DailyDirt: Data Is Everywhere, Let's Use It

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

If you've been reading Techdirt for a while, you probably know that we're not big fans of this myth: "If you're not paying for the product, you are the product." Regardless of whether or not you pay for something, some companies will still treat their customers horribly. Likewise, there are also some corporations that try to treat customers (or users) with respect without expectation of payment for the favor. That said, it's easy to make mistakes that get mis-interpreted when it comes to analyzing consumer behavior. An unintentional email message to a targeted (or even un-targeted) group of customers can enrage a whole community. Consumer data is available to a lot of companies, but it might be wise for these companies to tread lightly with their data scientists. Here are just a few cases that data miners might want to check out.

• Facebook participated in some social experiments, but creating an "emotional contagion" resulted in some unwanted public attention. The actual ability for a social network to measure or effect various emotions is far from proven, but the potential to cause widespread distress through a social network is probably something users should be concerned about. [url]
• Shutterfly made a seemingly small mistake in mass-emailing a bunch of its customers a congratulatory message about an upcoming newborn. The photo printing service wasn't even using data mining techniques (eg Target) to try to figure out who might be pregnant, but in this data-driven world, folks are trained to expect that companies may be trying to pry into their personal lives. [url]
• Social psychology has had some problems with scientific fraud, and thankfully, there are some investigators who are developing methods to find fake or massaged data. It's hard enough to actually design psych experiments that have conclusive results, but sometimes the data can't lie. [url]
• OKCupid admits to experimenting on its users, too. The difference with dating sites is that the people using them seem to be tacitly agreeing to be experimented upon. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: advertising, consumer behavior, data, data mining, emotional contagion, marketing, psychology, reputation, social experiments
Companies: facebook, okcupid, shutterfly, target

KlearGear Revamps Website; New Address Traces Back To Scammy Penny Auction Site

from the coincidence-or-something-nastier? dept

KlearGear is on the move! Not content to simply dodge judgments against it by pretending to be a French corporation rather than the variety of remailers it appears to be, KlearGear has revamped its website and given itself a brand new address.

Gone are the legal threats claiming it has the "right" to charge customers $3,500 for bad reviews. Also gone are the claims that it will fight every chargeback to the death with a variety of tactics including reporting unhappy customers to a scam site shut down by the Federal Trade Commission and an ever-escalating number of punitive charges.

KlearGear's subtly updated site now shows the following as its new address.

427 North Tatnall Street
Wilmington, Delaware 19801-2230

KlearGear used to be "located" at a strip of nondescript warehouses in Grandville, Michigan. But that's all in the past now. The new KlearGear is nominally a Delaware corporation, one that shares its address with yet another scammy business, penny auction site Zbiddy, which boasts an absolutely gaudy 424 customer complaints over the last three years.

Zbiddy seems to have nearly as many pissed-off customers as KlearGear. Winning bidders report their items never arrived. Many more complaints call out the company for charging their credit cards $60-99 immediately after registration, without them ever placing a bid or winning an auction. Like other equally abysmal auction sites, Zbiddy lures people in with the chance to obtain stuff for low, low prices. And like other auction sites, it requires a credit card before a potential bidder can do anything. And (again) like equally shady sites, Zbiddy sells packages of bids, without which bidders can't even participate in auctions.

And, like KlearGear, customer service is nearly nonexistent and many, many people have complained about spending money but receiving nothing in return. At this point, Zbiddy's reputation is so thoroughly trashed that it has sought to hide its name behind a slightly less sketchy penny auction site, BeezId.

It appears that whoever actually runs KlearGear (whether it's Havaco Direct, Chenal Media or French company Descoteaux Boutiques) may have a fistful of scammy companies under his purview -- or at least has the dubious fortune of choosing the same remailer address as Zbiddy. KlearGear may be completely unrelated to Zbiddy, but customers of both suffer from the same form of abuse: not receiving the products they've paid for.

