Little Green Footballs

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Charles Johnson: 'thieving' hypocrite

Little Green Footballs isn't normally a place for reading about the latest goings-on in the world of internet culture, so what provoked Charles Johnson into writing three posts in two days (1, 2, 3) about what has become known as the 'Digg revolt'?

Well, first of all Charles hates Digg because the users there don't like LGF. So naturally anything the Digg users do is bad.

Second, Charles has discovered his passion for defending intellectual property rights over the First Amendment. Let's be charitable and assume that CJ's opinions in this matter are based on his former life as a bit-piece recording artist who made a living of sorts from royalties incured from record sales.

And to Charles the issue of IP rights is a with-us-or-against us matter. Quote:

"You either respect the concept of intellectual property, or you don’t."
Indeed. There's only one small problem with Charles Johnson's argument: his website, which hosts advertisements from which Johnson presumably earns an income, is based entirely on ripping off the 'intellectual property' of others.

Charles Johnson reposts articles from other publications, photographs nicked from other websites, and videos captured from commercial broadcasters, and uses all of this material without paying the creators a cent or in some cases even acknowledging their authorship.

If you believe in strict IP rights you might call Charles Johnson's activities illegal.

We call it hypocritical.

Unless Charles stops posting other people's material on his website, or pays them for using it, you can kick his opinions on the 'Digg revolt' where the rest of his opinions belong: in the bin.


P.S.: You can digg this post.


14 comments:

Anonymous said...

LGF Watch is still blocked from submitting, biut it is funny that Chuckie believes in IP so much to actually remove the "Digg This" button from the bottom of all his posts. Heh.

--Rob X.

Anonymous said...

Chuckles the Clown a "hypocrite"? Someone should alert the media. ;)

Anonymous said...

Jesus. Charles Johnson is a naive opinionated fool on so many levels. Is there no limit to his sensationalism? He’s obviously not been following the copyright debate anywhere. Either on or off Digg.

'The Diggbats didn’t like it one bit that they were being prevented from stealing copyrighted material'

Is complete and utter bullshit to anybody who’s read more than 2 lines on any tech website. The current controversy is all about heavy-handed tactics of the copyright cartels in general and misuse of the DMCA specifically.

90% of the kids on Digg don’t even know what the DVD key represents, and half cant even cut and paste it into comments properly.

Anonymous said...

You seriously can't see a difference between the ordinary "fair use" cutting and pasting of material that blogs everywhere use, and promotion of an act of piracy that subverts copyright law?

You seriously think this topic was the most deserving of commentary, when the past couple day's posts are replete with evidence of Islamicist anti-semitism, terrorism, and attempted terrorism?

Anonymous said...

It was worth three posts at LGF, wasn't it? Why wouldn't it be worth one here?

Anonymous said...

It's not fair use to reprint articles in their entirety. Fair use is limited in scope when reprinting copyrighted news articles, which Charles tends to do juuuuust a bit.

Many blogs violate this, but it is hilarious and ironic that Charles would go so far as to post like mad about the DVD encryption code and fair use while engaging in similar conduct (on a much different scale, admittedly).

It's humorous and hypocritical. Just enjoy it!

Anonymous said...

"You seriously think this topic was the most deserving of commentary, when the past couple day's posts are replete with evidence of Islamicist anti-semitism, terrorism, and attempted terrorism?"

Haha, "attempted terrorism"

Interviewer: so, you're a terrorist?

Interviewee: well, no, actually I'm an attempted terrorist.

But Srsly. Want to know what's even worse? Check this out:http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/recap;_ylt=AkIclhrv7aoERBMTZgZlCZARvLYF?gid=270503102&prov=ap

OMG an ENTIRE story dedicated to Manny Ramierz and not one mention of Islamofascism!!!1on311! Teh MSM is helping teh Enemy!1

Anonymous said...

anonymous @ 6:47

'replete with evidence of Islamicist anti-semitism?'

Why is there a distinction between Islamist anti-Semitism and any other other kinds?

The Sphinx said...

"Islamicist", that's a new one.. I'm STILL waiting for a definition of Islamist. And yet you come up with a new term? Damn you people are too fast for me.

Have fun with your fictitious wars and adventures against Islam.

Anonymous said...

"Islamicism" as a term for militant, theocratic Islam has been around for a bit. Sorry if you can't be bothered to keep up to date with ideas that challenge your own.

Anonymous said...

What's so funny about "attempted terrorism?" Do you get the same giggles over attempted rape and attempted murder?

Anonymous said...

"Islamicism" as a term for militant, theocratic Islam has been around for a bit. Sorry if you can't be bothered to keep up to date with ideas that challenge your own.

Aww, that's cute. The kid thinks that being in a KKK style hate cult gives him the authority to create new words in the English language. Maybe he's a "Christianityiteismist". Or just an idiot that thinks he's leet in his internet adventures against "teh ebil sand nigg3rz"..

Anonymous said...

Islamicism, muslamicismist, isamoecocommielfacistfreedomhatingalgoristismist

Whateva.

Anonymous said...

"What's so funny about "attempted terrorism?" Do you get the same giggles over attempted rape and attempted murder?"

No, because attempted rape and attempted murder are based on centuries' old common law definitions that can be applied objectively in any common law jurisdiction. These are "crimes" that are verifiable by actions and states of mind that can be corroborated by evidence.

"Terrorism" is a vacuous term that is tossed out as the simpleton's term for anything he considers "bad." "Terrorists" are defined by their alleged motivations as described by the person calling describing them as such. It's a completely subjective and self-serving term. So, yeah, "attempted terrorism" is another winger mangling of language worthy of derision.

On the other hand, I am aware that wingers are also prone to tossing out objective terms of art like "fascism" to describe situations they do not understand as well.

Besides, if terrorism is a military problem and not a criminal law problem, why the comparison to *crimes,* in attempting to make your point?