Hate mail, and Moore breaks the law
It’s been awhile since I got a funny hate mail. I think this one qualifies, mainly due to the atrocious grammar and child-like rage.
From: “Scott Harding” [email protected]
To: jimk
Subject: jackass
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 23:44:17 -0500How the hell can you say these things you pig, he payed for your wifes
health care!
Do you not have anything better to do?
And the canadien system of healthcare is far better than your shitty
way.
FU
Let’s break it down. I shouldn’t say anything about the quality and veracity of Moore’s work, but this semi-human can call me a pig, get the facts of the events in Sicko wrong, and then tell me “FU.” Kung fu? Fu Manchu? What exactly am I supposed to fu? Is his fu more powerful than my fu? We must fight! Only one may reign! Let the fu fight begin! Hey, that sounds like a great band name. Fu Fight. I should write that down. ;)
Moving on: This is an interesting peek into the way Mr. Moore does business on the web.
First, the simple facts: NewWest.Net had a story, with photos, about a protest outside the Jackson, Wyoming home of Vice President Dick Cheney. We soon became aware that the photo and the story were the lead feature story on MichaelMoore.com, but rather than follow the well-established protocol of publishing a short excerpt of the story and a thumbnail picture with a link back to our site, Moore’s site simply took the whole story as well as a full-size image. They did include attribution and a link, but still.
As we normally do in such cases, we sent a several e-mails to the site and to Moore asking that they remove the piece, or follow the proper protocol (and the law) by publishing just a snippet and a link. No response, and no action.
We have a policy here at MW...we quote and link as discussed above, unless the articles is A) very valuable information and B) is from a site that recycles links or destroys archives after a period of time. If that policy is violated, it is a mistake, and not a matter of habit. The other instance in which we may reproduce an entire article is with permission. If someone asks, we take their work down, immediately.
I have no doubt that Moore’s Canadian web team (outsourcing rules!) did this without checking with him first, but the moment it is brought to someone’s attention, you should take care of it. You know that he knows about it by now, as it seems to have been removed from his front page.
Neither Mike nor I are fond of copyright laws. This is more than that, though. When you take someone else’s news or blog items whole and put them on your site, you are simply robbing that writer of eyeballs and traffic, and it’s just rude if nothing else. It is literally like me stealing the content of Sicko and putting it out under my name, taking away all the impetus to go see the real film. Moore makes his money, to be sure, but he says that you seeing his films is more important than anything else. He just wants you to see it. So why is he (or his team) intentionally depriving someone else of that? Note his lack of apology and any admittance of screwing up. No matter how tiny the offense, Michael Moore will never, ever admit he did something wrong. No wonder he hates Bush so much. They’re exactly alike. Half-wits, in way over their heads and unable to admit mistakes.
Comments
Come on, Jim. Everyone knows that FU stands for Felix Unger. This guy was only slipping in an obscure reference to the well-known Neil Simon play and subsequent Television series “The Odd Couple.”
Well it looks like has only one real meaning of FU.
Maybe he was talking about Fuu Hououji from Magic Knight Rayearth?
...OK, that was a stretch, I admit. =B
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Mayhaps Scott Harding is a Shaquille O’Neal fan and practitioner of “Shaq-FU”.
How many times have we heard moore say that some atrocity was committed “under Bush’s watch”, and therefore Bush is 100% culpable? I’m sure that moore will accept full blame for all violated copyright laws on his website whilst under his watch, because he’s such a responsible little micro-manager…