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Report of Net Art Theft Draws Lawyer Threats
An anonymous reader sends in word of the well-known artist Todd Goldman, who has been accused of stealing images and ideas from an Internet comic artist/author and others, and profiting from them. Goldman has now threatened to sue the Web page that pointed out the apparent theft to the world.
Roy Lichtenstein, anyone?
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Considering the most common example I've seen, Todd's gonna have a very hard time covering his butt in a court.
It's not libel if it's true.
IANAL.
If you had super powers, would you use them for good, or for awesome?
I'd be much more worried about what the legions of goons are going to do to him outside of court.
It's an interesting case.
Tod Goldman is, without a doubt, a total jackass, but what he does is extremely common. Fine art has generally gotten a pass when it comes to copying from various sources. It's not as widely known, but it's also very common for comics to copy panels from other comics. It's considered kind of a jerky, lazy thing to do, but it happens all the time.
Godman is recontextualizing the images, and that, in and of itself, can make new and unique works, but instead of honoring the source (or at least owning up to the fact that he copies), he avoids the issue and sends threatening letters.
He's painted himself into a corner. Instead of taking the high road, he has instead presented himself as a no-talent imitator.
Best Windows Freeware
What are the grounds of the suite? If it's untrue then I can understand slander, but this is obvious theft.
The text of Gabe's post:
You might remember Tycho mentioning Todd Goldman and a story about him stealing some artwork from a web cartoonist. We covered it in a comic and a post and our point of view was essentially “yeah it sucks but you can’t sue the guy for being a douche bag.” I would have left it at that except, well the latest development in the whole ordeal is actually super funny. It’s important to point out that Todd’s initial response to the article about his thievery was to call Dave Kelly a Pedophile. I’m not joking here he actually said “Here’s my inspiration! Every month I paint the works of a pedophile.” The letter goes on and it’s obvious that he’s just being a smart ass and blowing the whole thing off. Honestly I chuckled at the letter when I read it because (being a professional asshole myself) I thought it was a funny way to respond to the accusations. However, if you call someone a pedophile in a public forum you can’t turn around a few weeks later and threaten to sue that same forum for slander.
Todd’s lawyers sent Fleen a mail last week that threatened legal action if they didn’t pull down all the stuff about Todd. The letter actually said “We have acquired articles posted on your website which contain defaming, derogatory and malicious statements about Mr. Goldman.” Yeah no shit, the guy isa thief what the hell do you expect.
This sort of legal bulldogging is especially lame after Todd’s initial reaction to the story. If you want to play the arrogant asshole and call people pedophiles I respect that. I really do. I’ve been overcompensating for my low self esteem by calling people names for twenty years. I know how it works and the only rule is if you can’t take it, don’t fucking dish it out.
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
...develop browser-extensions:
i guess an automated website-sue-tool would be handy at these times and i could even make some bucks of it. just enter the URL and the sue-o-mat[tm] will look up the entries at the appropriate NIC, fill out all required forms and send the completely autogenerated charge to your local court. man, that would save time for a lot of folks.
"was inspired from a drawing he received unbeknownst to him belonging to..."
:O
:O
;p
So he didn't know he recieved and looked at the drawing and then duplicated it nearly line for line...he's obviously got better drugs than we do
-or-
He didn't know who it belonged to....so he assumed he did it and put his name on it
oh wait...that doesn't explain a darn thing
and i love the 'inspired from'
Please explain how the praying bunny example exhibits recontextualizing!
Blar.
lol I've read that 3 times now, still dont understand how it works. Ever tried the International Obfuscated C Code Contest :)
So many people in the big leagues steal ideas.
That's why I support GPL to the death.
As an artist who has been completely ripped off, I'm glad to see someone with the opportunity to expose the fraud. There's absolutely nothing to fear from Mr. Goldman if their citing of the 2001 web comic is correct. In fact, I'd hire a particularly expensive lawyer just to make sure the legal fees being sent to Mr. Goldman's office are as high as they can possibly be. I don't think there's a more dispicable trait in this world than to claim someone else's work as your own. You simultaneously prevent the real creator from benefiting himself through his work while creating a false image of your brilliance.
