The Internet Vigilante Mob (a postmortem)
January 22nd, 2006 by Vince Chan :: 
Due to the ProBlogger / AmBlogger fiasco, I’ve no doubt made many people unhappy by my decision to peek into Darren’s stylesheet and applied some minor changes. Yes, it seems weird and stupid but I was looking for the “Bizarro ProBlogger” look. The color change of blue was the exact hexadecimal opposite of his color orange.
I’m not offended by the comments posted on both Blogs. Long ago before the internet revolution, I remembered this medium called BBS where much harsher words were spoken. An old fashion flame war was fun to some, stressful to others. Nothing I haven’t seen or heard.
How did I feel through this ordeal? I wasn’t phased by the peer pressure, or the colorful languages. Did I learn a few things? Certainly! I hope others learnt some too through the observation process.
To Be Public Or Not To Be?
Should I have publicized the event? Conventional wisdom tells me that I should have responded to Darren in private and hindsight is clear as crystal. There doesn’t seem to be a point in trying to clarify that this publication was not for monetary or link bait reasons. Everyone who was commenting had already made up their mind about the situation and anything I said stoked the fire more.
Consequences
I am sure there are consequences for what I’ve done. I wasn’t trying to get out of any blame by putting up rationale. I was simply trying to promote discussion on a topic that I have not seen on any Blogs out there. The discussion turned too one sided too quickly and I’m not trying to say it was wrong for the comments to go that way. To most people, it was a no-brainer that I should take the design down. The mob didn’t accomplish anything that I haven’t thought about myself. I wasn’t playing dumb or ignorant, I was on a quest to take the discussion to one based on point/counter-point, arguments, logic and I was expecting everyone to say that I was wrong, could have done better but offered up good discussion material.
Mirrors
But just as my actions are observed as a mirror of my character. So are the comments a mirror on the commenters themselves. There are people who’ve taken the high road in commenting, and those who’ve taken a more direct approach. There are those who made use of the forum to make suggestions and counter-points, there are those who merely wanted to comment. One thing was certain, I had no intention of moderating or censoring any of those comments.
A Discussion Is Now Happening!
The funny thing is that more comments are coming out now that were what I was looking for on both Pro and Am Blogger. These new comments are still saying that I am not right but there is now a serious discussion about the subject!
Did I achieve the goal of getting a discussion? I think so… at what cost? Was prolonging the experience worth it by not acting quickly? I don’t have an answer for this yet. Still a little bit overwhelmed about the whole experience that it’ll take me a bit of time to fully reflect.
I also wonder, if it were not a popular blog like ProBlogger and some other site did this to them. What would have happened? Does this mob help anybody who requests for it are not high profile? A little bit of link bait mentality there is also possible.
51 Responses to “The Internet Vigilante Mob (a postmortem)”
I hope the lesson learned for you was “Thou shall not steal.”
There’s no big debate, people just hate a thief is all. You’re not even sorry, just sorry you were caught.
Anyway I’m gone, back to your 2 visitors a day jackass.
I think you, as well as others, know exactly what you wanted to accomplish with this escapade.
Vic
I also wonder, if it were not a popular blog like ProBlogger and some other site did this to them. What would have happened?
______________________________________________________
nothing,lol! “How Not to Launch a Blog - The Story of an Amateur Blogger” is the title of the post by Darren. I am personally offended. Why? I happen to also be an “Amateur Blogger”
Jeff posted “thou shall not steal” but the good book also says forgive (and forget)
Vince don’t get discouraged, we “Amateurs” gotta start somewhere.
“Was prolonging the experience worth it by not acting quickly? I don’t have an answer for this yet.”
You don’t have an answer for that yet?
You still don’t get it do you?
GIVE VINCE A BREAK!
Wow, lots of heat from EVERYONE. I think he made a very valuable point in the “Content vs. Container” section of his rebuttal where he argued that he is not stealing probloggers content.
Probably close to half of all “design” on the internet, ranging from html, css, images, and a combination of all three are either taken, borrowed, or “inspired” from another source.
