Here’s how it happened: The New York Times writes a story about semicolons. Gawker reads it and does a Google Image search for “semicolon”. My halloween costume photo turns up. Gawker includes it in their takedown of the original article.
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Hi, I'm Noah. I am the co-founder of Percolate. I like writing on, thinking about and making stuff for the internet. I'm responsible for a few internet experiments like Brand Tags, likemind and My First Tweet. On this site I write about media, marketing, culture, technology and randomness. I like it when people email me.
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Does it frustrate you, at all, that Gawker took the image you created placed it in their own “assets” folder and gave you no attribution?
I mean, you do have a copyright symbol at the bottom of your web site here.
I’m all for Creative Commons (G-d bless Lessig), but for being a web site that prides itself on being the voice of the mistreated creative underclass, Gawker certainly take some liberties in “borrowing” the work of others.
By the way, awesome costume.
I saw this ad the other day and found it compelling as well. I did notice the semicolon, but what struck me was how poorly phrased the ad was semantically.
“Bad news! It doesn’t matter what paper you read, its language or viewpoints. Please put it in a trash can; that’s good news for everyone.”
My first thought was, “I really do think it matters what I read, and if it has a viewpoint I’m pretty sure its viewpoint is important as well”. I think it would have been far better to write, “No matter what you read…” or “Regardless of what you read…” instead of “It doesn’t matter what you read…”.
I didnt bother forwarding the article to you cause I assumed you’d see it but I agree with Mark how do they not at least link the photo to your blog? Did you just come across it while checking Gawker or did someone bring it to your attention? It seems pretty ridiculous that a site like Gawker would use the photo without any attribution or even letting you know.
Also you look like a terrorist semicolon in that picture. You suppose Al Queda uses semicolons?
Great costume, Noah…
Erik, I couldn’t agree more. I’ve cringed, literally, while reading that ad on the subway. I was so furious when I saw the NYT article this morning touting the use of the semicolon, and its “erudite author”, while completely ignoring the simple fact: it’s the most poorly written ad of all time.
Mark (and Dave), you guys raise an interesting point. While at first I must admit I was a bit disappointed, it’s hard for me to get that upset. While I don’t believe it’s fair to just steal someone else’s photo and share it as your own without even attribution, it’s something I’ve done myself (not on the blog I don’t think, but certainly in presentations). One of the side effects of putting lots of stuff out there is that some it will get stolen, I guess I just take that as a natural side effect of the age we live in . . .
And yes Dave, I do suppose Al Qaeda uses semicolons; Even terrorists deserve proper punctuation. (I think that’s proper use, someone with better grammar skills please correct me.)
Erik/Evan, never saw the ad, but I agree, it kind of sucks.
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