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
Bring it on!
Bullies tend to back down when confronted. Take a look at happens when David Linhardt realizes that Mark Ferguson was going to fight back. http://www.spamsuite.com/node/82
Fight Spammers!
theft of an idea would be very strange, as both perpetration and proof would require telepathy:
"i had this idea in my head and now its gone, OMG that idea in your head.. i recognize it.. give it back you booger!"
taking one person's literary/artistic idea is called plagiarism.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
All that money he's made selling shirts and paintings and stuff, where his assistants brought designs to him and he didn't bother to ask where they got them, well, he's gonna have no problem affording lawyers because he's rich.
It's the poor saps he's stolen from who are going to take the beatings. Such is the way of things.
By the way, the 2nd amendment also favours the rich, they can afford to arm themselves better than the poor.
There seems to be a pattern here.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Um, how many people here are saying Todd Goldman is bad based soley on the content of the linked article he's suing over? I don't know if anything in that article is true or not. If it's not true, Goldman has every right to sue. Of course, if the article is true, then everyone else has a right to sue him instead :)
The image for which Goldman attracted a substantial amount of press and fame and upon which he built his profitable David And Goliath Tees company--the "Boys Are Stupid, Throw Rocks At Them" work--appears to have been partially copied from the portfolio of Chip Wass:
http://chris-san.livejournal.com/49035.html
With enough money he can drive the poor artists who came up with his ideas for him out of business.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
What's funny is that someone who goes to all that trouble just to print "QUACK, MOTHER FUCKER!" to stdout cannot spell "Turing" correctly.
I've seen a number of articles like this pop up on /. recently. Generally, the topic is something like "XX tawdry action occurs... lawyers threaten to sue".
... the value of the words alone.
While legal threats do carry weight of their own in our society, there's a BIG difference between threatening to sue and filing a legal document. The main difference is the consequences to the petitioner.
If I threaten to sue someone and don't have sufficient grounds to do so, there's no consequence to me for making that argument. (other than PR and reputation).
But once a lawyer files a document with the court, the lawyer or the plaintiff has signed a document that bears a signature alleging the facts within it are true. Not that it happens often, but the court could discipline you for a knowing falsehood.
Take legal threats for what they're worth
IANAL, etc, etc. If someone with a law degree wants to clean up or correct this post, have at it =D.
Here's the Coal link to it: http://www.miketyndall.com.nyud.net:8080/todd_gold man/
Willie...
Yes, I called their bluff and they sued me. A photo from my website was published in the Twin Cities phone book inside cover. The corporation that used it refused to pay a licensing fee, and I wrote about it on my website. They threatened to sue me for defamation, arguing the photo was not mine, but taken by Michael Zubitskiy (a fictional person). I have a certificate of copyright registration for the photo, and did not remove the webpage. They sued me for defamation, and it's safe to say it's blown up in their face.
I later brought my own action for copyright infringement in federal court, trial is set for November. They first sued me in August of 2005, and I was in court just yesterday (I'm litigating "pro se", representing myself). Yesterday's hearing was because they wanted email between myself and an attorney I hired to get legal advice from, which is obviously protected by lawyer-client confidentiality.
The full story is here:
http://www.cgstock.com/essays/vilana.html
www.cgstock.com
I thought you guys would find this amusing - FreeBSD daemon on the left, "Todd"'s "art" on the right:
i efcm2.jpg
j pg
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/5980/goldmanth
Check the odd pattern on the sneakers - matches up exactly with the pattern the pixels make when you blow up the image. The daemon head is from another Wassco piece:
http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/6038/devilhp1.
Maybe he's suing for Definition of Character?
This is obviously a clear cut example of prior art.
In all seriousness, I really just can't understand at all what he thinks he's doing. Either he is completely ignoring the advice of his lawyers or else he has got some incredibly bad ones. Just like most of the posters here I am not a lawyer* but I'm pretty sure that to be guilty of libel or slander the accused has to knowingly make a false statement and the statement has to be done with the intent of causing harm to the subject's reputation.
