The august old-school media institution The New York Times comments on the hubbub some bloggers found themselves in by publishing the Jolie/Pitt baby pictures.
Time, Inc. has been aggressively pursuing copyright violators in defense of its exclusive, including Gawker Media and Chartreuse (beta), who commented on his decision to remove the pictures over the weekend.
There’s ammunition and invective enough on both sides of this issue. I think that what this incident shows is that the blogosphere is powerful and can ruin just about any exclusive…
But it also shows that we have alot to learn about respecting the intellectual property of others. Like it or not, Time bought an exclusive to those photos and owns the intellectual property. So don’t steal their work.
After all, I imagine most of you wouldn’t like it if Time started reprinting the better articles from your blog in full – without any credit or attribution. Deep down, I think you’d be angry.
