Being A Jackass On Twitter Shouldn't Be Illegal; Public Shame Should Be Enough

from the there's-no-fire-in-that-theater dept

We've been talking about the unfortunate set of cases in the UK lately, in which people acting like jackasses online are being held criminally liable for being a jerk online. There are, of course, significant problems with this. And if you thought it was just limited to Europe, where they tend to have a slightly less absolute view of the right to free expression than the US, well, don't be so sure. There's a lot of talk about whether or not legal action should be taken against one jackass who used Twitter (using the account @comfortablysmug -- which, perhaps, should have been a tipoff) to spread fake news about emergencies and damages, while most people were sharing legitimate news. The guy in question was eventually outed by Buzzfeed as hedge-fund analyst and political consultant Shashank Tripathi.

While some big name news organizations initially retweeted some of his claims -- such as the false news that the NY Stock Exchange had flooded -- others quickly corrected the reports, and, as some have noted, Twitter seemed to do a pretty good job of self-correcting the bogus claims that popped up. Of course, those who wish to argue that legal action needs to be taken compare the bogus tweets to the classic "yelling fire in a crowded theater" argument, in which the speech can then put people in danger or incite violence. It seems unlikely that any charges would actually hold up in the long run, but that might not stop attempts to go after Tripathi under the law (this is the US, after all, where our second national pastime after shouting about politics is filing questionable lawsuits).

But it's unclear what good that would actually do, other than potentially leading to bad precedents for other forms of speech. It seems that existing social structures already take care of the bad speech here. Tripathi's identity was revealed by others, and his actions are now closely associated with his name. He now needs to live with the social consequences of his statements, and that seems like it should be more than enough. And, indeed, the response online has been to absolutely slam him for his actions.

Filed Under: free speech, shame, social media, social mores

Cooks Source Editor Gives First Interview; Says She'll Probably Shut Down The Magazine

from the no-surprise-there dept

Judith Griggs, the editor of Cooks Source, who discovered that mocking a woman whose article she copied, without permission, in her magazine resulted in international attention, has now given her first interview about the whole thing, in which she admits that she was wrong and suggests she's probably going to close down the magazine. Yet, while she definitely seems apologetic, it does seem like she's more apologetic about the fact that this came back to haunt her, rather than for her actions:

"I feel so bad for anybody now who has bad publicity because people can be so horrible," Griggs, 59, said in her first interview about the matter. "I don't know if I'm going to continue Cooks Source. At this point, it's looking doubtful."

While folks like Mathew Ingram are wondering if the punishment doled out was too much, others, such as Steve Butry make the point that "she wasn't contrite when confronted with the error, [but] only when exposed," while also pointing out that plenty of good businesses fail, and if there should be sympathy for failing businesses, it should be pushed in their direction.

I will admit that as much as I think social mores can be an effective regulator of certain types of behavior, I am also always a little wary of pure mob justice, because it can grow like an avalanche -- and if a mistake is made, and someone is improperly blamed or the mob lashes out without all the facts, the results can be devastating. I'm not sure I know what the proper answer is here, other than to hope that enough information is clearly provided before such mob justice lashes out. In this case, I tend to agree with Butry. The woman's response to being caught was clearly inappropriate, and so it's difficult to be too concerned about that publication going out of business.

Filed Under: copying, judith griggs, mob justice, social mores
Companies: cooks source

How Cooks Source Magazine Learned That Reputation Is A Scarce Good... As Reddit Applies The Social Mores Of Justice

from the reputation-is-a-scarce-good dept

One of the key points we've made over the years is that reputation is a scarce good, and doing something bad can be quite costly. In fact, in showing how social mores can often be much more effective than copyright laws in dealing with actions where someone is "wronged" by having their work copied in ways that appear to be unfair, we've suggested that social costs are a much more effective means of punishing those who do wrong.