Making a true statement (It appears that he stole another artists work, I think he stole another artists work, He has created something a great deal like something someone else has created, etc.) or erroneously making a false statement (for example, saying Goldman's work was created second if it were to turn out that Goldman's work was actually created first) don't pass the standard to legally be considered libel. Of course since libel is a civil case rather than a criminal case he would only need a preponderance of evidence to win rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but even then I have a really hard time believing his lawyers think there's any chance of winning, and of course as people avidly point out whenever Mr. Thompson files a suit or even threatens such a thing, filing a suit that you have no reasonable expectations of winning opens you up to a counter-suit and just the act of threatening a suit that you have no reasonable chance of winning opens you up to charges of barratry.
*I wrote the abbreviation first but decided I really didn't like the sentence "Just like most of the posters here IANAL..."
See how they stood up
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
No problem. I won't use that joke anymore. It didn't seem to go over too well anyway.
What?
What the lawyers don't want you to see.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
What he did was clearly plagiarism of the worst kind. No-one in their right mind would try to defend taking another person's work and claiming it so blatantly to be their own. Of course, I have seen the odd designer stealing code from other websites and it seems to pass without comment... Is their a difference in taking someone's art without attribution and taking code that creates art without attribution?
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
Unless by that you mean the defendant hasn't enough money to mount a defence. In most jurisdictions, truth is a defence and the burden is on the plaintiff to prove untruth. Given that, statements of opinion can never be libel, because they can never be disproven and are easily proven.
I've learned the threshold is soo high, courts will essentially do nothing. I'm in the second year defending myself against a defamation lawsuit over a webpage I wrote saying one of my photos was published without my permission. The party suing me (Vilana Financial) filed (with their complaint) a sales agreement showing they bought the photo from Michael Zubistkiy, who they claim under oath is the true photographer.
I have proof the photo is mine, including the certificate of copyright registration. Also, there is no Michael Zubitskiy. They claim they paid him in cash, but did not get his contact information and lost the photo he gave them (and all copies). My investigator and their investigator cannot find anyone in the USA by that name -- no address, credit record, work history, or even welfare history or an unlisted phone number.
I have a certificate of copyright registration, the original digital file, out-takes from the same photo shoot, proof of prior publication on my website, and proof I sold the photo to a local magazine prior to their use of the image. They have nothing but this sales agreement with a signature. Knowing all this, the other party claimed, under oath, that the photo is not mine, but Michael Zubitskiy is the true photographer.
They supposedly met him at a health club, and upon subpoena, the club said they have no record of Zubitskiy. It's clear this is a fictional person, but what's more, even if he did exist, he did not take the photo -- I did. So I filed a motion for sanctions with all of the above evidence 15 months ago; the judge cancelled the hearing, saying it was premature and should wait until after the trial is over. Full story: www.cgstock.com/essays/vilana.html
So I would not count on the courts to spot even an obviously absurd and improper claim. Everyone knows it's my photo, yet I'm 18 months into this litigation.
www.cgstock.com
With music/movies/software, we tend to support the college kids, families, and whomever is in the defense of the *AA lawsuits due to the fact that it appears about 90% of the time the "mafiaa" sue without enough incriminating evidence to actually win a lawsuit. Furthermore, it's highly doubtful that the music pirates would have actually bought the copyrighted material in the first place, and, as individuals, generally aren't distributing the music past 2-3 people.
/. readers when I say that if this guy had printed out the other artists' work from the website and hung it on his wall, it'd be the same scale of copyright violation as the *AA sue people for.
This guy is blatantly copying and selling (for a profit) the artwork of others. I think I speak for most of the
Or, more concisely; mass reproduction, claiming ownership and selling for a profit != reproduction (solely) for home use.
--
This might sound sappy, but I mean it, upon seeing photo #4445 one can only think that you are the kind of person who makes the world a better place to be.
I hope that you will be victorious in court.
