When Rolling Stone published Michael Hastings’ profile of General Stanley McChrystal, it quickly became, as David Carr, reporting for the New York Times, wrote, “a story that tilted the national conversation.” Unfortunately, the story wasn’t available anywhere. The Associated Press had done an early advance piece featuring highlights and excerpts. But that was it.
Time magazine and Politico both stole the Rolling Stone article and published a .pdf of the complete article on their websites. As Carr writes, “It was a clear violation of copyright and professional practice, and it amounted to taking money out of a competitor’s pocket.” Carr reports that both Politico and Time rationalized their theft by saying that they were responding to a “frenzy involving a significant national issue.”
Rolling Stone may have been clueless in not publishing the article on its website as soon as it was available, but let’s be clear: It was Rolling Stone‘s sole choice to publish the article or not.
Carr quotes Jim VandHei, co-founder and executive editor of Politico as saying, “Our reporters got the article from sources with no restrictions. It was being circulated and widely discussed among insiders, and our team felt readers should see what insiders were reading and reacting to.” VandHei is clearly clueless about stealing the intellectual property of others, but you can bet your ass he’d whine endlessly if it was a Poltico article that had been stolen.
A Time spokeswoman was just as clueless in an email to Carr: “Time.com posted a .pdf of the story to help separate rumor from fact at the moment this story of immense national interest was hitting fever pitch and the actual piece was not available. ... It was a mistake; if we had it do over again [sic], we would only post a headline and an abstract.” Like every blogger on the planet.
