To Catch a Thief (Updated!)
On Sunday, Sarah Palin made some awesome tweets. I mean they were AMAZING! In a bit of top notch awesomeness, Sarah compared herself to William Shakespeare. I called myself being nice by taking a screen cap of my tweetdeck column called “CrazyTrain” where Sister Sarah lives and tweets without interruption with her wild friends. I thought things were awesome until I started seeing tweets asking people to attribute my photo to my account. Surely no one would take my picture and not leave my name on it. Right? RIGHT!?! I mean who would use a picture that clearly came from my computer without attribution? I’ll tell you who: Teresa Kopec.
I blocked this woman on twitter forever and a day ago because I just didn’t like her. There was nothing about her words that added value to my life so I said goodbye. However, I have seen people retweet her and have never thought, “Oh, I know, I will retweet her work and remove her name.” Clearly, this is not the way Teresa rolls. The following is a visual account. You be the judge. She responded to the complaints by saying “oh it was unintentional.” But I ask, is it unintentional when you have been told of an issue and you refuse to acknowledge your mistake? Her unintentional actions seem similar to those of BP. They were told over and over again that something was wrong with the well. They ignored those complaints, then when the well blew they framed it as a terrible accident. Hmm.
My point is this: Don’t take someone’s ideas, thoughts, photos, etc. and not attribute. It’s wrong and it shows a lack of respect for the work of others, even if it is “just twitter.” If someone took the time to post it then you should have enough moral fortitude not to take their work and present it as something other than their work. To steal someone’s work is akin to stealing their thoughts and I can’t sit idly by while someone plays thought thief.
This is my original post:
Apparently, Teresa Kopec was trying to figure out what was going on so HBK112 helped her out by sending this:
So instead of Teresa Kopec Retweeting HBK112′s post, she removes my name:
Immediately upon seeing Teresa Kopec’s post, HBK112 sends Teresa Kopec this:
Does HBK112 get a response from Teresa Kopec? NOPE!
Lo and Behold, @LizzWinstead decides to retweet it:
This is when I see a problem. @AScottFalk sees my photo floating around twitter without my name and lets @LizzWinstead know where the twitpic originated:
Here Lizz Winstead responds, noting that it came across her feed without my name… Wonder how that happened Teresa?
After all of that, Teresa Kopec sent a pitiful excuse this morning, simply saying it was “unintentional.” After reviewing all of the tweets, I fail to see how you could unintentionally delete someone’s name from their work. Be wary my friends.
NOTE: At the time of this post I have not received an apology from Teresa. Nor has she publicly stated that she made a mistake.
Update: Teresa Kopec’s Apology:
I apologized to HBK this morning when I saw her tweet and to you thru Prof. Kelley. It was inadvertent and I did not remove your name from the twitpic or alter it in any way. Nor did I indicate in any way, shape or form it was my own work. I did not apologize to you directly since we blocked one another and you would not have seen it.
But clearly I am History’s Greatest Monster and am hanging my head in shame.
She hasn’t explained why she removed my name. Even with her comments to the HBK post, she had room to leave my name. But it is a start. So bravo Teresa for admitting you were wrong, but I really wish you would explain why you chose to do it in the first place. I’ve seen it happen many times and it never makes sense. Why take something and leave off the original artist, author, etc.?
By the way: I never called you a monster, I simply made note of your actions.
Comparing her to BP? Really? Get a grip.
Ojore
July 19, 2010 at 3:28 PM
The comparison was being told something was wrong and ignoring the warning. Reading comprehension is awesome.
emokidsloveme
July 19, 2010 at 3:35 PM
Yeah, but so is perspective. You could’ve said just that without a sensational and stupid comparison. Seek help.
Ojore
July 19, 2010 at 3:40 PM
I find it odd that you have hyper concern for my little blog. Who needs help again?
emokidsloveme
July 19, 2010 at 3:56 PM
Was never concerned. First time I’ve ever seen your blog. What you did was silly, and I had some spare time. Nothing more.
By the way, if you have an argument, make one. Don’t resort to silly straw men like “if you’re so concerned, why are you commenting?”