Carbon based humanoid in training.
He says this whole fiasco is libel to ruin his career.
*rimshot*
you can have my violent video games when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Prime UID Club
The author of that peice has something on Livejournal explaining it. http://vebelfetzer.livejournal.com/ Also seems that the grassroots entries defending Todd on the Wired's forums are all coming from the same IP.
Yeah, because he'd be contributing so much more to society as a bloodsucker than as a photographer.
I remember my aunt - who used to be a fashion photographer - got similarly ripped off *repeatedly* by different companies. Many of them were companies with whom she'd do business, they'd keep using the photographs after the license they'd buy had expired, that sort of thing. She eventually made a fair amount of money off the lawsuits, but it was touch and go for a while, and what with one thing and another I think she's more or less given up professional photography.
It's a real problem with American law, especially copyright - in order for creators to actually benefit from the protection, they basically need to practice law on the side. OTOH, powerful groups with many lawyers and deep pockets can use the threat of litigation as a club even when they have no case.
4445 is cute and all, but 3472? Definite MILF.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
OK, do you think that kdawson refers to it as "stealing ideas" in order to try start yet another flamewar about whether you can steal an idea or not, or is he just oblivious?
And while we're at it, could we get an editor who doesn't treat punctuation like a game of Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey?
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
The first thing this will cause is a demand that he stops saying this (someone might have the legal term at hand, I don't know enough English legalese). And that's pretty much what he wants: To shut up the person who spreads the news that he supposedly steals his content.
By the time that suit is finally settled (or retracted), he will have found some sort of agreement with the original authors (or sued them into oblivion as well), and it can't be spread anymore either 'cause then it would be slander.
That's what suits like this should accomplish. And, behold, they do.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The page about Todd Goldman on Wikipedia was "Office Protected" for a while, apparently after Wikipedia received similar lawsuit threats. Wikipedia's hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida, is 1/2 hour drive away from Clearwater, where Goldman's company is based - so they may be especially sensitive to lawsuit threats from him because they'd be a convenient target.
Clearwater is the home of the Church of Scientology, which has ties to a great many businesses located there. The Church of Scientology is also thoroughly documented to use lawsuit threats, lawsuits (especially on intellectual property grounds), and strange false pedophilia accusations, against its enemies.
Todd Goldman's business is located in Clearwater. He's using lawsuit threats on intellectual property grounds, and strange false pedophilia accusations, against his enemies.
I don't know that there's any connection between Goldman and Scientology - Hanlon's Razor about malice and stupidity applies and it's entirely possible that he and the Scientologists are simply both jerks with nothing else in common - but it's enough to make me wonder.
Wow! This guy's a bigger rip-off artist than Carlos Mencia!
I get genuinely confused by misleading headlines like this. I keep reading for where the art was stolen (as in, art was stolen from a museum and can't be viewed until it is found). The original artist has not lost access to these works apparently, so the defining element of theft is missing: the lack of use by the original owner of the item stolen.
Sappy or not, I appreciate the sentiment.
www.cgstock.com
Your page completely and utterly fails in firefox. Shows up blank. Works in IE.
These guys (Vilana & Co.) sound like total scumbags & I hope you take them to the cleaners in court.
There is a war going on for your mind.
It gets worse - there's been some Myspace identity theft of people that are critical of him going on and this nasty piece of work or somebody assocated with him is filling the accounts with porn or an image saying TODD WAS HERE (actually hosted on Goldman's website - this guy is an idiot or thinks everyone will back down). Does a social engineering attack on a company to get access to other peoples acounts come under hacking laws? Perhaps he'll annot enough people to come to the attention of law enforcement - this man should learn that jails are full of people that did stupid things they knew were illegal.
Works fine in Firefox 2.0.0.3
That's also what I'm using.
Works for me too. That clearly means it's something to do with the way you've set up your system or browser options.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
default install, the only thing I've added is flash block.
