Update on AutoWeek

Posted on September 18, 2006 by Lessig

I am told by Allen that a very respectful AutoWeek executive called to apologize. The mistake was an intern’s. They have reached an amicable settlement.

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6 Responses to Update on AutoWeek

  1. Matthew Skala says:
    September 19, 2006 at 7:28 am

    Which mistake? It’s easy to believe that an inexperienced low-level employee was responsible for using the photo, and telling the boss it was public domain. It’s harder to believe that the response, once it was discovered that the photo was *not* public domain, was an innocent mistake made by an inexperienced employee.

    And is “oh, an intern did that by mistake” a good excuse? Companies should be held responsible for the actions of their employees, and that includes interns.

  2. Crosbie Fitch says:
    September 19, 2006 at 7:46 am

    This is another reason to support CC-SA to the exclusion of all other licenses.

    With the CC-SA the only time anyone gets upset is when a licensee attempts to breach the license by DENYING someone else’s liberty – and an intern probably doesn’t have access to a litigation budget.

    With other licenses the licensors can get upset when licensees ENJOY liberties the licensor wanted copyright to continue to deny them.

    So, the golden rule is: it’s not ethical to deny someone’s liberty. Ipso facto, with CC-SA the licensor will never be in an unethical situation – only the licensee can be. Whereas, with CC-NC, the licensor can unethically demand that a user of their work is denied the liberty to use it – contrary to the principles of a creative commons.

  3. anonymous says:
    September 19, 2006 at 7:56 am

    I didn’t understand anything that Crosbie Fitch said.

    Anyway, I echo the skepticism that an “intern did it”. It look like a PR band-aid.

    Don’t they have policies about using copyright protected materials? Wouldn’t they explain these sorts of things to an intern, who presumably is there to learn besides being cheap or free labor?

    It still looks to me like they thought they could get away with it. Typical corporate BS: “copyright is for us to use against you, not the other way around.”

  4. Learned Limb says:
    September 19, 2006 at 5:33 pm

    Find your views on copywrite quite un-Godly, Mr. Lessig. Repent of your communistic ways.

  5. ACS says:
    September 21, 2006 at 8:07 pm

    Learned Limb

    I think the words “ungodly” is a little unfair.

    I also note the Professor is defending copyright in the photograph and accordingly your comment is not only derogatory, it is based in falsity.

    In any event, although open piracy is “communistic”, illegal and well wrong this should not be put onto the perfectly legal method of licensing using the creative commons standard forms. Surely you dont believe someone using thier rights to share works are in some way “ungodly”.

    Regards
    Alex

    PS – Blaming the intern is how I still have a job. I don’t belittle Mr Ross for using that excuse in any way.

  6. Peter says:
    September 22, 2006 at 1:32 am

    This is funny. I wrote to Mr. Ross to express my anger (beeing a freelancer myself) and got this answer:

    “Thank you for writing, the dispute has been forwarded to our legal department.”

    So the legal departement decided to apologize. Question, anyone?

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