What a fun morning. The Daily Python-URL carried a link to an Engadget story featuring a picture of the OLPC from PyCon (Ian Bicking’s badge is visible in the background).
Hey, doesn’t that picture look familiar?
Yup, that’s right: Engadget ripped me off. That photo’s licensed under a CC BY-NC license, meaning that even if you pretend that Engadget’s use is non-commercial (on an ad-driven site it’s hard to say, really), without attribution they’re essentially guilty of plagiarism.
On top of that, it’s entirely non-obvious how I’m supposed to go about contacting them. There’s no “letter to the editor” form; the byline (one Paul Miller) links to a list of stories instead of the usual “contact this reporter form”. I finally used the “send a tip” form, but I kinda doubt a real person reads that thing.
Update:
Seems I may have been a bit hasty in this jab: my email to the tips line was answered quickly and politely by Paul Miller (the original author); he assured me it was a simple mistake. I still stand by what I’ve written in the rest of this article, however. Any news organization that wants to be taken seriously shouldn’t allow mistakes of this nature to happen.
Listen up, bitches: this is why real news organizations look down at you.
No editor at a bona-fide newspaper would allow a reporter to use a photo without proper attribution and permission, and no reporter would pass someone else’s photo off as his own. Nor would they (deliberately) hide a contact channel.
I’m dissapointed about this, but I honestly can’t say I’m all that surprised by the (lack of a) sense of ethics over at Engadget.
Real classy, guys.
Comments:
Our philosophy is different than "bona-fide newspapers" (although why you'd call our validity into question is beyond me); we have a share and share alike approach. It was a mistake that you weren't credited (and it's been corrected), but if you'd prefer we take down the image, that's totally fine with us.
One thing we definitely don't do is hide contact channels -- we just don't post email addresses because we don't like spam. We have links on our page to contact us (http://www.engadget.com/con...), submit corrections (http://www.engadget.com/con...), or discuss problems (http://www.engadget.com/con...). So despite what you may think, we have very high ethical standards. If you need to contact me further, please email me at ryan at engadget.
Best,
Ryan Block
Managing Editor
Thanks for responding, Ryan :)
You're preaching to the chior here about differing philosophies: I fully understand the tradeoffs between traditional- and nouveau-media. Hell, you'd never find the Journal-World's managing editor responding to some yutz of a blogger, would you?
And it's not about taking the photo down, either -- I use a CC license precisely because I want to allow this type of use.
Still, my point is that this is *exactly* why traditional media outlets don't you you seriously. Mis-attributing a photo is an amateur mistake that even an editor of a high school newspaper should catch.
I'm being a dick about this because I want traditional media to take new media seriously! It's these kinds of mistakes that allow old-skool publishers to write off bloggers. I wish our editor *would* respond directly to members of the community (like you do). When even big, established, blogs like Engadget refuse to take ethics seriously, the argument that we should become more like you is very very hard to make.
Again, thanks for responding here, and thanks for correcting the mistake quickly.
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