I think the most comforting thing about this whole fiasco is that regardless of the outcome of the various suits, Todd Goldman will be lucky to sell so much as a stick figure drawing after this is over. His target audience is not the sort of crowd to take well to thier idols being threatened with lawuits, they'll see him as the bad guy even IF he somehow proves he didn't steal his work. I hope he likes working at McDonald's.
Isn't enough that I ruined a pony, making a gift for you?
How praytell may one do this without relieving the victims/defense of this defense mentally to begin with?
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Overview: The first half of s is the second half of s, XOR'd with the target output string (plus 10, since the result is not in the set of printable characters). Using two pointers, the program iterates over both halves of the string, undoing this operation to produce the target output string. When main() is called and c is zero, it increments the two character pointers in v (changing them in the calling function, which happens to be main()).
In short, main() is used both as the function to increment both pointers and also as the function to output the result; the operation main() performs in a given call is controlled by c.
Detail: When it runs the first time, c (read: argc) is greater than or equal to 1. So s gets initialized, and k (note, an array of ptr to char, like v (read: argv)) receives two pointers, each one character before the beginning of each "half" of the XOR'd string. c is non-zero, so we enter the first expression (a while loop).
A recursive call to main() is made immediately, providing !k (read: 0) as the first actual (i.e. c in the next call), and k as the second (i.e. v in the next call). In the recursive call, both pointers in v (read: k in the caller) are incremented (since c is zero) and s and k are ignored. The return value (i.e. the value evaluated by the while loop in the caller) is equal to *++*v, or the character in the second half of s. The return value will eventually be NULL when it reaches the end of the string. The caller then outputs whatever is pointed to by k[0] and k[1] (this is why we begin one character *before* the strings we're interested in).
In short, main(c,v) has two behaviors:
For all c: Given a target string y, initialize s = x1x2, such that, for all xi in x1 and all xj in x2, xi = xj xor yi + 10.
For all c: Initialize k such that k[0] is &x1-1, k[1] is &x2-1.
c == 0: increment v[0] and v[1]
c == 1: call self recursively, with c == 0, v == k, outputting the character pointed to by k[0] and k[1] until k[0] is NULL; then return 0.
I would like to fix the problem, but I'm stumped -- I developed it with Firefox under Linux (which has been my default browser for ~2 years). Can you tell me if "view->source" gives you the raw HTML (and not a blank page)?
www.cgstock.com
View sources give me this body and head tags, thats it. No content what so ever.
You can sue anyone for anything in the US, but you cant go around using lawsuits as a threat.
For a lawsuit to be legit it has to be the last resort not the first threat you pull out of the bag. not to mention it can never be and idle threat but a step by step escalation where legal action is warranted.
He just put himself in an actionable position
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
the 2nd amendment also favours the rich, they can afford to arm themselves better than the poor.
You spelled "favors" with a "u". I know what side of the Revolutionary War you were on. :P
Anyway, you don't need a nuke or a laser gun or an aircraft carrier to effectively arm yourself. You can get a shiny new pistol for under $200, an arguably more useful hunting rifle for $500, or any other arsenal of weapons you could imagine (in the US, at least.) These prices are well within a month's paycheck for most people - heck, I work part time and make minimum wage, and none of this would be a stretch for me.
And this is if you do it legally. Remember that many of the founding fathers saw the second amendment as a "do-over" or reset switch for the government - if things got out of hand, the citizens could always overthrow it. Think Thomas Jefferson's "A little rebellion now and then is a good thing" mixed with Shay's Rebellion, and you've got the idea.
Guns are affordable, and they're another check on the balance of power within our government.
Further democracy. Exercise your rights. Buy a gun and start shooting^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H democratizing our government! (Well, not at people, ya moron. That's dangerous.)
DATABASE WOW WOW
...Just because you don't like it doesn't make it something else. It's still the same law being broken as when you download some movie or song. Not to say that this is right or the others wrong, there is a difference, but it's still not "stealing". Only way someone can steal an image is if they sneak up to you and grab your drawing. And no, depriving you of possible profits is not theft, ether; theres a whole lot of things it maybe, though.