Various attempts have been made to scrub KlearGear's reputation since news of its $3,500 bad review fee surfaced. A very thorough expose of KlearGear's many corporate figureheads posted at RipOff Report notes that someone using the account "Havaco Direct" attempted to hire a freelancer to crank out 10 glowing reviews (all from separate email/IP addresses) and post them at ResellerRatings.com. (A 2011 request from Havaco Direct asks for the generation of 240 unique email addresses created by 240 unique IP addresses -- itself more than a little shady.) A quick scan of ResellerRating reviews pre-dating 2013's Streisanding shows KlearGear's inability to fulfill orders has been a problem (or not, if you're just running a scam) since day one.

Also of interest are recent DMCA takedown notices sent by a supposed representative of KlearGear with the made-up-on-the-spot name of "Consumer Guardian." Since the beginning of this month, it has sent out three notices to Google asking for the delisting of the expansive Ripoff Report noted above, further research into the company's inner workings by a blogger at Blagnet and Ken White's post at Popehat. So far, every request has been turned down. Searching for "Consumer Guardian" gets you the metaphoric phone book, which is presumably the impetus behind the bland name currently abusing the DMCA system.

Other findings:

1. The supposed address of Descoteaux Boutiques is also found on KlearGear's website. However, that address links back to an outsourcing firm (7-Conseil), one that also seems incredibly light on verifiable details. Who's behind it isn't exactly clear, but nowhere in the details will you find Vic Mathieu or the supposed company he claims owns KlearGear.

2. Placing an order with KlearGear now routes you through Yahoo!. On the shopping cart pages, one of KlearGear's lies resurfaces.


KlearGear very definitely does not have an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau "as of 8/23/14." (This is a very recent update. The sitemap xml shows every page was last updated on 8/22.) Western Michigan's BBB notes that KlearGear isn't even accredited, thanks to its earlier false claims about its BBB rating. San Antonio's BBB (dating back to when KlearGear pretended to be located there) has very generously given KlearGear a "no rating." Delaware's BBB doesn't even have KlearGear listed at its fake local address. So, once again, KlearGear is lying about its rating, but it's hiding it from its critics and using it during the ordering process to give potential customers the completely false assurance that it's a trustworthy company.

3. KlearGear is hiring. And the email address to contact is wow@kleargear.com, which also doubles as its "Customer Care Center" email address, so don't expect to hear back on your application any time soon.

KlearGear -- whoever's actually behind it -- still owes the couple, whose credit it wrecked, over $300,000. But it appears it's well-practiced in the art of hiding behind meaningless names, nonexistent media contact people and a host of shell companies that exist solely as mailboxes. 7-Conseils, the French company that is actually registered at the address listed on KlearGear's site, has been in existence since 2008, but its website still claims to be under construction. The longer-running Chenal name also has a bare-bones website and a bogus address. Vic Mathieu's grandstanding at Ars Technica did little more than show that whoever are running the shop (and whatever their actual names are), have nothing but contempt for every person they've screwed. KlearGear may not be associated with the scammy Zbiddy, but both entities deploy the same tactics (bogus charges, confrontational response to criticism) and have the same abysmal customer service record. What may look like nothing but a coincidence may actually be just another shady operation by the crooked braintrust behind KlearGear.

Filed Under: ecommerce, reputation, scams
Companies: beezid, chenal media, descoteaux boutiques, havaco direct, kleargear, zbiddy

New York Guest House Burns Own Reputation To The Ground By Trying To Charge Customers $500 For Bad Reviews

from the not-so-much-a-T&C-page-as-it-is-a-suicide-note dept

The Union Street Guest House in Hudson, New York, joins the small group of businesses who have attempted to levy fees against customers who leave negative reviews. It's an exclusive group that no business should want to be a part of, one that includes the infamous and possibly French geek gadget re-shipper KlearGear.

Page Six was the first to report on this customer-unfriendly clause residing in the rental terms and conditions:

If you stay here to attend a wedding and leave us a negative review on any internet site you agree to a $500. fine for each negative review.

If you have booked the Inn for a wedding or other type of event anywhere in the region and given us a deposit of any kind for guests to stay at USGH there will be a $500 fine that will be deducted from your deposit for every negative review of USGH placed on any internet site by anyone in your party and/or attending your wedding or event (this is due to the fact that your guests may not understand what we offer and we expect you to explain that to them).

