes the most sense: simply make your community and your fans aware of the situation, and then watch as they help police it for you -- alerting news organizations (most of whom probably didn't even realize they should have credited the video) of their mistake.

Filed Under: attribution, common craft, content, credit

Multiple People Demanding Credit For Hannah Montana

from the there-are-only-so-many-stories-in-the-world dept

You hear it all the time with almost any successful movie/tv show/book: other people claim that they had the idea first, pitched it and had it rejected (or, the creator "copied" the idea they had produced elsewhere). And now they want money and credit (but mainly money). Of course, this ignores the fact that multiple people tend to have similar story ideas all the time -- and in these sorts of things it's rarely the idea that matters, but the execution. Yet, two different and totally unrelated guys are now suing, claiming that they deserve money for coming up with the concept behind the hit TV show Hannah Montana. First, there's Buddy Sheffield, who apparently pitched a show called Rock and Roland to ABC/Disney in 2001 about "a seemingly average middle school student who actually moonlights as a pop star."

Ok, but then there's Richard Fronduto -- who claims that all the way back in 1990 he wrote a pilot script for a show called The Secret Life of Sindi about, yes, a seemingly average middle school student who actually moonlights as a pop star.

Of course, back in the 80s, I used to day dream about my secret life as as child pop-star, as well (you should have seen my air guitar routine) -- as did probably tons of other kids. Let's face it: this idea is not particularly original in the grand scheme of things. Kids always dream about leading glamorous secret lives, and being a rock star is probably a pretty common part of that. But actually then taking that idea and turning it into the massive hit that it is today is not about the idea, but about the execution. It's unfortunate that we live in an age where we so celebrate the idea, but downplay the importance of execution. It highlights exactly the wrong situation and leads to silly scenarios like this one.

Filed Under: credit, hannah montana, lawsuits
Companies: disney

Get College Credit For Being Famous Online

from the and-what-did-you-major-in? dept

It's certainly no secret that in an age of changing business models for content creators, that understanding the nature of online marketing is important. Huge industries have grown up around online marketing, viral marketing and word of mouth marketing. But, when it gets right down to the core, it's about figuring out ways to get attention -- and it appears that one college professor is imparting that message quite clearly to his students in a class where the entire goal is for students to become famous online. It apparently doesn't matter how they become famous, but their grades depend on it. The class, at Parsons The New School for Design, has 15 students, all vying to be more famous than one another. What's amusing is that, as the semester wound down and more subtle means of becoming internet famous were proving ineffective, many in the class resorted to the old short-term standby: posting videos of scantily-clad women on blogs and using suggestive titles. You can check out the class blog to judge for yourself how famous the students have become.

Filed Under: college, credit, online fame

Apple Doesn't Want Your Cash (Credit Only, Please)

from the cash-not-wanted-here dept

With reports of huge numbers of iPhones being purchased to be unlocked and resold, it looks like Apple trying to clamp down a bit on the process by changing the rules for purchasers: requiring credit cards for purchases and limiting order to only 2 iPhones at a time. This is similar to what the original "launch day" limitations were. The credit cards let Apple track purchases more carefully (though, you have to wonder what good that really does) and the two person limit makes life harder for unlocker/resellers -- but also makes it more likely that parents will be able to pick up iPhones for their kids this holiday season. As for whether or not it's legal to turn down someone handing over the requisite amount of cash, we'll just let the US Treasury Department explain that it's perfectly fine. The whole "legal tender" bit doesn't mean anyone has to accept your cash.

A bigger question, though, is why Apple would bother? The resellers are likely to figure out ways around these limitations anyway, and it just seems more likely to cause problems for legitimate purchasers (especially younger ones who might not have a credit card yet). And, while it is true that Apple makes money from every iPhone with AT&T service, it's silly to completely shut off unlockers, who still are giving Apple plenty of money that they might not hand over if they were forced to go with AT&T service (especially those from foreign countries where iPhone service is not offered). This really seems like an unnecessary restriction that isn't likely to help Apple very much.

Filed Under: cash, credit, iphone, unlocking
Companies: apple

Are Moody's And S&P The New Blodget and Quattrone?

from the second-verse,-same-as-the-first dept

It's been said by many that bond ratings agencies are to the credit bubble what the tech analysts were during the dot com bubble. Whereas guys like Henry Blodget got dinged for touting IPOs for no other purpose than to move stock, many are wondering whether firms like S&P and Moody's inflated debt ratings so as to help move more business. It certainly seems plausible, and now it looks like regulators are going to delve deeper into this question, as they look at whether repeat customers tended to receive better ratings for the securities they were floating. Regardless of what regulators determine, it seems likely that the reputation of these firms will be permanently tarnished. Nevertheless, there would still seem to be a need for third parties to rate debt, so that the market can determine the appropriate interest rate. Of course, it's not like nobody saw this coming. For years now, people have been warning about the oligopoly in bond rating, and the potential for conflicts of interest. Perhaps the key is pursue a more decentralized system of disseminating information, although it will take some work (and regulatory flexibility) to figure out exactly what this model would look like.

Filed Under: credit, debt
Companies: moody's, s&p