Please, don't argue with double standards. It makes us all look bad.
Great Intellect...
Thanks. That's a problem. The browser isn't rendering the page wrong, though -- it's not receiving the html at all. I'm stumped as to why, though.
www.cgstock.com
What's funny is that someone who goes to all that trouble just to print "QUACK, MOTHER FUCKER!" to stdout cannot spell "Turing" correctly.
TODD
Works fine in my browser (Firefox 2.0.0.3 on XP.) What version are you running?
Well, I wish you luck. But I hope you're in it for the money, because you're not establishing any kind of principle. You've only got this far because you've been willing to devote a lot of effort to this battle, and because you've been lucky enough not to trip over any legal land mines. Most people would have given up by now, or made a mistake that would have ended the whole shooting match. Which is why the kind of abusive litigation Vilenchik is throwing at you almost always works. That's not going to change, no matter what the outcome of your case.
But of course getting a fat settlement out of this guy ain't chopped liver, and would certainly repay all your hard work. Speaking of which, I do hope you given as much thought to collecting this judgment as you have to winning it!
already above, the same. it seems for some reason the browser isn't even retrieving the HTML on that particular page.
Sites working fine here, same build/extensions. But I have similar problems with a lot of pages, it's just a FF bug, view in... *shudder* IE
The major difference, in my mind, is this: When you make an unauthorized copy of a Britney Spears song (I know you're a big Britney fan. I can just tell these things), you are not claiming the work as your own, and then turning around and profiting from your plagiarism.
That's the key issue here: plagiarism. Goldman is claiming that the works are his creations.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
There are quite a few differencies between this case and the mafiaa vs. $JoeNobody suits.
The most obvious and blatant one, I guess nobody infringing copyright who was sued by the mafiaa ever claimed copyright over their material. Here it's different. He claims the allegedly "stolen" content as his own intellectual property. I kinda doubt any of the kids dragged to court by the mafiaa ever claimed to be one of their hypestars and that the latest smash hit album was actually theirs.
Should the accusations be true, this is more than just selling someone else's art. It's worse than just ripping a CD and selling that for profit. What he allegedly did was to take someone else's art and claim it as his own. What makes this worse is, that, if this would stand, he could actually sue the original artist for copyright infringement.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Is it plagiarism? Sure is.
Copyright infringement, you bet it is.
Immoral, oh yea.
The guy deserves a decent slap? Yup.
Is it theft? Hell no. Theft refers to depriving someone of their property. To copy a work without permission is copyright infringement. To claim someone else's work is your own is plagiarism. The only ones who benefit from blurring these terms are those who seek to rewrite the law without having to bother about the "inconvenient" proper procedure involved in doing so.
Next time I get mod points I'm definitely giving you some :)
After significant research, I decided the "parody" fair-use exception to copyright infringement applied to my use of the Waldo character to parody the situation with Michael Zubitskiy. The parody exception is widely exercised in the media, and my Waldo graphic is not for commercial gain.
Note that I allow others to use my photos free of charge for non-commercial web use (see the licensing terms page on my website for details), so there is consistency in my conduct.
www.cgstock.com
"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
--Albert Einstein
*ducks*
Penny Arcade didn't fare as well with American Greetings when they parodied an unrelated video game using an adult version of the Strawbrry Shortcake character.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
And "Tom Goes to the Mayor" producers sue BOTH of them for ripping off the plot of their Christmas episode.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The E-mail came from someone who had Goldman's E-Mail address in the E-Mail's "FROM" field.
Now, the above statement does not rule out the answer everyone's assuming - that Goldman sent the e-mail. It's possible. But nevertheless there is a very real possibility that the e-mail was just sent by someone else. On Fleen they acknowledge this possibility but assume the sender is a fan of Goldman. Are they really that naive? So naive that they've never heard of trolling by pretending to be the one you want to draw negative attention to, and acting like a complete dickweed under their name?