Not only is the clause incredibly stupid and openly antagonistic, but it holds renters responsible for the actions of anyone in their party, including guests whose experience may have been drastically different than the renting party's. It even tells renters to spread the news that no negative reviews should be posted, which should be enough to tell potential customers to rent elsewhere.

Now, the Union Street Guest House has all the negative reviews it will ever need. As soon as this started spreading around the internet, it's Yelp page quickly filled up with negative reviews, forcing the business to offer this "explanation" on its Facebook page.

The policy regarding wedding fines was put on our site as a tongue-in-cheek response to a wedding many years ago. It was meant to be taken down long ago and certainly was never enforced.

Oh. Well, LOL… I guess. I'm not sure the "it was all a joke" defense is going to undo the damage done by its decision to insert this language into its rental terms, no matter what the original impetus. This also doesn't explain why a lousy joke was allowed to be part of the official policies for nearly two years (it appeared sometime between August and October 2012). It's gone now, but there's still an edge to USGH's voice in the amended terms, which indicates the Guest House is in no hurry to hand out refunds, return deposits or deal with chargebacks.

CANCEL AT YOUR OWN RISK, WE DO NOT ACCEPT ALL CANCELLATION REQUESTS...

If you file for a charge-back (request a refund directly from your amex or bank card) or file a complaint to any 3rd party organization during that time you are responsible for any fees associated with it and doing so will only hold up the refund process...

The deposit will not be refunded until we feel that everything is 100% resolved (we reserve the right to refund at any time). If you hold the entire Inn you are responsible for every room. There are no "releasing" rooms prior. If there are any unused rooms you forfeit your entire deposit. All chargebacks and any other fees related to any charges from anyone in your party (that they have not paid) will be deducted from your deposit.

According to Page Six, there's also a bit of an edge to its voice in its handling of earlier negative reviews:

For any bad reviews that do make it online, the innkeepers aggressively post “mean spirited nonsense,” and “she made all of this up.”

In response to a review complaining of rude treatment over a bucket of ice, the proprietors shot back: “I know you guys wanted to hang out and get drunk for 2 days and that is fine. I was really really sorry that you showed up in the summer when it was 105 degrees . . . I was so so so sorry that our ice maker and fridge were not working and not accessible.”

It would seem obvious that there are better places to spend your money, especially since the chance of you receiving your deposit seem incredibly slim. The most objectionable part of the terms has been removed, but only because it went completely public. At no time during the last two years did the Guest House take down this clause, which seems to indicate that it wasn't the inside joke it's now pretending it was.

I don't know why this lesson even needs to be learned at this point. If businesses haven't figured out that attempting to suppress bad reviews almost invariably only results in more bad reviews, this sort of stupidity and inevitable backlash should be viewed as nothing more than culling the herd. If you'd rather try to silence unhappy customers than address the problems in your own business, you deserve to have your reputation torched to the ground. But don't blame the internet. This fire was started by the Union Street Guest House itself.

Filed Under: bad reviews, fines, reputation, reviews, threats
Companies: union street guest house

Seattle City Light Wants A Refund On Their Online Reputation Boosting Bill Funded By Taxpayers

from the streisand-multiplier dept

So let's say you're a highly-paid CEO of Seattle's publically-owned utility company, City Light, and you've just been ironically kicked around in the media for a couple of weeks because you spent public money to boost your own reputation. Let's say that, far from being successful in said reputation-boosting, you're now facing questions over why you spent thousands of dollars to do this in the first place and that now all search results tend to point to this story rather than whatever it was you were originally trying to drown out. What do you do?

You ask for a damned refund, of course. And that's exactly what City Light's chief, Jorge Carrasco, is going to do, even if it has to spend even more public money to get that public money back.

The project was concocted by the CEO’s chief of staff, Sephir Hamilton. In an interview with Ars, Hamilton said that the agency may even file a lawsuit to enforce this refund.

"We're leaving our options open,” he said. “I hope that they'll see that what we signed up for was not the service that they delivered. We were sold one bill of goods and we were given another.”

Ah, yes, the old "spend more public money on a lawsuit to get a refund on the public money we shouldn't have spent" strategy. I like it, not only because it's hilariously recursive, but because it allows for the possibility that City Light loses and the maximum amount of taxpayer money is spent inappropriately. Not that the folks they decided to do business with, Brand.com, seem to be anything remotely resembling reputable (editors note: alliteration combo!).

