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So?

A) Intent never seemed to matter in the SOPA debate.

B) A corporation is responsible for every employee, no matter how lowly, that's the way it works. Look at the FedEx employee who threw a monitor he was delivering over a fence on camera - even though he is but one of 20,000 delivery men, they still were completely responsible for that.

Exactly. I understand that levels of detachment (contracted then subcontracted work, etc) make quality assurance more difficult, but companies like NBC must be held to higher standards especially because of the fights they've chosen to fight. This page is directly linked to from http://www.nbc.com/casting/#home-transformers. One would assume that they'd at least check the content of a site they've linked directly to - there are only 2 content images!

I don't disagree with either of your points. I'm just saying that the spin being put on this story is out of synch with the magnitude of the story.

It is spin, but if you step away from it, I don't think it's unwarranted.

This episode is an excellent demonstration that this sort of casual use is part of the essence of the web. It's so fundamental that even a major corporation does it incidentally. And if you hammer this sort of thing down, you essentially kill the web.

Well stated, and I concur. The irony of this situation is indeed noteworthy, and it demonstrates a pretty biting critique of SOPA itself.

I guess I just see this as a smile-and-raise-an-eyebrow kind of story, and not a break-out-the-pitchforks-and-torches kind of story.

They're not bad people for doing this. Doing this just demonstrates that they're bad people for pushing SOPA.

"I guess I just see this as a smile-and-raise-an-eyebrow kind of story, and not a break-out-the-pitchforks-and-torches kind of story."

I loled :) Saving that in the memory bank for later use. Reddit comment karma, here we come!!

Too late; I've already got my mobbing shoes on.

I disagree. NBC, and others, put exactly this sort of magnitude in their push for SOPA - it seems only fair to push back just as hard.

Not at all. Intern's fault or not, the story is about hypocrisy.

I agree but... Yes, the article does illustrate this point but it's a pretty thin example. There must be better examples of hypocrisy out there. This seems more like manufactured outrage (which is so common it's sickening nowadays). I think the circumstances are relevant here. I mean, look at that site. Does it look like any thought was put into it at all? Had this been a site that looked anything like it was touched by a professional (and by that I mean something that reflects the kind of professional they can hire based on their resources) I could get on board with the criticism. At this point, however, I see this and just kind of shrug and think "damn, that sucks".

But then I always tend to look at these issues from a human perspective. I can't help but take all the extenuating circumstances into account. If you look at this from a strictly legal or ethical perspective then its much easier to support the logic behind the criticisms.

So I understand the outrage but I just can't bring myself to see it in such black and white terms. Now I have to make the standard disclaimer: I don't and never have supported SOPA. (It's pretty awful we have to make those disclaimers to be taken seriously around here).

NBC doesn't disagree. They know they're responsible, and they take they responsibility seriously. Specifically, they fire the intern, they settle with Apple (assuming Apple sends them a bill), and they pass the cost onto their insurance company, which provides them with Errors & Omissions coverage for situations exactly like these. Assuming that NBC is complying with the insurance provider's demand for a pricy and well-staffed rights and clearances operation, then the insurer will pick up the tab. Nothing causal about any of it, and responsibility taken fully. Next.

Of course, the larger point is that every one of these steps is expensive. Only organizations with a LOT of money can afford to operate like this. And that's exactly how publishers like it. If you have to have a LOT of money before you can put anything into the world without the risk of getting sued into oblivion, then suddenly, there are a lot fewer content sources for you to compete with.

The point is, this particular furor over this particular image is simply going to get some low-level designer fired, and not change NBC's stance on SOPA at all.

Changing NBC's stance isn't the goal. Debates aren't literally about changing the participant's minds, since that hardly ever happens. It's about changing the audience's minds. This is advocacy.

This is copypasta, not intentional infringement.

Distinction without difference.

Googling the coolest image out there (for a given subject) and using it on a high profile website for a major company with zero concern for rights (in an industry which exists entirely on IP rights) IS intentional infringement. That the intent punches thru the core of deliberate and on to the uncharted waters of gratuitous disregard does not lessen the intent.

> Distinction without difference.

I would say there is a real difference, here. The point is, SOPA did not recognize this difference, and its promoters should be held to an even higher standard than that which they promote.

According to the law they committed something like 1 billion dollars worth of for profit copy-write infringement based on something someone with about as much power as an 'intern' did. The fact that nobody in either company noticed just, points out how silly the damages are vs. the actual harm.

The real kicker is it's for profit AND they copied the full image. So, every time someone went to that page the web-server made yet another copy which is a separate case of copy-write infringement. So, just take the full penalty and multiply it by the number of number of downloads.

PS: Just immagine what would happen if some prosecutor actually took up the case.

> But the likelihood that anyone in any position of power at NBC even saw that page is slim to none.

Which is exactly the problem. The only reason that the web page wasn't reviewed is to save money/time. Which is a great thing!

However, with the SOPA/ACTA style of repressive laws that follow the "shoot first, ask questions later" principle, a lot of burden will be put onto companies to review/censor all their content prior to being published, and especially for small companies, the costs would be significant.

Please, you think under a SOPA regime one media corp is going to kick another out of bed? Those laws were meant to be used against the plebians.

The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. --Audre Lorde

Don't they say that "The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly."?

NBC were/are a staunch supporter of SOPA. They wanted others to be treated this way, it's only fair they're held to the same standard so that may see how ridiculous the situation is (not that blatant copy/pasting of images is ever condonable).

It's probably some intern, and that's JUST THE POINT:

"This kind of casual copyright infringement, with no malicious intent, is exactly the kind of thing that SOPA was after. (...) SOPA covered so many cases of fair use, remixing, commentary and satire that it would have made a good number of the websites in the world immediately vulnerable to being taken down at the whim of ‘content creators’ like NBC."

The idea that anyone at NBC would just do a google image search and throw up the result on a high-profile page as if they're updating their myspace profile is pretty mind-boggling to me. I've never worked anywhere like NBC, but I would have assumed they'd use stock image databases for most things and that they'd have strict policies for getting other images approved for use.

Not to mention that the paintbrush "A" in the background is the app store logo! Did not a single person with an iphone or mac look at this before it went out? I'm almost inclined to think that they did license the image from apple, even though that really doesn't sound like apple.

Either way, this sounds like a joke from 30 Rock :)

To me the infringement isn't that big of a deal. Infringement happens. What would be interesting is NBC's position on enforcement.

Although I honestly expect that given NBC's interest here they would be willing to have their webpage completely come down, while they fixed the infringement if they thought that it would illustrate to everyone how infringement should be handled.

I think this is much ado about nothing given that it's just about the infringement and not so much about the enforcement.

So? You're missing the point entirely. The article sums it up well: "This kind of casual copyright infringement, with no malicious intent, is exactly the kind of thing that SOPA was after."

Come on, the author of TFA covers that point explicitly.

> This kind of casual copyright infringement, with no malicious intent, is exactly the kind of thing that SOPA was after.

what? no one is blowing this out of proportion at all... no one has said some CEO knowingly went to Apple's Xcode website and stole the logo for profit. this however does illustrate perfectly how stupid the SOPA/ACTA brand of infringement enforcement is. no one was making any of the claims you said they were making, they just commented its hypocritical for NBC to be supporting strict enforcement with website takedowns and fines when they casually infringe themselves...

I really dislike posts like this that go all sanctimonious and apologetic when no one is making the outlandish attacks that you claim they are making