Ojore
July 19, 2010 at 3:59 PM
I only called it as I saw it. As it is my blog, I’m free to write what I please. Your opinion of it is of little consequence. I stand by my words, maybe you should blog your complaint I’d be happy to link to your little rantings.
emokidsloveme
July 19, 2010 at 4:06 PM
Teresa clearly won this battle. You took how long to make this blog w/all the screen caps? BP? For real? Greatest ecological disaster in American history = poor RT’ing skills?
ps, I’m screen-capping all this for when you delete it
Laura
July 19, 2010 at 3:49 PM
I was unaware there was a battle but I will say this, I have no interest in deleting anything. I wish you nothing but luck in life.
emokidsloveme
July 19, 2010 at 3:55 PM
Illegitimi non carborundum. You’re right; she’s wrong. I wouldn’t hold your breath on that apology.
Ralley
July 19, 2010 at 5:48 PM
I apologized to HBK this morning when I saw her tweet and to you thru Prof. Kelley. It was inadvertent and I did not remove your name from the twitpic or alter it in any way. Nor did I indicate in any way, shape or form it was my own work. I did not apologize to you directly since we blocked one another and you would not have seen it.
But clearly I am History’s Greatest Monster and am hanging my head in shame.
Teresa Kopec
July 19, 2010 at 6:20 PM
The lesson here is if someone posts info provided by another, and the tweet is more than 140 characters, it is imperative, fair, and common courtesy to provide proper attributions. That’s what Twitlonger is for. Or at least put it in a follow-up tweet. “Inadvertent” doesn’t quite cut it. Regular twitterers know better, or should.
Kaiju
July 20, 2010 at 2:30 PM
Nicely done. And who is “Ojore” anyway? The Latina in me keeps thinking “O-hore”, meh.
Don’t hold your breath on an apology, but tweeters should catch on, fairly quickly, that they have to give credit where credit is due.
Insane Hussein
October 28, 2010 at 5:29 PM
Did you hit a nerve? I found the blog quite interesting. A lesson in twitter etiquette is not a bad thing. If I even thought of stealing a tweet before this, you can rest assured I’ve learned (her) lesson.
Christina M.
June 28, 2011 at 11:05 AM
On July 24, my Twitter account did something strange. It blocked people. I assumed it was my fault, and tweeted about it. ( See Tweets dated 7/24) Later that day I began to *engage in conversation with you, and noticed an error message saying “unable to (?) please log out and try again”. I goggled this message and found out it usually meant the person blocked my account. I’d forgotten that this had happened earlier, and mistakenly assumed that my political replies had somehow offended you, so, I sent you a direct message apologizing. I ended the message with Keep up the Good Fight, hoping you would see I had no hard feelings. What happened next shocked me. For reasons I may never understand you posted my DM (edited to your liking I might add) and began ridiculing me. I was labeled stalker, mocked, & compared to a bunny killing fatal attraction loon. Why? The whole incident was a huge misunderstanding, albeit on my part for thinking you blocked me, but a misunderstanding nonetheless. I was not hurt in assuming you blocked me, but I was very disappointed to see your reaction to me un-following you. You claimed that you didn’t care, so why attack me on the internet when I never attacked you. Even as you kept tweeting insults about me to your followers, I never stooped to your level by retaliating. To conclude, if you represent the Democratic party, you did it a terrible disservice that day. Fifteen of my followers screen captured the whole incident and unbeknownst to you, are using it as an educational tool to convince others that Dem’s are vindictive and unreasonable. I don’t expect you to care, but an apology would go a long way. I wont hold my breath, but, if there is a sliver of decency in you, hopefully you will see it was a particularly cruel thing to do to someone who had nothing but respect for you.
Christina M.
July 30, 2011 at 3:50 PM
I got blocked too for not complying with an order via a reply tweet that I hadn’t even seen (yet) before I got blocked so had no opportunity to comply or respond. Pretty quick on the trigger. I very rarely block people (other than spammers), even the crazy teabaggers that send me hate tweets because I find it more mature to simply let slide certain tweets I know will open a can of worms rather than try to silence people.
barkway
October 22, 2011 at 7:57 AM