“We were told that they would provide help in getting some of our past material and news releases placed in reputable blogs and journals and ultimately didn't know that they would be paying for placement or creating fake news websites to place that news,” Hamilton said in an interview. “And ultimately, all of the material that was generated has been taken off search results because it violated Google's policies.”

E-mails from City Light show that Justin DeLisi, a Brand.com campaign manager, provided links to “stories” posted to websites that have since been pulled down and that appear to have been utterly fake. The "whois" information on those domains, which include weeklytimes.com, gazers.com, and advisories.com, is also obscured.

So, just to summarize, City Light, a publically owned utility, paid a shady reputation company thousands of dollars to placate the ego of its CEO and now wants a refund because said shady company wasn't able to produce results. Oh, and they're willing to spend the money to file and fight a lawsuit to get this refund. Look, at some point you just have to stop digging, even if you've legitimately been had. City Light's reputation hasn't been done any favors by any of these actions. Jorge Carrasco may want to take a little bit of advice from himself.

Carrasco said at a press conference that he regretted the entire effort to scrub his online reputation. Hamilton concurred. “It was an experiment that certainly didn't work and we would not do it again,” he told Ars.

Right, so just extend that regret out to this entire situation and stop digging yourself holes. Come on, guys, I don't want to have to write a third post about you.

Filed Under: jorge carrasco, refund, reputation, reputation management, seattle, sephir hamilton
Companies: brand.com, city light

Thomas Cooley Law School Loses Its Defamation Lawsuit Against Critic Who Claimed It Inflated Graduate Salaries, Because It's True

from the truth-as-an-absolute-defense dept

We've written a few times about Thomas M. Cooley law school -- basically the world's biggest joke of a law school. It is considered to be the absolute bottom of the barrel when it comes to law schools, and since the rankings that everyone relies on would basically say that, Cooley has opted-out of the rankings process by (1) not providing the necessary info to US News and (2) creating its own ranking system that, stunningly, puts itself in 2nd place, right after Harvard (well, last we looked in 2011). How could this be? Well, Cooley's own rankings added in a variety of wholly meaningless stats and gave them equal weight to things like GPA, LSAT scores, bar passage rate, etc. It added things like "total volumes in library," "total applications" and my personal favorite: "total law school square footage." Because, you know, bigger is better.

Anyway, after a law firm posted a comment on a message board about possibly suing Cooley for inflating graduate employment and salary data, Cooley sued for defamation (it also sued some students for disparaging the school). It took some time, but a judge has ruled in favor of the law firm Cooley sued, Kurzon Strauss, pointing out that the lawyer who posted the comments had fairly good reason to believe the statements were true, and in some case, the claims were true. The court goes through each claim to highlight why they fail as defamation claims, such as this one:

The statement that "Cooley grossly inflates its graduates' reported mean salaries" may not merely be protected hyperbole, but actually substantially true.

So, nice going Cooley. Not only did you make your terrible reputation even worse with bogus censorious lawsuits, you then lost the case (badly) and had a judge flat out confirm that you "grossly inflate" the starting salaries of graduates. Cooley graduates must be so proud of their alma mater.

Filed Under: defamation, law schools, ratings, reputation
Companies: thomas m. cooley law school

Asiana Air Says It Will Sue Over Stupid News Program Broadcasting Offensive Joke Names Of Crash Pilots

from the damaged-whose-reputation? dept

By now you've probably already heard about how the local Fox affiliate here in the Bay Area of California last week broadcast what it apparently believed were the names of the four pilots on the Asiana Air plane that crashed on landing at San Franciso Airport a week ago. Almost everyone I've spoken to about this is stunned that no one realized these were obviously fake, racist names. You could maybe see one of them getting through, but all four? And it's not like this is in an area without a large Asian population. Nearly 25% of the population in this region is of Asian heritage. You'd think someone would have caught that these were fake before it went on air. But, no one did. If you haven't seen the video of the newscaster reading out those names, it's really quite incredible: As you might imagine, KTVU quickly apologized, blaming the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) who it insisted had confirmed the names. At first the NTSB insisted that it had nothing to do with it, saying that "we do not release names" ever. However, a few hours later, the NTSB was forced to issue a statement apologizing, and saying that a summer intern, who was acting way, way, way outside the scope of his authority, had confirmed the names:

Earlier today, in response to an inquiry from a media outlet, a summer intern acted outside the scope of his authority when he erroneously confirmed the names of the flight crew on the aircraft.

