Arrington : "You’re Welcome, You Bastards"
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
I wonder how many good ideas are quashed simply because of policy.
Now fortune may have not had rights to let Arrington post it, but that's their issue most likely, as they misrepresented it, not Arrington
The first emails from them clearly are talking about excerpts in their entirety.
Now when I think about it, Fortune looks even more ridiculous in my eyes. They basically asked TC to blog about their promotional article for free. ;-)
But I love Michaels repsonse, good on him. Unless they explicitly say, DO NOT USE THE ENTIRE EXCERPT, go for it. I mean, fortune and the author sent thank you emails just after they were posted, either they did not read it properly, or they were not clear themselves on the licensing situation.
It looks to me like the contact at fortune made the mistake, didn't check properly, and is trying to lay the blame on techcrunch. This is also, the standard way things work.
He simply misread the emails. With the benefit of hindsight, he should see that they don't confirm his side of the story, which makes the blog post seem... weird. (Usually when you read just one guy's side of an issue, you don't come out of it thinking he's probably wrong.) At best, they're ambiguous. I think the natural reading favors Fortune, and I would say that if they're the best evidence he has, and he posted the excerpts based on these emails, then he's clearly wrong. But maybe he was misled by other communication.
The actual email says that he is offering TC the rights to use the exclusive material:
"I’d love to chat with you about FORTUNE’s exclusive excerpt of David Kirkpatrick’s book on Facebook, which I’d love to offer for tomorrow."
This is really how some people think.
In this specific instance for example, wouldn't admitting you are wrong in an email to Arrington immediately give him a solid case to defend himself with in the event he chose not to take it down?
"Hey Michael, sorry about this, but some wires got crossed on our end. My bad. Apparently…"
or
"Hey Michael, you screwed up. You better pull that post or else."
?
Isn't this also the guy who involved in a huge "miscommunication" over the Crunch Pad? It's suspicious that Arrington is repeatedly on the receiving end of miscommunications, no?
Playing chicken with Arrington might not be the best idea. From what I've seen in the past (posts like this) he is more than open about what people say in (assumed) private e-mails/phone calls.
My guess is they back off shortly. No one likes having their dirty laundry airing to the public. Thought they could push him around behind closed doors.
I'll make no secret of my own grudge with Arrington. Back in December, I wrote this comment - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=998318 - on Hacker News, rather critical of loud web acquisitions by Russian investors. Without so much as a heads up, to say nothing of a polite request for permission, this earned me a TechCrunch post: http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/20/are-hot-u-s-startups-the-ne... ...
Perhaps obviously but perhaps not, as a native Russian, and given what I had to say in that comment, I am not particularly interested in the kind of magnified exposure or attention that being linked on TechCrunch provides. It was a genuine statement of opinion that I more or less intended for the general HN audience. I don't really need it rubbed in the faces of these barons' hit-men that I, uh, slandered them. Sure, it's part and parcel of posting something to the public Internet, and, certainly, anyone searching Google can find my comment easily -- fine. But a little bit of consideration from Arrington's yellow journalism machine might have been helpful.
<em>"I declined on the grounds that I was pissed off I was being called so many times"</em>
That, and that he then seems to take offense when they call him unprofessional? Love him or hate him, but at least come up with a better reason than that to your (business partners|vendors|partners|sources) when trying to work out a dispute.
There's greater reward in the long run from acting like an adult, working well with others, and not being a complete douche.
Added: There was a documentary recently about an old-time woman's magazine in the UK. They'd brought in a new, modern editor to bring the magazine into the modern era and to increase sales. One thing she landed was a mostly positive write up in the Sunday Times (the UK's biggest Sunday paper). One of the owners was not particularly impressed because a few negatives were portrayed in the piece and she went nuts because it was, clearly, one of the biggest PR coups the magazine had ever had.
Additionally, bloggers (and others in Attention Media) often make more from douchebaggery than from evenhandedness. (And I honestly don't think Arrington is being a douche here.
I don't see how: at least in the emails posted, Fortune never authorizes Arrington to post the full excerpt: they talk about writing a post "on the book excerpts".
In any case, I think it is more likely to be a simple miscommunication. It would be more mature for Arrington to simply concede that -- the excerpts are their copyrighted material, and they have the right to control its distribution. Getting all peeved about being woken up at 6:30 AM is silly.
Fortune could have said 'Sorry, we miscommunicated, could you trim down your excerpts? Here are some example quotes you might want to include instead.' They could have called him, and when they didn't get an answer, e-mailed him instead. They could have asked nicely, or even looked on the bright side of this amazing PR. Instead, they're being the biggest assholes they can be.
So yeah, there's a point to be made there, but I think Fortune's dickery is overshadowing it.
Didn't they do that, minus the example quotes?
I'm honestly confused here.
He DID publish a book excerpt. Based on the way they kept saying full content, they want to make it sound like he published the entire book or something.
They asked if he would publish excerpts. They sent him excerpts. He published excerpts. He followed the rules and they want to change it and cry "fire" after the fact.
Except they didn't, at least not in any publicly-posted email that I can see. In fact, they describe the excerpt as "exclusive" to Fortune -- they asked Arrington to post "on the book excerpts", not "to post the book excerpts". As I said, a miscommunication -- and there is a simple, mature way to handle that.