A quick whois indicates that amblogger was registered on January 2nd 2006: problogger registered on November 18th 2004. My point? Give Vince a break. His site has been registered for barely three weeks. Problogger has a great site layout, and obviously even the domain name was inspired from Darrens site… My 2nd point: there is nothing wrong with that. We have no idea what Vince’s site may have evolved to.
Remember: Imitation is the highest form of flattering.
I currently run about 2 “large” sites and 3-4 “smaller” sites, and I can honestly say that not a single design started from “scratch” - every single layout started as a pre-existing template, which I continue to update and modify as I see fit. (No, I’m not here to plug my sites, so linking will not be necessary.)
People learn by imitading, studying, experimenting, etc. I consider myself to be an excellent programmer, I know php and jscript very well. I can still remember, however, the days of looking (and COPYING) somebody elses code, making modifcations, figuring out how it works, etc.
Both arguments have strong sides. However, not even the best intellectual property lawyers would ever successfully prove that *.css file is copyrighted. What are you going to argue? that #asdf123 is YOUR “color” That “div.amblogger.net a:hover” is your unique idea? I don’t think we want to head down that path. If we do, perhaps W3C (http://www.w3.org) should copyright EVERY CSS Schema.
Like I said, give him a break. 40+ negative comments? Vince - all they are doing is trying to capitalize off of your spike in traffic to plug *GASP* their OWN site…!
Borrowing someone elses CSS? We’ve all done it. Problems with monetizing this site?? Most would call it patriotically American. Yes, I realize Vince is Canadian. But Canadian = American. So there you go. There is my two sense.
I am intentionally not linking to one of my sites so there is no conflict of interest.
Vince: Don’t sweat the small stuff. Keep doing you’re thing, focusing on amature bloggers, and doing what you set out to do.
(and of course, when I said “there is my two ’sense’ - I meant cense. err… cents. Oh, how I love thy Corona con lima. Mexican also = American, BTW)
I was thinking the same thing about trying to copyright a css file. I like your example about:
- that #asdf123 is YOUR “color”
Then he would have to come from austraila and get a judge in your country, or the country your server is in to agree that the CSS was too similar and issue a court order to have it taken down???
that’s gotta be a good use of time and money.
Almost makes me want to put one up on a dare.
(I am so depressed - nobody ever steals my CSS)
Hey Brent- I’m working on porting the grifted.com template + CSS over to one of my own sites. NOW you have no reason to feel depressed. How am I doing it? Well….
The Registrar is out of the UK. However the site is hosted in Belgium. Although the content was created in Candada via PCAnywhere: my host PC being physically located in China but the nameserver for me site is in Mexico. The site that I “stole” the code from is in the US however.
Who’s laws did I break? Who has the energy/ambition to figure it out? My guess: nobody.
You make a good point though Brent. By the time it gets to a court, are they seriously going to argue over a .css document? Not that it would ever get to a courtroom floor, I suggest our IP Attorneys go over things that matter, such as exploited children and child porn., etc.
to the people defending him…please, if you are really real, which I doubt.
As another commenter said, you still don’t get it do you. Vigilante Mob? how about concerned bloggers who don’t stand for people who steal templates. Slander us all if you must, but at the end of the day we forced you to change your ways, so Blog Swarn 1 Chan 0.
[...] The story of Vince Chan here. He still doesn’t get it. The Internet Vigilante Mob (no follow used) is what he calls the blog swarm that forced him to stop using the stolen Problogger template, and he still tries to defend his original position. Anyone live in Scarborough, Ontario who might like to relate our anger in person? Maybe you know the guy and can talk some common sense into him…he certainly needs a friendly face to explain the cold, hard truth of what he has done. [...]
Ahhh, chilled, Monday morning feeling.
I’m real, Duncan, you know that - and I’m sitting in the middle watching it all.
Sigh…
I don’t think some people are going to forgive or forget quickly, if at all, Vince - perhaps it might be best to let this site quietly hibernate and start something new, from as scratch as you can get (yeah, ’cause we all design everything totally from scratch, huh? ;)
Don’t give up to this vigilante mob Vince! Just because your blog “resembles” some one elses or even looks exactly like it does not give these people the right to judge. Does Darren own the color orange with some box menus? Is no one else allowed to use that look? Fuck that!