The NTSB does not release or confirm the names of crewmembers or people involved in transportation accidents to the media. We work hard to ensure that only appropriate factual information regarding an investigation is released and deeply regret today's incident.

Appropriate actions will be taken to ensure that such a serious error is not repeated.

Of course, the NTSB has also said that the names "originated" with KTVU and that the intern was "trying to be helpful." Either way, the end result was pretty clear: KTVU (and, to some extent, the NTSB) were quickly mocked widely online.

I had figured the story would die down over the weekend but, apparently, Asiana Air is talking about potentially suing both KTVU and the NTSB over this incident, claiming that it harmed their reputation.

Asiana said Monday that it will sue a San Francisco TV station that damaged the airline's reputation by using bogus and racially offensive names for four pilots on a plane that crashed earlier this month in San Francisco.

Yes, the use of those names was racist and offensive. And, yes, it was absolutely ridiculous that it made it on the air. But it's almost as ridiculous to then file a lawsuit over such a thing. Asiana is going to have one hell of a time proving any "damage" to the airline's reputation from that report, as opposed to, I don't know, the actual crash landing. It seems that Asiana's reputation is already hurt, but not because of any fake names, but rather for its inability to properly land an airplane.

The whole reason the names became a story was that basically everyone who didn't work at KTVU knew they were fake and offensive names. No one actually thought that they were real. There was no damage done to Asiana from those names being used. The damage was to KTVU's credibility (not to mention the credibility of whoever hires summer interns at the NTSB). KTVU and the NTSB have both apologized, and Asiana should focus on making sure its pilots can land their planes rather than suing over this.

Filed Under: airlines, crashes, ntsb, racist jokes, reputation
Companies: asiana air, ktvu

Woman Sues Plastic Surgeon For $23 Million Because He Put Before/After Pictures Of Her On The Web

from the proportionality-means-something dept

A bunch of folks have sent in variations on the following story involving Catherine Manizone, who had a nose job done a few years ago by plastic surgeon Grigoriy Mashkevich, but who is now suing him for $23 million. You might think that the lawsuit is about the nose job gone wrong. But, no, her complaint is that Dr. Mashkevich put "before" and "after" pictures he took of Manizone online as an example of his work. $23 million? New York does have a relatively strong "publicity rights" law -- which are state based laws that are being increasingly expanded and abused these days. However, at their core, the idea is that people wouldn't be put in advertisements or seen as endorsing a product or service without their permission. So, perhaps there's a small publicity rights claim here, though it would be surprising if Dr. Mashkevich never actually had patients sign a release form for the use of such photos (Update: there is evidence that she signed a form saying the photos were only for her confidential files, so it appears that he did fail to get the proper permission). Of course, even if he failed in that basic step, the idea that having these photos posted online should lead to a $23 million award is just insane.

Equally as ridiculous is the idea that finding these pictures online caused such horrible harm to Manizone and her reputation. In the lawsuit, she explains the "harm" the photos have caused:

Plaintiff has been, is and will continue to be greatly distressed and humiliated, has been, is and will continue to be exposed to public ridicule and contempt; and the plaintiff has been, is and will continue to be greatly injured in her reputation and has been, is and will continue to be otherwise greatly injured.

As Plaintiff's photographs are still available for viewing on the World Wide Web, Plaintiff's damages continue to accrue to date and will continue for an undeterminable period of time.

Of course, there are a few issues with this. First, the surgery happened in January of 2011 "to improve her appearance, self esteem and confidence" but she didn't notice the photos online until February 2013. If she didn't even know the photos were online for two years how could she possibly have been so greatly distressed by the photos online? If they were really causing her to be "exposed to public ridicule and contempt" then, um, wouldn't she have examples of that actually happening?