As an example, check out this story, first sent in by slacker525600, but also submitted many more times, about how Cooks Source Magazine copied one woman's blog post and published it as an article, without asking her permission or letting her even know about it. They did put her name on it, but she only found out after a friend spotted it and told her about it. Where the story takes a bizarre twist is after emailing with the editor of the magazine, Judith Griggs, asked the original author, Monica, what she wanted. Monica suggested a public apology (on Facebook) and a modest $130 donation to Columbia's journalism school. That's when Griggs responded like this:

"Yes Monica, I have been doing this for 3 decades, having been an editor at The Voice, Housitonic Home and Connecticut Woman Magazine. I do know about copyright laws. It was "my bad" indeed, and, as the magazine is put together in long sessions, tired eyes and minds somethings forget to do these things.

But honestly Monica, the web is considered "public domain" and you should be happy we just didn't "lift" your whole article and put someone else's name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offence and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me... ALWAYS for free!"

That response not only shows a rather confused understanding of copyright law, but also suggests someone who's kinda sorta heard arguments about why copying can be beneficial, and jumbled them all together in her head. Now, we've spent plenty of time over the years showing how content creators can be better off allowing their works to be copied, but even so, Grigg's response appears totally tone deaf to what Monica's actual concerns were. But here's where social mores and reputational value take over. Monica's story made it onto Reddit and it got picked up by tons of others, leading the Facebook page of Cooks Source to be filled with angry comments from people supporting Monica.

And, just like that, Cooks Source (and Judith Griggs') reputation gets knocked down quite a bit. Reputation is a scarce good, and doing things that people don't approve of can come back to bite you.

There are a few other interesting lessons out of this. First is that, contrary to what some people claim, you don't have to be a "big name" to make these things work for you. People have a sense of when someone has been genuinely wronged, and they step up. So, Monica was able to get attention for this, despite not being "famous" in the conventional sense. Second, contrary to the claims that the various "online mobs" that hang out in places like Reddit "just want everything for free," various online communities have always shown a willingness to stand up against situations where they feel someone was genuinely wronged. And that should give you an idea of what they really think of various situations where some record label complains about file sharing. It's a totally different situation, and people react accordingly.

Filed Under: copyright, culture, reputation, scarce goods, social mores
Companies: cooks source

Social Mores At Work: Sigur Ros Calls Out Commercials With 'Similar' Music

from the homage,-fromage dept

We've been talking about how social mores can awful be a lot more effective in dealing with "unauthorized copying," rather than calling up the copyright lawyers. In discussing it, some people have wondered how those making copies get caught. Well, sometimes it just takes the person/band/company who had their stuff copied to call it out. Grillo points us to a news story about how the band Sigur Rós called out a bunch of advertisers for creating songs that are very, very, very similar to Sigur Rós tunes for commercials after being turned down by Sigur Rós. The band's blog post is (brilliantly) titled homage or fromage is done nicely. It's not mean, or threatening. It just points it out and includes YouTube embeds of many of the commercials in question:

we're not suggesting anyone's ripping anyone off here, or has purposely gone out to plagiarise sigur rós music, because that might get us sued (which would be ironic). and in any case, you can get all the musicologists' reports you like and all they will tell you is that the chord sequence is "commonly used" or the structure is a "style-a-like" and not a "pass off"rós. or - in this case - that despite the fact that the two pieces are "strongly similar in terms of general musical style, instrumentation and structure" and "created with a knowledge of and/or reference to the works of sigur rós in general and 'hoppipolla' in particular", there is "insufficient evidence in the music to support a claim for infringement of the copyright". in other words change a note here, swap things around a bit there and, hey presto, it's an original composition. inspiration moves in mysterious ways.

what we wanted to do here was post series of ads that have made us go 'hmmm' and let you decide who's zooming who? but quite often when you go back and look for them you find the ads in question have disappeared off the radar (come in coca cola mexico, new zealand lotto, telmex chile, etc). anyway, here's a few expensively produced, gorgeously executed examples of brands who you might feel are inserting a little too much fromage in their homage.