The fact of the matter is a lot of people use similar wordpress themes. Just because you are using a theme that looks alike does not mean you are going to get a lot of readers.
Listen the fact is as long as you don’t steal content. Everything will be OK. No one will visit your shitty look alike blog anyway! Unless you put up some great original content.
I actually have a friend that uses a theme that looks exaclty like boingboing.net To think that boingboing is worried about this is laughable.
Hey thief,
Can you tell me why just about all the visitors to your site are from problogger and Rachel Cunliffes site?
Ermm, because they linked here?
The word “vigilante” was inspired by comment #17 on “ProBlogger talks to AmBlogger”. I don’t invent such words.
I asked in the post that if they think it was linkbait, not to link to this post. Freedom of choice, eh?
I put forth the thought whether if this were not a high profile site, who would care? Most chose to ignore this question.
I’m also wondering why everybody still has enough frame of mind to make sure their comments link to their own page? As some people have pointed out in other comments.
Just because something is hard to swallow, hard to report (even to the point that people are suggesting to visit me physically in the real world) doesn’t mean I should not keep asking the tough questions. Defeats the purposes to say I was not right myself, and still insist on not getting it, don’t you think? To you I might be dumb and naive, but I am not such an individual to insist on contradicting myself.
There is a reason why I can asking the questions I’m asking and there’s a reason why people are not answering. Some will come back and retort simply, “yeah because you’re a thief” (and make sure they leave their link behind in the process). But the potential reality is that if AmBlogger were such a victim today, no such mob would ever form.
How about looking at it this way. As I see it, the guy wasn’t at all trying to pass off this design as his own at all - he freely admitted taking code from Problogger.net and never once claimed he wrote it himself.
Plus, take a look at the site names - amblogger.bet and problogger.net - they’re direct opposites. Even the blue was the hex opposite of Darren’s orange.
The guy was obviously trying to put up a parody site in a similar vein to Blogebrity vs Douchebrity a couple of weeks ago. I’m sure there was some kind of reasonable thought behind his idea, even if he didn’t quite go about it the right way.
However, once one of you yelled thief without even thinking about what this guy might have been trying to achieve, the rest of you followed suit like some kind of comedy wild west lynch mob without a f*cking care in the world.
If Krug told you all to jump right off the ESB, would you all do it.
Probably.
Jesus. What a f*cking bunch of lemmings.
I don’t know, but maybe all of this (and the publicity) could’ve been completely avoided with one simple request:
“Darren, may I borrow your site’s design as a parody of yours?”
Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose.
Oh, and as far as “lemmings” are concerned, there are two groups to this whole fiasco: those who condone, those who don’t. Both are conforming to the one, or the other, right Jim?
Vic
am·a·teur
adj.
1. Of or performed by an amateur.
2. Made up of amateurs: an amateur cast.
3. Not professional; unskillful.
I don’t consider myself to be in either of the groups. I don’t especially condone what he did, but I’m not jumping on the ‘this is fucking evil’ bandwagon, either.
And that last sentence didn’t quite make sense. You wanna try again for me?
I doubt most people ask permission before parodying something - isn’t that at least part of the point?
You’re right, Andy. What I intended to get across was that that little question could’ve saved half a novel’s worth of comments, defenses, etc. (that, of course, is all dependent on whether Darren would’ve said yes or no).
Oh, and I think this entire ordeal could’ve been debated without one instance of name calling. It looks like every other comment I read, I’m seeing some glorified version of “poo poo head” or “liar liar”. We’re all adults, right?
Vic
Heh, this is the blogosphere Vic: normal rules for living don’t apply (to everyone).
Oh yeah, that is something I’ve learned, and am still learning, after five months of living in the blogosphere. It definitely makes for interesting times.. ;)
Your blatant copy of the design shows you do not have an original thought in your head. It’s called stealing.