Second, I'm still trying to figure out why she would have been subject to "public ridicule and contempt" merely for getting a nose job. I mean, I guess it's possible, but wouldn't people who already knew her simply notice the nose job? And would people who didn't know her really care at all?

Finally, and most importantly, it seems likely that filing a highly questionable $23 million lawsuit against your plastic surgeon is a hell of a lot more likely to create public ridicule and contempt than any before and after photos of a nose job. So, will she be suing her lawyer next for being "greatly distressed and humiliated" while being "exposed to public ridicule and contempt" for filing this lawsuit? And, of course, if she was concerned that people would know she got a nose job because of the photos, which even she didn't realize existed for two years, shouldn't someone have pointed out to her that filing a public lawsuit like this would be a hell of a lot more likely to draw attention to the fact that she got a nose job?

Again, if it really is true that he used her images without signed permission, there may be a minor publicity rights issue, but the claims about public ridicule and contempt, along with the idea that the photos created massive damages, just don't make any sense. Combined with the insane request for $23 million, the whole thing really feels a lot more like a money grab than a serious complaint.

Filed Under: catherine manizone, grigoriy mashkevich, lawsuits, privacy, reputation, rights of publicity

New Evidence: Homeland Security Spied On Peaceful Protestors; Worried About Protests Getting News Coverage

from the homeland-security? dept

We just recently had a post on the head of one of Homeland Security's "Fusion Centers" (the same Fusion Centers found by a Congressional investigation to be a near total waste of time and money, finding no terrorists, but violating the public's civil liberties) who claimed that the DHS centers did not spy on Americans, and then immediately admitted that they spied on "anti-government" Americans.

The definition of "anti-government" was mostly left as an exercise to the reader. However, in a bout of good timing, the Partnership for Civil Justice has released some new DHS documents it received via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, showing that DHS regularly spied on peaceful demonstrators and activists. Because exercising your First Amendment rights must make you one of them there "anti-government" Americans, which means the DHS is free to spy on you.

Functioning as a secret political police force against people participating in lawful, peaceful free speech activity, the heavily redacted documents show that the DHS “Threat Management Division” directed Regional Intelligence Analysts to provide a “Daily Intelligence Briefing” that includes a category of reporting on “Peaceful Activist Demonstrations” along with “Domestic Terrorist Activity.” (p. 68)

The PCJF has obtained thousands of pages of documents pursuant to its Freedom of Information Act demands and made them available for public viewing. The newly obtained documents show coordination and intelligence monitoring by the DHS, the FBI, the NYPD and other law enforcement agencies of “Occupy-type” protests.

The documents show the routine use of Fusion Centers for intelligence gathering on peaceful demonstrations as well as the use of DHS’ “Mega Centers” for collection of surveillance information on demonstrations.

And it's not just the big cities. The new documents show that DHS is involved in spying on peaceful protesters and activists around the country. It also shows that DHS helped local law enforcement "crack down" on the various Occupy gatherings. But the key thing is that DHS seems to have no qualms at all about spying on anyone who disagrees with the prevailing positions of today's federal government. And it's clearly not because they're trying to protect others from any threat of actual harm. They seem to be focused on spying to further the goal of preventing the administration from looking bad:

The documents show a Department of Homeland Security that appears obsessed with the question of whether any and all protests that are being surveilled receive media attention and coverage. Reporting within the DHS on media coverage of First Amendment protected activities, even in the smallest places, appears to be a routine part of DHS intelligence reports. None of the documents explain why media coverage of peaceful demonstrations is of interest to law enforcement or concerns “homeland security” in any way.

That's because it doesn't concern "homeland security" at all. It concerns the job security of those employed by Homeland Security.

Filed Under: americans, dhs, fusion centers, homeland security, protesters, reputation, surveillance

What The Curebit Saga Teaches Us About Copyright, Plagiarism And Reputation

from the respect dept

The startup Curebit brought something of a firestorm down on its head recently. Here's how VentureBeat broke the story:

Curebit, a Y Combinator startup that just closed a round of funding from Dave McClure’s 500 Startups fund, has been caught red-handed stealing HTML code, images, and the like from 37signals.

