From what I understand, they tried contacting them directly, but were given lots of promised callbacks / actions that never materialized. Is your opinion that the "professional" way to handle that just to ignore it and move on?
https://twitter.com/dancow/status/777702314475819009
The earliest public Tweet I see about the issue is this, on Aug. 28, just a few weeks ago:
https://twitter.com/Scrollytellio/status/769971299317911552
So it looks like they've been emailing them at least before Aug. 28. But I disagree with the idea that there's nothing in between polite private emailing and then hostile subtweeting. Did Scrollytelling try the kind of gentle public shaming where they direct mention a few AJ editors about the matter? I don't see it.
Don't get me wrong, no matter what their intentions, AJ was in the wrong to host copyrighted frontend code, and in an ideal world, the wronged party shouldn't have to Google for Twitter contacts to get them to comply. But we don't live in an ideal world of instant feedback and retribution. Scrollytelling has the right, of course, to blow it up as they did. I'm just pointing out that it was not just limited to surrender vs. going nuclear on the blogosphere. And in the media world, media people are very quick to act on Twitter, even when they don't respond to emails. I once complained on Twitter about WSJ's paywall and immediately got a response from the executive editor of the WSJ. It ended up with him blocking me for probably being snarky, but the point is that media people up the chain can be reachable without Herculean effort.
And if you are a company whose customer base is completely reliant on media clients, it seems prudent to go for the constructive public outreach way rather than jumping right into "FUCK YOU PAY ME" discourse, especially when it seems that incompetence and not malice is the cause.
But as for how I'd handle this situation as a person, I'd consult a lawyer, and if a cease and desist wasn't likely to work, yes, I'd just ignore it and move on. Shooting yourself in the foot out of revenge isn't good for anyone even if you also manage to shoot the person using your content.
No. That's what courts are for.
This notion that you (in the general sense) should publicly shame businesses and people over private concerns is absurd.
I'm not saying that's the case here, but I can definitely see people at a large company working that sort of logic into their decision-making process. If all they had to do was ignore the "small guy" and he would eventually go away (due to the cost of long-protracted legal battle against an opponent with deep pockets), then they would.