Always nice to see a band not go legal, but look for a more creative way to make their point.

Filed Under: copies, sigur ros, social mores

Once Again, Social Mores Come To Play In Spat Between SNL & Adult Swim Over Tiny Hats Sketches

from the copying-is-easy,-being-funny-is-hard dept

We've been talking a lot about how social mores can often deal with "copying" situations better than any legal claim could, and in particular have talked about it in the context of comedians, where jokes are not considered copyrightable. However, copying does have costs, especially when people call you out. Witness the "dispute" over whether or not Saturday Night Live "copied" a sketch from Adult Swim, both of which are called "Tiny Hats."

Honestly, the claims of copying seem a bit overblown. While both are called "Tiny Hats" and both do involve characters wearing a tiny hat, that's about as far as the similarities go. The overall concepts beyond that are pretty different. However, apparently, it's created a big stink online, with the comedians behind the Adult Swim version "calling out" SNL. However, they don't seem to have any interest in going legal (not that they could) and later admitted that inspiration comes from all over:

He says he's not particularly angry, and thinks it could have just been coincidence, as Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, and Andy Samberg, among other "SNL" cast members, have appeared on "Adult Swim."

"We understand that we've created something that a lot of people in comedy watch and like, and influences are totally fine," he says. "We draw influences from people all the time."

He goes on, "I don't want to start a big thing here. But it'll be interesting to see what the web does with this."

And, indeed, that last line is the key: there are social costs if what you're doing is seen as being too close. However, I'll let you be the judge of whether or not these skits are too close (and, um, whether or not either one is actually funny):

Filed Under: adult swim, comedy, copying, snl, social mores

Groupon Photographer Caught Pretending Others' Photos Were Her Own... Group Pile On Fixes, Rather Than Copyright Law

from the well,-look-at-that dept

We recently wrote about how social mores can often handle situations of copying or lack of credit much more effectively than copyright law. In a perfect example of that happening, Chris Tolles points us to a long comment thread on a Groupon deal, where a bunch of photographers expose another photographer for claiming others' images were her own. Assuming you're one of the six or seven people in the world who still hasn't heard about Groupon, the group buying site offers special deals from local merchants each day, where the deals require a certain number of buyers before the deal kicks in.

Over in Atlanta, the deal for Wednesday was supposed to be a $65 1-hour photography session with a photographer named Dana Dawes. If you follow the comment thread on the deal, Dawes is quite responsive for the first few answers, working over time to answer any questions she can. Somewhere in the middle, however, someone notes that it appears that photographs on Dawes' website portfolio appear to be slightly edited versions of others' photographs (with a Dawes watermark added to them). Some of the photographs are traced back to their original photographer, and then the thread goes somewhat crazy, with lots of folks calling Dawes out, yelling at GroupOn for allowing this, and people demanding refunds. Dawes tries to defend herself for a while, but doesn't do a very good job -- sometimes claiming that she's taken photos in Europe (which is something of a non sequitur) and then later trying to blame a webmaster for causing the problem (though, others point out that the same photos appear on her Facebook page as well).

Eventually, Groupon closed down the deal and refunded everyone's money, which makes sense.

But, of course, what struck me most was, yet again, how the group dynamics and social mores solved this issue in the course of just a couple of hours. Many photographers can be notoriously pro-copyright (and, frankly, when I've discussed photography issues, pro-stronger copyright photographers have often been the most... aggressive in angrily commenting here on Techdirt) and there are a few "that's copyright infringement!" claims in the thread from photographers. And while it's true that some of these may be copyright infringement, the bigger issue for most isn't the infringement, but the passing off of others' photographs as if they were Dawes' own. It's the difference between "plagiarism" and "infringement," to some extent. For example, say that Dawes had actually taken many of these photographs, but had assigned the copyright to others. In such a scenario, I would imagine most Groupon users wouldn't have been that offended if she posted such photos to her portfolio to demonstrate her work. Instead, the issue that gets people upset is the passing off of the photos as her own, which is separate from the copyright issue.