Now, what could Fleen have done that would constitute slander, libel, what have you? They published that e-mail, and assigned more credibility to it than it was worth. (paraphrasing the post on Fleen here - ) 'I'm not qualified to say if it's really from Goldman, but if it is, he's a bigger jerk than we thought. If it's from his fans then they're bigger jerks than we thought.' They took what, to me, is almost certainly a hoax, and put it in the context as if Goldman had actually sent it.
Now, how could we know if this e-mail was real?
- Does the message quote any text that the receiver previously sent to Goldman's e-mail? If so, that wouldn't completely rule out it being fake, but it'd complicate the process of faking it. (The faker would need to gain access to a computer on one end, or intercept the e-mail en route, in order to gain access to the original text.)
- The message says "Thanks for the inquiry" - what inquiry? If this is in response to a specific message wouldn't there usually be a quote? Or a "RE:" in the subject line even?
- The message headers. Like Gary on Fleen I can't look at the headers and tell you if the message is legit or not. The full headers are posted on fleen.
Now, scenarios. Which do you suppose is most likely?
- Goldman sent the offending message himself. (Going just from the "FROM" field this is the simplest explanation - but does it still make sense when you bring the whole picture into consideration? And how much evidence is there supporting this?)
- One of Goldman's fans sent the offending message. Feeling polarized in the whole conflict they want to praise their hero and trash Kelly. So why would they pretend to be Goldman? It doesn't take much in the way of brains to see what'd happen when the message is received - if you want to trash somebody it's more effective to be the person you're trying to trash, rather than somebody whose credibility is already on shaky ground.
- One of Goldman's enemies sent the offending message. If we assume this is what happened, then we can say it was a very effective strategy. Gary Tyrrell on Fleen didn't cast much doubt on its authenticity, and everyone who wants to hate Goldman seems very willing to assume it's legit.
- There was no e-mail, Gary Tyrrell forged the whole thing to get attention on the Fleen blog. I consider this a fairly remote possibility.
It seems to me people are either astoundingly gullible or naive to so quickly accept this message as legit, or else they want it to be legit so badly they're willing to fool themselves, or else they just like the idea of it being legit so much that they want to go along with the gag. One can assume that Goldman has been harassed by well-meaning idiots on the internet over the whole deal - and things like this make that situation worse. So Goldman has a legitimate gripe against people who, by carelessness or design, slander him over this matter. You could try to justify that kind of thing by saying Goldman started it - but remember that Kelly is the one with a legitimate gripe against Goldman. The two of them are apparently working out a deal, and it's Kelly's decision whether that deal is OK. But Goldman didn't do anything to you.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
Works fine in 1.5.0.11 on XP
Penny Arcade fared perfectly. They did not lose in court; they did not make any attempt to fight in court. Instead they complied with the cease-and-desist letter and then ran a comic portraying American Greetings as Nazi anal rapists, and nobody said boo. The original strip is far more famous than if American Greetings had never done anything, which they've presumably figured out since they're not C&Ding all the places it's easily available now (Wikipedia fer Christs sake).
American Greetings lost that confrontaion big time, and Penny Arcade didn't have to spend a dime on lawyers to make it happen.
Have you seen how SA (and lawyer Leonard "J." Crabs) treats legal threats? It's a thing of beauty. http://www.somethingawful.com/d/legal-threats/inde x.php
My personal favorite is here: http://i.somethingawful.com/images/lawsuit-10.jpg
It doesn't matter who it is, or how much money and legal representation they have. The point is, Todd BLATANTLY stole this and a lot of other works for his own profit without referencing the source or any permission. We've determined that as a fact. Now what must be done, what HAS to be done is for the artist(s) who were wronged to see this thing through to completion. Sure, theft on intellectual property happens all the time, but it doesn't HAVE to. It's like a game of chicken, first one to back down loses. As someone who takes his own art and copyrighted material *very* seriously, i say RUN THAT NO GOOD THUG INTO THE GROUND!!! Don't let up! Take it all the way! Even if you come out with nothing left, by deuce, you made a stand and showed him you mean business! I don't know about you, but I'd rather be remembered as a martyr than a coward. /endrant