AOL Journals: Magic Smoke

Thursday, April 6, 2006
5:42:00 PM EDT
Hearing Dressy Bessy, Maybe Laughter So, it looks like our erstwhile corporate colleagues over at CNN (they're a little too far removed from us, organizationally, for me to call them cow-orkers in good conscience) did a somewhat bad thing yesterday.

Apparently, in a front-page lead item about underage sex-stung Department of Homeland Security press secretary Brian Doyle, someone at CNN grabbed a mug shot photo from political blog site Talking Points Memo and used it, complete with a piece of the TPM logo showing.

Worse, they didn't attribute it properly -- the photo credit read "Montgomery County Police."

(How did I find out about this story? Why, lots of shoe leather and gumption, of course. Plus, I found the link on Fark.com. Look, see? Attribution.)

Now, this isn't earth-shatteringly bad, though one would expect a mainstream media organization to be a little bit more meticulous about photo sourcing. And it's a trifling nothing compared to two incidents last week where ESPN and the Associated Press were accused of plagiarizing content from blogs without giving proper credit -- in the case of ESPN, it was a comedy bit; in the case of AP, it was an investigative report.

(Urm, I can't find which site I got that story from. That's a strike against me.)

According to reports, AP's response at the time was that because the story came from a blog, they didn't feel the need to credit them; a response on Tuesday said that they, in fact, do credit blogs, they just weren't aware that the story came from the blog, since they had gotten it from an interview with an advocacy group.

Regardless of how this particular incident is resolved, what is proper etiquette for regular people blogging (in terms of giving proper attribution and credit) is essential for press and other big organizations.

Anyway, if thinking about this stuff gives you a headache, be prepared for a whopper (not to mention a big scare) when I do a followup entry about copyright and fair use, today or tomorrow.

Thanks -- Joe


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This entry has 8 comments: (Add your own)

• #8 Comment from journalseditorEntry Author 
  4/7/06 2:09 PM | Permalink

  Okay, first off, I am not a lawyer, copyright expert or authority on intellectual property law, so you probably should just ignore me.
  
  Now, on review, it looks like state and local mugshots may not automatically be in the public domain.
  
  However, as I understand it, just because something started in the public domain, doesn't mean you can just grab it and use it. If AP runs a mug shot, you can't just grab it off the AP web page and use it "because it's in the public domain."
  
  Anyway, you should probably do your own poking around -- some resoures I've found in a quick search include:
  
  - Ask Metafilter on "Are All Mug Shots in the Public Domain?: http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/25814
  
  - Wikipedia Entry on Public Domain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain
  
  - Public Domain Images blog (referenced in the Wikipedia entry: http://freeimages.blogspot.com/
  
  Thanks -- Joe
• #7 Comment from plittle 
  4/7/06 1:26 PM | Permalink

  If mugshots are in the public domain, then is CNN required or obligated to give attribution to anyone?
  -Paul
• #6 Comment from rantsofraven 
  4/7/06 1:02 AM | Permalink

  We tend to be pretty hard on MSM and deservedly so. We expect more out of them than we do your "average" blogger. Every time the MSM gets caught lifting content from bloggers, a big stink is raised. It's a veritable "man bites dog" story.
  
  The CNN story, while sad, doesn't concern me nearly as much as the AP story because, when I first reported on it, few believed that it was a mistake. The fact that two separate officials with the AP said the same thing seems to back that up. Furthermore, I still haven't heard anything about the AP working to make things right.
  
  I'll definitely be reading your post tomorrow on copyright and fair use. I've written a lot on those subjects myself and I'll be interested to hear what you have to say!
  
  Jonathan - http://www.plagiarismtoday.com
• #5 Comment from journalseditorEntry Author 
  4/7/06 12:37 AM | Permalink

  Karen -- I don't have any definitive answers on the subject; it's all still evolving. In the idealized Web 2.0 world, we would all be freely sharing our stuff amongst each other, which is great for the business-to-business level, but there gets to be kind of an asymmetry (as you note) when commercial ventures aggregate content from individuals with the intent of making money off of it.
  
  As with most things with copyright, intellectual property, rights of authorship, sharing, redistribution and derivative works... I dunno, all this gives me a headache. It all depends on your comfort level, I guess. -- Joe
• #4 Comment from journalseditorEntry Author 
  4/7/06 12:28 AM | Permalink

  Paul -- Mug shots are in the public domain (this is http://www.thesmokinggun.com/ 's bread and butter); apparently, TPM got it from the Montgomery County Police Dept., and credited it in the text with a "courtesy of..." line. -- Joe

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