But, in the end, it wasn't copyright that fixed the situation, it was the overall social pressure of the group. In exposing what appears to have been a passing off of others' works, users quickly started demanding refunds, warning others, and alerting Groupon administrators to kill the deal and automatically issue refunds. And this wasn't a case of some hugely well-known photographer being copied either. In our last post, some insisted that social mores only work when the wronged party is well-known, ignoring just how much the internet will amplify the message of someone who has been wronged.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that such situations can backfire. You can certainly envision scenarios where social mores border on "mob rule" -- and pitchfork wielding mobs have certainly been known to make a mistake or two over the years. But at some point, people need to recognize that there are many other methods for dealing with these sorts of issues than immediately falling back on "copyright infringement!"

Filed Under: copyright, photographs, social mores
Companies: groupon

How Social Mores Can Deal With 'Unfair' Copying, Even In Absence Of Copyright

from the being-neighborly dept

One of the complaints that we hear often from various publishers is the idea that, without copyright, other sites could simply copy all content. In fact, this is the big complaint we keep hearing from newspapers these days -- the idea that they do all this expensive "reporting," and then along comes some "blog" that just copies the work, adds a bit of commentary and gets all the traffic. I tend to point out that this is a silly position to take. The thing is, I say that even though I've experienced being on the "other" side of this discussion, and not with a smaller site, but a larger one. For quite some time a publication (that will remain nameless) that is larger and more well known than us had a habit of "rewriting" stories that were found on Techdirt, as well as a few other moderately popular blogs, without any credit. It became quite obvious that this was happening -- especially on stories that I would sit on for a couple weeks for various reasons, only to post them and see a very similar story pop up six hours later on this other site. The timing was uncanny. I finally asked a writer at the site about one such story, and was told that the editor had sent him my story, but said that since he did additional reporting on it, they felt no need to credit me -- and even claimed that this was the same stance that "real reporters" took, such as the AP and Reuters. Of course, that's not quite true, and the AP just changed its credit policies, so that it will clearly credit any publication that publishes a story before they do.

Now, I can already hear critics of Techdirt furiously writing their "you hypocrite..." comments, but let me finish before declaring that. At no point did I think this was wrong, and it most certainly was not illegal. But I did think that it was not very nice and not very neighborly. One of the nice things about many blogs is that they're quite generous with "hat tips" and giving credit to other sites where they find things. Those links may not have much overall impact, but it's just a social nicety. At one point, I tried to make this point to an editor at that other publication -- again, trying to point out in as friendly a manner as possible, that it was the nice or neighborly thing to do to simply give a little "found via" or "so and so alerted us to..." link. My point wasn't that they had to do this, or that not doing it was "harming" me in any way. In fact, it was unrelated to us directly. I pointed out that from a perception standpoint, I was actually worried this would hurt that other publication's reputation. I pointed out that I wasn't the only one noticing this, and that some other sites were as well -- and that the potential "cost" of having people criticize them for "not being nice" over such a practice -- even if it was perfectly legal -- could be quite high as compared to the "cost" of providing a simple hat tip.

Eventually, two things happened. A few stories were written on other sites about this publication, falsely accusing it of "stealing" stories from other sites. I didn't think those stories were accurate or fair, because no stories were "stolen," but it did create a reputation issue for the publication, and in response that publication quickly became much better about giving "credit" to where it found the stories, even when it did significant reporting on its own. In my eyes, the reputation of this site increased quite a bit, not because it was obeying any law, or doing what it "had" to do -- but because it started doing the nice and neighborly thing to do.

