CreativeAmerica Copies Content To Support Anti-Copying Bills

from the please,-we-prefer-remix dept

Remember CreativeAmerica? That's the pro-SOPA/PIPA astroturf group that the big Hollywood studios set up, pretending that it was a "grassroots" campaign (even though its grassroots efforts aren't turning up many supporters). For a group that positions itself as being really strongly pro-stronger, more draconian copyright, you would think that it would be careful to, you know, not copy others, right? But, really, what's a little copying among people lobbying over bills about the evils of copying?

Yes, it appears that the good folks at CreativeAmerica just happened to notice that the large and growing anti-SOPA/PIPA forces have mobilized the public to go out to various town hall meetings for Senators to protest PIPA... and they decided, "Hey, we should do that!" But, rather than creating their own campaign, and doing the legwork (and, trust me, there's a lot of legwork involved) to actually compile the list of townhalls and then to craft an email to supporters... it seems that CreativeAmerica thought it would be easier to just copy someone else's... and... um... "remix" it.

You can see the email that Public Knowledge sent to people protesting PIPA here. And, here is the email that CreativeAmerica just sent to people urging them to go to the same town hall meetings in support of PIPA. You... may notice some similarities. Here are the two emails side by side. Yes, they made some changes.... er... remixes... but it's pretty obvious that CreativeAmerica just took PK's email and made a few edits. It's especially obvious when you look at the 3 point list of instructions... which is almost word-for-word.
click for larger version As for the two meetup groups... you can see Public Knowledge's town hall meetup here and you can see CreativeAmerica's here. It seems pretty clear that CreativeAmerica simply scraped and copied PK's. So creative!

Of course, we have no problem with this general kind of building on the works of others. We consider such remixing and building on the works of others a true form of creativity. We just find it a wee bit (well, actually, more than that) hypocritical for an organization set up by the big movie studios for the express purpose of pushing for heftier punishment for those who copy... to then go and copy stuff themselves. Paraphrasing the critics in our own comments: What's wrong, CreativeAmerica, can't you create your own works here? Why do you have to "steal" the work of other people who actually did the work?

Filed Under: copying, hypocrisy, pipa, protect ip, sopa, townhalls
Companies: creativeamerica, public knowledge