Missouri’s Nefarious Antlers
photo credit: Karen Mitchell
It’s one thing to write a stick-in-the-mud story saying poor taste is a reasonable excuse for denying college students their freedom of speech…
Which is pretty much what Pitch entertainment writer David Hudnall did this past week under the headline, “The Mizzou athletic department should continue to eject Antlers from games as long as they’re acting like terrible people.”
Terrible people, eh?
There’ve been plenty of folks who thought the “Back Page” ads the Pitch and other alt weeklies accepted for years from adult businesses trafficing in minors were acting like terrible people. I digress.
The Antlers are the over-the-top of Missouri students who attend MU basketball and football games and engage at times in off color antics and/or speech.
However in sticking it to the Antlers, the Pitch appropriated a copyrighted photograph of the group and ran it without permission. Which is a fairly big journalistic no-no for a for-profit media organization like the Pitch, which is owned and operated by large corporation. After all, the Pitch takes in hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad revenues, it’s not like Tonys Kansas City, sweating it out from dawn to dusk just for for the ego trip.
Or like KCC, for that matter.
Unfortunately the pic the Pitch poached belonged to none other than a University of Missouri journalism professor.
“Mr. Hudnall, Pitch.com is not authorized to use the photo you’ve posted with this story,” the prof’s comment on the Pitch website begins. “Either pay for the image or take it down immediately. You will be billed if the image is not removed from this story. Karen Mitchell, photographer.”
On further investigation, Mitchell is an assistant professor of Convergence Journalism in Mizzou’s highly regarded School of Journalism.
“It¹s pretty simple, Hearne,” Mitchell explains. “If you didn¹t pay for it or ask permission to use it, you can’t publish it. Copyrighted work is not in the public domain.
“Had someone even bothered to have asked I probably would have let (them) use it for free. You can’t just right click and take work from the Internet. (Because) that’s someone¹s work you’re taking.”
No word from Hudnall on the transgression.
Come on, Hearne…how could you mention the Pitch without reminding the public of your glorious history there?
Well, now that you mention it…
It wouldn’t be here now if I hadn’t talked the former owner into not shutting it down after he sold the record store to Streetside who didn’t want anything to do with the Pitch.
How’s that?
Thank you…your omission in the story left me feeling empty inside.
Hearne,
Two things. One, it’s Hudnall. And two, check Kansas City Business Journal editor Brian Kaberline’s thoughts about your misappropriation of his copyrighted work product on your site and your own lack of a response to it.
http://www.kcconfidential.com/2011/11/28/hearne-karen-pletz-suicide-update-florida-cops-await-preliminary-autopsy-results/
Fair’s fair, right?
Fair’s totally fair, wild man and typos and mistakes are going to be made.
Especially when you’re running a blog with zero salaried staffers – myself included – as opposed to a multi million dollar corporation like what’s left of the Pitch and the Kansas City Business Journal.
Last time I checked there were more than 40 staffers on the Pitch masthead.
And it’s nice to see that rather than return a request for a comment – as the Pitch asks and expects people it writes about to do – the reporter can just ask one of his buddies to write a snarky comment that doesn’t even address the issue being reported on.
Way to stand up for journalism.
Many, if not most bloggers capture images to go with stories without running down the sources. Unless it’s a photo identified as copyrighted; I think you probably know that. Again, however, most bloggers – KCC included – are basically working for free and flying fairly low.
In the case of Kaberline, the reason I didn’t see his request that you linked to two years ago was because 1) he didn’t bother to leave the comment until a week after publication and we had moved on to other stories (he was the only comment a week after the fact) and 2) more importantly, he didn’t bother to send an email or place a call. And by the way, since you didn’t seem to notice, the graphic used credits the Business Journal.
Mitchell on the other hand nailed you guys right away and you obviously saw her comment and quietly corrected it.
Now let’s have some fun, since you seem to enjoy changing the subject so much…
Kaberline’s had a bit of a hard on where I’m concerned dating back to an item published in my column in the Star many years ago. I’ll post it separately for you and the readers to enjoy.
Cheers!
I wasn’t asked to post any comment. I posted it independently, against my better judgment. Partly because I figured you would drop the old bloggers-can’t-be-held-to-any-standards-because-we-don’t-make-money excuse. John Landsberg used to do that all the time. But don’t you sell these ads to the right for $400 a pop, $200 for some type of trade?
Regardless, I see you still haven’t pulled the KCBJ’s copyrighted material that you used without permission.
It’s interesting how you seem compelled to ignore the issue at hand, Steve – the Pitch being called out by a respected journalism professor for copyright infringement.
I wonder why.
Is that how you settle arguments and discussions; by changing the subject?
The story that graphic was used for was a news and opinion story on KCC and the Business Journal’s graphic applied to that story at the time and – allow me to remind you – was credited on the graphic to the KCBJ.
Nice dodge
Steve, take it easy on Hearne. Remember he used to be somebody 30+ years ago, before circumstances forced him to run an unpaid gossip blog where inaccuracy and wild speculation is just something that happens, baby. He personally shot all of the photos on this blog, from Brownback to Andrew Wiggins to the photo illustration of the turkey-football. He is above reproach. If he hadn’t been an uber-chic trustfunder on the scene in the wild ’80s the newspaper industry probably wouldn’t still exist and you’d probably be a sex slave on backpage.com stowed away in the cargo hold of Jack Poessiger cruise lines wondering exactly what it is that Lauren wants to know. Times are hard over here on KCC without you going around crying hypocrisy and switching the subject. There hasn’t been a female on this website since Glazer took the college student to the Phish show a couple years back and got run off by her stepdad. It’s one lonely sausage fest these days which unfortunately is the reward you get sometimes for being a media maven like the big admin. See you at dodge ball practice.
Wow Grover, nice work…
And funny it would come from an IP address that appears to be that of a former Star employee. Fancy that.
One thing- Hudnall. That’s all you need to say.
His laziness would put Penn to shame.
Hilarious coming from Haerne. Every day there is some appropriated copyrighted material on here. For almost every story. Just scroll through the site and look for the photo credits for the professional sports, entertainment and news shots that go up with almost every post.
“Copyrighted work is not in the public domain.”
Then dont post it up on the internet without requiring a sin-on to view it.
Simple as pi…..
sign, not ‘sin’.
For readers who may be puzzled by the acrimony coming from other media being critiqued here, allow me to explain…
As Greg Hall likes to say, most people in the media love to dish it out but precious few can take it. With the Kansas City Star and the Pitch being two of the thinnest skinned.
Trust me, I’ve worked at and /or run both and it comes with the territory. The people in the media glass houses love throwing stones but die a thousand deaths when called on the carpet by others.
As you can see by the above comments – even the ones that are arguably bogus and mean spirited by gutless, anonymous posters – KCC is willing to take the hits…within reason.
Read it for yourself and decide on copyright/fair use law:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
Or, for those of you who think Wikipedia is the Gospel, check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
That rag of a paper went downhill after it stopped publishing Zippy the Pinhead.
Yearly scheduled furloughs!
Yearly scheduled furloughs!
Yearly scheduled furloughs!