I was thinking about this again, after reading Cory Doctorow's recent column for Locus Magazine, where he discusses someone who got upset with him for reposting public domain advertisements that others had scanned and uploaded to a community that discusses such things. The main complaint was that people felt (incorrectly) that Cory had reposted such things "without credit." After pointing out that there was, in fact, credit, everything was fine. Cory spends most of the article discussing why "permission" isn't needed -- but I actually think that this story, and my experience above, highlight a separate point that is really important:

Even in cases where there is no intellectual property right, social mores, social expectations and desire to keep one's own reputation, can actually solve such issues.

Believers in strong copyright act as if this is impossible or that it never happens. But that's not the case. In both my example above, and in the situation Cory faced, there were no intellectual property rights at stake. There was no legal obligation to credit whatsoever. But there was tremendous social pressure to do so. There's actually been some serious economic research on this topic, and Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize in Economics for exactly this type of research -- showing that social mores within certain communities can often act as a better regulator of "public goods," than any government mandated privileges or property rights.

Does this mean that copying without credit is stopped entirely? Of course not. But it does show that it is not, as some people claim, a "costless," situation. There can be a tremendous cost to reputation in doing so. It's why people have an inherent negative reaction when they hear stories about comedians "copying" each others' jokes, or any other situation where someone tries to take credit for something that someone else did before them. And, in the end, these things tend to work themselves out, without relying on an overly broad form of government protectionism.

Filed Under: copying, culture, social mores

How To Piss People Off: Publish A Book Using Their Tweets Without Asking Them First

from the common-courtesy dept

A few years ago, when Twitter was starting to take off, we questioned whether or not Tweets were covered under copyright. While technically tweets could definitely be covered by copyright, it's still a little bit murky, especially with the "retweet" as an integral part of Twitter culture. That said, there's no doubt that people feel ownership over their tweets, especially those who lovingly craft wit and humor into each of the 140 characters. Recently, the editor of the book Tweet Nothings, a book of curated Tweets, sent an apologetic letter to the people whose Tweets were included in the book -- after the book had already been published in December:

Dear Mr. Barnes,

We sincerely apologize for using your Tweet in our "Tweet Nothings" book without contacting you prior to publication! I wrote the introduction and compiled quotes from Twitter for the book at the direction of the publisher. I do not make any money from this work. We did want to contact each person quoted in the book; the publisher's legal advisors said it was not necessary under fair use guidelines. We sincerely view this book as a celebration of Twitter, and an introduction to some of the best and brightest people to follow. We are very sorry if you or anyone is offended or upset by the book.

I would be more than happy to send you copies of the book. Please accept my apologies.

Sincerely yours,
Suzanne Schwalb

While the apology is an admirable step, the anger seen in the reviews of the book on Amazon is not unexpected. This is not a "fair-use versus copyright" issue at all. This is a "doing the smart, right thing" issue. Whether or not we think that people should feel ownership over their "ideas" is moot -- the issue here is that they do, and as such, to ignore that is short sighted. Books have successfully been assembled using Tweets before. For his book, Twitter Wit, editor Nick Douglas did a good job working with Tweet authors, who had to explicitly submit their best Tweets to be included in the book. As a result, not only was his book received favorably by the Twitter community, every one of the included authors, who are supposedly the most witty on Twitter, each became a promoter for the sale of the book -- a winning promotional combination.

So, by not involving the Tweet authors in the publishing of Tweet Nothings, the publishers not only attracted the ire of the wronged authors, but also missed out on a huge opportunity for free, viral promotion. After the exchange with Barnes, the publisher, Peter Pauper Press, issued an official apology in which it said:

We regret that we did not contact the people whose quotes we used in advance. We will be contacting each one with an apology. In the meantime, we are ceasing to sell the book in all venues and will not resume sales until everyone quoted in the book is satisfied with our response.

If that's the case, and if the publisher stays true to their word, then they may never be able to sell the book again. After all, Merlin Mann, one of the wronged Tweet authors, seems irrecovably pissed.

Filed Under: copyright, ideas, social mores, twitter
Companies: peter pauper press