... pistols at dawn?
"note that the story stems from an exclusive excerpt in FORTUNE of David Kirkpatrick’s new book The Facebook Effect."
"once you’ve read the excerpts, please let me know if you choose not to post on one and not the other or both"
The use of the words "exclusive" and "on" seem to make it pretty clear that he was supposed to post ABOUT the excerpts. Their intent may be antiquated, but I think it was clearly communicated.
I don't enjoy trying to ascertain what someone is trying to say, I guess I am not a fan of mysteries. Say it plainly and clearly, and these sort of mistakes do not go on.
It's just sad that is what it takes to be able to stand up to legal bullying.
(Not sure that legal bullying is happening here, but certainly Arrington can stand up to it, and most people can't.)
If someone comes to me and says, "Create a post based on all of this content," I am not going to take the time to pick and choose selectively what the reader sees. Why should he take the time to inconvenience his readers?
The mistake here wasn't a miscommunication, it was in not realizing the cat was out of the bag and just cutting your losses.
Just like you can't get unpregnant, you can't retract stuff once it's posted on one of the web's top blogs. Fortune's type A control freak lawyers still need to learn that it seems.
The correct response from Fortune:
"Oops, that's not what we intended, but oh well, lesson learned - next time be more specific. Fuck it dude, lets go bowling."
Given the size of Fortune's response and S&S getting involved, my gut tells me it's the latter.
Um. There are several legal and safe-enough ways to get "unpregnant".
so... then I wonder... Is this -- all of this -- clever advertising?
> And if you don’t mind, once you’ve read the excerpts, please let me know if you choose not to post on one and not the other or both, which of course we would love.
Now, IANAL but nowhere in there does it say to not post the excerpts.
Until (my emphasis), means that they couldn't post simultaneously, nor before. I deduced then they were required to post after.
There most have been a counter statement elsewhere given your upvotes, sorry I missed it, what was it?
Characteristically, he is ebulliently and abrasively assertive--indeed, at times belligerent--of his right to publish whatever he feels like publishing that day, and often frames it as a freedom of speech issue in a commercial context.
This is a trait of, on the one hand, some of the world's most venerable investigative journalists and insightful commentators, but, on the other hand, also of the sleazy yellow press and fraternal unprincipled viewership/readership/ratings whores with more ignoble motives.
As far as I can tell, TechCrunch is a slightly less toxic kind of Daily Mail. It should not be controversial to any reasonable person that there is merit to both sides of the issue insofar as lack of initial explicit prohibition on publication of whole excerpts does not necessarily mean it was categorically acceptable, nor does it mean that any demands for retroactive remedies from Fortune are irrelevant. On the other hand, they are obviously both trying to bully him and do something quite stupid.
This went on for years and I hated it. It wasn't funny anymore and I didn't want to read what others had written to him.
Then it hit me... Who was reading all the cards I had sent him?
Michael Arrington is like that friend. I will probably never send him an email because I don't want anyone else (much less the whole world) reading it.
Michael Arrington might act like a douche sometimes (maybe even lots of the time), but that's no reason not to treat this story on its merits, rather than responding with a cute character attack.
cute character attack
Not an attack, just an observation. And not of his character (which I am hardly qualified to judge), just of his behavior in this particular post.
I dunno, posting word for word emails from someone else in a blog just seems a little over the top to me, regardless of the reason. I don't know the merits of this case, nor do I care.
The antecdote was to make a point (as antecdotes are usually meant to do). It's the same as the office gossip. If he's saying/doing that to someone else, what's he saying/doing about me?
I suppose it is half anecdote, half antidote, which must be highly useful. Or is it maybe an ante-anecdote, an amusing story in advance (a.k.a. prophecy)?
Not surprisingly, such a useful word is in widespread use, apparently. 33,200 uses to be exact, according to Google. But no clear definition, according to antecdotal evidence.
Since we're now going to a lawsuit, these emails are going to be exhibits in court => public knowledge.
And by showing how poor they case would be, hopefully avoiding expensive hostilities.
I am sure he can differentiate between a personal e-mail and one sent because of your work.
Are you looking for a card, or a friend acknowledging that it is your birthday?
Someone screwed up at Fortune and tried to backpedal.
Thanks. I needed a little more juice for my "death to the publishing industry" mission. grrrr
And also ruined what could have been a very nice tablet platform.
This goes double if you're calling yourself a publisher and you're working with major print entities.
Email is wonderful because people don't understand that an agreement in writing doesn't have to mean ink on paper.
Pageviews?
Arrington plays the game every bit as much as the rest of them. But he's willing to expose how it works, from time to time, in order to make money for himself. I find it entertaining, which is the point.
A troll, like Arrington, craves and hopes to gain attention. Like all trolls the solution is to ignore him. And quit reading clicking through to techcrunch.
Deconstructing stuff to find out how it works is part of hacking. Now I understand better how Forture gets an exclusive and how they go around and ask blogs to cover and promote it, and how bloggers think when they receive such offers.
I just find linkbait headlines like that in really bad taste and it disappoints me when I see a lot of them on the frontpage.