i got a tweet on the way to lunch
I don’t often write about workstuff on this little blog, but since this story has roots in ’social media’, I think it’s worth continuing here.
Yesterday, as I was leaving the office for lunch, a tweet comes through from Scott Beale/Laughingsquid. I follow Scott on Twitter (sent to my phone via SMS), have his blog in my ‘Daily reads’ category in google reader, and enjoy his shared items from Google reader.
I normally enjoy all of these streams of communication, but this time my heart sank as I looked at my phone:
“CNET uses @maidelba photos without attribution [via @lanehartwell]”
“Uh oh.”
The tweet linked to a flickr page titled posted to Lane Hartwell’s Flickr account titled ‘Another day, another photo stolen‘ (title since revised).
I immediately turned around and went to the newsroom to let folks know there was a problem.
(I’ll take this opportunity to say that the people in the CNET News.com newsroom are some of the most highly dedicated, professional folks I’ve had the opportunity to work with. I’ve seen them work under some serious circumstances. Top-notch. Every one.)
Apparently, a photo by Mitchell Aidelbaum which we had permission to use in a photo gallery earlier in the year, was reposted in one of the prominent featured stories slots on our home page.
The editors quickly went to work to correct the problem, and jumped into the discussion at the thread on Flickr to help explain and clarify to the community what happened, and to reiterate that we take copyright issues very seriously.
Lane later went to “make an apology of sorts” and changed the title of the thread at Flickr to read “CNET uses photo without giving attribution”.
So, the system worked! Right?
Well…
For me, the upside was the first meaningful use of twitter beyond trying to call ‘first’ after an earthquake, or learning about Merlin Mann’s love for the song ‘Ceremony’, of course.
More on the upside: The thread produced some really good discussion about issues regarding the Creative Commons license, and showed that we’re responsive and thoughtful where it comes to copyright concerns.
The downside?
It’s hard to get around the fact the the early discussion branded my co-workers as being wanton copyright tramplers. And there is is no opportunity to go back and revise the title of the related item on Digg (1700+ diggs strong at this writing): CNET Caught Stealing A Photo Without Permission.
Even the discussion thread and image posted to Flickr continues to sport the tag ‘image theft‘.
Anyone following along to the last gasps of the Flickr thread will come to a fuller picture, I think. But how many of those 1700 Digg users, or 45,000+ Flickr thread viewers have done so?
From what I’ve seen, photographers are routinely burned and are right to be sensitive and protective of their works and copyrights. But it’s unfortunate in this case that we were not afforded any benefit of the doubt. Even more unfortunate that some people appear to take such enjoyment from our unintentional missteps, regardless of our efforts to make quick and transparent steps to correct the situation.
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