I used to subscribe to the New York Times and spend an hour or so every morning reading it.
Now I don't have to.
'Why', you ask?
Because every article of any possible interest in the Times is quickly clipped and posted here on Open Salon, masquerading as original thought.
The resulting articles are original and good.
Of course nothing good is original - the good writing has been clipped directly from the Times. And, as expected, nothing original in these OS articles is good - that's because the skills of the OS writers pale compared to those of the NYT writers.
The editors of OS seem not to give a crap about writing, ability originality or plagiarism and willingly tolerate this for the sake of clicks.
What I don't get is what the writers here get out of it.
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Alan Milner
Claudia Moscovici
Stacey Youdin
john guzlowski
ume
Donegal Descendant
Salon.com
Comments
http://open.salon.com/blog/kevincm/2012/05/16/is_ronald_mcdonald_the_new_joe_camel
http://open.salon.com/blog/jlw1/2012/05/12/remembering_the_man_who_stared_down_george_wallace
to pick out three of the most recent.
That the letter and the spirit of the copyright law specifically deny that seems to be irrelevant.
It is much easier to copy than to actually write.
What I find wrong is where the quoted materials make up a majority of the meaning and/or the text and the OS writer's contribution is a minor fill-in.
That's not quoting; that's stealing of copyrighted materials.
Here is a quote from nolo.com (http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/fair-use-rule-copyright-material-30100.html) on fair use. And this usage is, I think 'fair use' because I am quoting these as a reference to reinforce my assertions:
Uses That Are Generally Fair Uses
"Subject to some general limitations discussed later in this article, the following types of uses are usually deemed fair uses:
Criticism and comment -- for example, quoting or excerpting a work in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment.
News reporting -- for example, summarizing an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report.
Research and scholarship -- for example, quoting a short passage in a scholarly, scientific, or technical work for illustration or clarification of the author's observations.
Nonprofit educational uses -- for example, photocopying of limited portions of written works by teachers for classroom use.
Parody -- that is, a work that ridicules another, usually well-known, work by imitating it in a comic way."
If I were to copy the entire article and repost it, not fair use.
Of course you can quote yourself, assuming you own the copyright or it falls under 'fair use'.
OTOH, I don't remember ever quoting myself; I usually can find a better written source.
I most certainly agree that posting verbatim lengthy excerpts or entire articles is a violation of copyright, even more so if not referenced properly. Citing an article, and perhaps posting a para or two from it to make a point or expand on a point -- I have no trouble with. Commenting on said material is fair game.
As for quoting myself, as I have done sometimes unacknowledged and unattributed, there was no one whose accuracy and judgement I trusted more in certain situations (he said pompously).
As to how work like this gets an EP, I'm not going to even speculate. Safe Bet's Amy recently wrote a post about that.
And my opinion on that extends further than copyright fairness which is far too complex and arcane a field for me. It struck me reading the McD/Joe Camel post how often some variation of the "businesses exist to make money!" absolute dictum was repeated. "If I now make $1b and can increase that to $1.00005b I am entitled to do any damn thing I can get away with" is only a slight exaggeration of the philosophy that is widely accepted in modern society. In the meat industry that translates as selling sanitized feces as hamburger. For the NYT it's the paywall. It's hard for me to care about the NYT profit levels and I take anything I can get from the them only for free. (Disclosure: my father ended his newspaper career not so happily in part because of the transition of emphasis in the business from any part responsible public service to maximizing profit. Anyone who argues that's a good thing will get no argument from me, just scorn and that's apart from anything to do with my father.)
The McD/Joe Camel post - well, that was just gross. It was totally different from Wolfman's practice - that was flat out theft.
I agree that people shouldn't re-post the work of others at length, and certainly shouldn't pass it off as their own, but sharing information that you find compelling or important is the whole point of the internet. Is it not?
You shall be solely responsible for your own submissions and the consequences of posting or publishing them. In connection with each of your submissions, you affirm, represent, and/or warrant that:
you own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents, and permissions to use and authorize us to use all patent, trademark,
trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights in and to any and all such submissions to enable inclusion and use of such submissions in the manner contemplated by us and these Terms and Conditions; and
you have the written consent, release, and/or permission of each and every identifiable individual person in such submissions to use the name or likeness of each and every such identifiable individual person to enable inclusion and use of such submissions in the manner contemplated by us and these Terms and Conditions. In
furtherance of the foregoing, you agree that you will not: submit material that is copyrighted, protected by trade secret or
otherwise subject to third party proprietary rights, including privacy and publicity rights, unless you are the owner of such rights
or have permission from their rightful owner to post the material and to grant us all of the rights granted herein;
Got it.
No posting unless you have permission.
There's not much argument from me about spreading information but this isn't information, this is choice of words, grammar and everything else that is a writer's work product.
The 'I can't afford it so I can steel it for the good of everyone' doesn't work here. You're an artist. Suppose you write some songs, make s CD and someone decides that others should hear it and burns 5000 copies to distribute for free. Aren't they stealing your inspiration, your experience, your work and your talent?
Copyright laws protect the talent and the owner. You and only you have the right to give your stuff away.
http://open.salon.com/blog
/stephenguyhardin/2012/05/11/
bill_blockbuster_os_an_
amateur#comment_2940319
This is worse, IMO, because he copied from the Washington Post. At least he could have C@P'd from a paper people actually read!
My previous response to bluestocking babe works for you too. The information is anyone's to repeat; the exact words are not.
If someone thinks that the ideas are better expressed somewhere else, let them say it as well as they are able - and then refer the reader to the better place. If a writer somehow finds that this 'other place' is consistently better then the situation becomes less 'I'm copying your homework because I was sick last night' and more 'I'm going to copy your homework every night because its easier to get better grades when you do all the difficult thinking, creating and writing work.'
He actually copied from the NY Post- a paper that is read only on the subways, when wrapping fish and when one is cleaning out the birdcage.
I will send him a model release.
Sheila wrote an excellent post on manners last week on which I commented that even Socrates was quoted as bemoaning the manners of the youth in his day...then I later added, "If Socrates was complaining about the youth, was he complaining about his student, Plato?"
Jon's Sunday post was that very quote, titled "Socrates/Plato..." but without giving Sheila credit for his reading of her post and my comment for his Sunday inspiration, which I thought very cheesy...and I tend to like Jon.
This, though, I found not cool at all and that Sheila deserved a mention.
http://open.salon.com/blog/sheilatgtg55/2012/05/16/on_manners
Without any value judgement about that particular post, there is so much self-aggrandizement, false modesty and just plain extravagant attempts to get attention here on OS, that the minor theft of an idea, if indeed that was what it was, hardly even counts as a sin.
Lew
There really isn't enough time in the day to pick out and point fingers at any but the most egregious of offenders. I encourage you to look at http://open.salon.com/blog/os_readers_picks/2012/05/21/my_name_is_os_readers_picks_for_we_are_many and participate in elevating the wheat about the chaff.
Lew