Leaving aside the usual point that Curebit's employees almost certainly didn't break into 37signal's office and physically remove all the HTML code and images in the way that the word "stealing" suggests, here's how Curebit tried to justify its actions with the following rather weak excuse:

We had a different homepage, were a/b testing different pages, came across the 37signals post and were like 'wow we should see how that converts!' We are big fans of rails and what 37signals is doing and did not really think through the implications of what we were doing. We just kind of thought about it as a fun test to run.

Unsurprisingly, that didn't convince many people, and eventually, Curebit apologized -- sort of:

Recently we launched a site with several pages copied from 37signals’ Highrise. We did more than take inspiration from their design – we actually used html & css code, and hotlinked to images on their site. We apologize to David and 37signals for ripping off their work. It was stupid, lazy, and disrespectful of their creative efforts.

Curebit still doesn't seem to be admitting that what it did was wrong, although most people would say that it was. But there is an interesting discussion to be had about what exactly it did wrong.

Paul Carr, for example, not only believes that it was copyright infringement pure and simple, he suggests there's some deep hypocrisy flying around the developer community here:

The prevailing view, outside of Hollywood, seems to be that IP creators need to accept that copying is here to stay and that criminalising a “victimless” activity is stupid. Make it easy for us to pay for stuff and we won’t have to steal it.

And yet when the victim isn’t a big evil Hollywood mogul (or one of the tens of thousands of people who work for him) but one of our own… well, then IP thieves should be dragged through the streets until they tearfully apologise. What’s the difference?

Well, one difference is that most of the things that people copy and share are simply enjoyed in private, not displayed on a company's public web site for people to see and admire. That means that there is an element of passing off here – plagiarism, in other words. Carr addresses the possibility that the anger provoked by Curebit's actions was down to the fact that it was plagiarism rather than simple copyright infringement:

Is it, as some argued on Twitter when I asked the question earlier, that plagiarism is different from copyright theft? No. And not least because plagiarism is copyright theft. Like most copyright theft, plagiarism doesn’t deprive the creator of their original work and is usually committed by someone who is too lazy or cheap to acquire or create something legally.

Well, Curebit's wrongdoing may well be copyright infringement and plagiarism, but the latter is still very different from the former, and Carr himself goes on to identify exactly why:

The only real difference is that in plagiarism the infringer is usually pretending to be the creator of someone else’s work.

This is the cardinal sin in a world based on reputation. If you build on somebody else's work, you must give attribution for that work, just as you must cite your source if you blog or tweet a story you have learned about from someone else.

Reputation is the glue that holds together all of the hugely-successful open collaborative software projects like Linux or Apache: there's no money involved (at least, not directly), but people are paid in terms of the respect they earn from their peers for what they do and how well they do it. Failing to acknowledge the fact that you are using their work is tantamount to disrespecting that code -- and hence the norms of the community.

That, I think, is why parts of the developer world world reacted so violently to Curebit's use of 37signal's code and images. If Curebit had admitted what it was doing up front, with full acknowledgement of the provenance of the work, and noted that it was building on 37signal's code as an act of respect, I suggest that few would have cared. The community norms would have been maintained, 37signal's reputation would have been enhanced, and its coders would have received the kudos that was rightfully theirs.

So this is not, as Carr suggests, a case of double standards on copyright infringement. The "infringement" here -- which undoubtedly exists according to the letter of the law – is irrelevant for a community that has placed sharing and collaboration at its heart. This is not about who owns what, but about who respects whom -- and shows it in the appropriate way.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: copyright, plagiarism, reputation
Companies: 37 signals, curebit

Lacoste Asks Police To Stop Norwegian Mass Killer Anders Breivik From Wearing Its Clothes

from the one-thinks-they-might-have-more-important-things-to-work-on dept

LawPUNK alerts us to an odd sort of Streisand Effect situation in Norway. Apparently, clothing brand Lacoste has asked police to block Anders Brievik from wearing its clothes. Breivik, of course, is the guy in Norway who recently went on a cold-blooded murderous rampage, killing dozens at a summer camp. Apparently, Lacoste is one of his favorite clothing brands -- something that you or I would probably not know at all... until the company decided to let the world know by asking the police to stop him from wearing its clothing in court.

Filed Under: anders breivik, lacoste, norway, reputation, trademark