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.