Peter King's latest tirade

You guys have probably heard about this by now. Bleacher Report tweets out a Tom Brady quote from King's recent piece, without attributing it to King or The MMQB, King calls BR out about it in a series of tweets, BR eventually deletes the tweet and apologizes.

http://deadspin.com/peter-king-got-irate-at-bleacher-report-over-a-dumb-tom-1792349218

The reason I'm posting this is because I'm curious if this has happened to you. I work for a mid-sized publication near a massive market, and we routinely compete with one of the largest newspapers in the country for stories in our community. We have to fight like hell to get any sort of credit for our scoops because information is so easily pilfered without proper accreditation.

For example, twice in the last 15 months I've had original reporting swiped by the big paper without any sort of acknowledgement or attribution. In one instance, the bigger paper was getting credit on the "great scoop" by other major media outlets that were tweeting the breaking news out.

So, is Peter King right to get upset about this, or is this just the way of the industry right now?

 

Peter King is right to get upset, and it's the way of the industry now

 

He's 100 percent right, which is probably why BR deleted it and apologized. Unfortunately this shit happens all the time, and hasn't ended enough careers IMHO. Thing is, the average person doesn't give a shit. I was in a sports writing competition about a decade or so ago sponsored by a major site and one of the finalists copied verbatim a list column -- something like, 10 worst moments in Detroit sports history -- from another site. I busted him on it, he got tossed from the competition. And some friends of mine were like, Dude, you're being kind of a bitch, ratting on somebody for plagiarism. A lot of people just don't get it, and that's why this stuff will continue to happen.

 

This is where I was going. Like King, I'm pissed when this happens to me -- but a lot of people act like it's no big deal. That's really disappointing.

 

It's disappointing because it just shows how stupid people are. Stealing someone's written thoughts and getting paid for them is just flat out theft, same to me as stealing intellectual property or someone's idea for an app or a similar chord progression in a song. I mean, good on Led Zeppelin for getting away with theft for so many years, I guess, but Stairway to Heaven was obviously flat out ripped off from Spirit. People who don't understand or care about such things deserve to have someone eat their porridge, sit in their chairs and sleep in their beds -- and go upper deck on their toilet.

 

Yet, stuff like this, until Turner took over, was pretty much B/R's bread and butter. They've been busted here several times.

 

Funny you should mention Stairway...this story just came out today.

The Inside Story of the Most Unintentionally Complicated 'Wayne's World' Gag

 

I just love his little-boy-smiling-cuz-he-knows-he's-lying-and-you're-stupid-if-you-buy-it visage at the very end.

 

Always — ALWAYS — call someone on this stuff when you're aware of it. And honestly, I never really trust anyone again after they do this. If you'll cross that line once, you're probably willing to do it again. Early in my career, a guy at a nearby paper copied a column of mine verbatim. (Pre-internet days, it would be easy to get away with it. I just happened to see an exchange copy of his paper.) I called him and suggested it was not a good idea and he should not do it again, or the next call wouldn't be to him, but to his boss. He sputtered something about "being in the public domain" but didn't do it again, at least with my stuff. A few years later, the guy applies at the larger paper I'd moved to — and actually suggested that I'd be a person to ask about his work. So the ME asked, I told them that story, and that was the last I ever heard of the guy.

 

I've had my stuff ripped off and used by other websites -- and a major metro in one instance -- without attribution. It pisses me off beyond belief... but what pisses me off almost as much in the age of "aggregation" is that some sites' whole existence come from ripping shit off, but it's okay because they'll link three words in the last graph to the original source.

I run into this often because we have high-tier prospects at least every couple of years, and recruiting sites rip shit off. They've gotten better in recent years about at least the three-word linking part. Now, if I can just get them to stop ripping off my photos (and no, recruiting sites, crediting me doesn't mean you can use them without my express permission, because I own the copyright).

 

I was in high school with Randy Wolfe, who left school early to go to New York, where Jimi Hendrix rechristened him Randy California. Didn't know him, but friends of mine who did always said he was a great guy. He died saving his son from drowning off Kauai. Did see Spirit play numerous times around town.