I loved Darren’s site, I got hooked by the portrait of a religious and kind person who wishes the best to all. But bringing this to Vince, is wrong. It should have been handled privately and/or left alone. The insults are on behalf of probloogger.com, and have impressed in me a minacious image about him and his dogs. BEWARE OF THE DOGS (They’ll send someone to break your leggs across the globe). Vince I’m scared for you, lock up tonight.
I’ll keep you bookmarked.
I’m going to start my VERY OWN BLOG!
Q 1 : What colours I’m not alloud?
Q 2 : Fonts, is arial taken? I’ve seen it on google.
Q 3 : If I write about news, but I sit on my ass all day in front of the danm computer re-typing what I read to make it sound different, is it stealing.
Q 5 : We dont produce what we sell, do we?
What vince did with font colour, is what a blogger does with everything! Find -> Change -> Publish = Blogging for cash.
Watch out proobloogger, I AM going to steal your colour and hide it where you’ll never find it again!
Soon you’ll wake to find your site black and white!
Ooh, desaturating the blogosphere. Nice…
Duncan - Are you to tell me that you’ve never borrowed somebody elses design + content? MOST of your sites are nothing but stolen content with a few personal opinions added. Honestly, I respect you very much; I’ve read/listened to your interviews (easybakeweblogs, problogger, etc.) I’ve studied your sites and your business model, and I hope to be at a level where you are one day… But we don’t need to hate Vince for this move.
But like jim sheppard shared in his post - it was purposefully a parody site, and the small change in the link code was a further play on that concent.
It could have been a LOT worse - he could have stolen the design AND all of his content. Maybe he should have put a commented-disclaimer in the css file acknowleding that he is borrowing from problogger.net, etc. I don’t know… What I DO know is that this issue is going to become more of an issue as logs/bloggers get bigger and bigger.
God, is that really you? What have you done with q 4? And on the fourth day, God forgot and skipped to the fifth day…
He works in mysterious ways…
Well,.. that was your 15 minutes…. See ya!
Hola AMBlogger, vos sos un tipo bueno, se nota por la manera en que tomaste la “denuncia” que hizo el idiota de Duncan del supuesto “robo” de la hoja de estilo… te equivocaste Vince en una cosa: no tendrías que haber cambiado la hoja de estilo, seguí usando la de ProBlogger, quien carajo es ese pelotudo tambien! Tiene un blog comercial de mierda, ningún espíritu de compartir nada… no sacaste contenido, sólo el estilo!
Dejense de jode manga de nerds del orto, dejenlo en paz a Vince, que se nota es un buen tipo… es canadiense, son gente mansa y buena, a diferencia de los yanquis de mierda y los australianos que le chupan las medias.
As a former practicing attorney, maybe I can shed some light on a few misconceptions here. This is based on US law, but Australian copyright law is fairly similar.
First of all, what Vince did does not qualify as a “parody,” and is therefore not fair use. Vince was not making a critical statement about ProBlogger or its subject matter, he was making a for-profit spin off of ProBlogger aimed at a slightly different audience.
Code *is* protected by copyright from the moment is comes into existence. Since Rachel made the code for hire, Darren owns that copyright.
People who don’t think a stylesheet is legally protected are woefully misinformed, and if you steal from people less tolerant than Darren, your ass can and will be sued.
Also, regarding damages, sometimes actual damages do not have to be proved. In the US if your copyright is registered (which can be done at any time befor suit is filed) you may be able to recover money damages without proving actual loss.
The law is designed that way to stop people from stealing and then getting out of it by arguing “it didn’t hurt.” Infringing on copyright can have intangible bad effects, and the law wants to discourage that as well.
So… other than for substantial modifcation or for “inspiration” only, keep your hands off of other people’s code.
Also, just to alleviate any confusion, my current blog is about “copywriting,” which is different than “copyright.” Unfortunately, some people are not sure what the difference is.
I think Brian says it all really. No amount of spin of trying to make this out as a parody site when it clearly never was will make it right.
As for the chap slamming me and accusing me of theft, prove it. My code is heavily customised code based originally on the Kubrick code (for the blog herald). The b5media site designs have been paid for and professionally design/ original code.
no way was this a parody when the dude was saying he was hoping to collaborate on something
that was before he rolled out the “trying to spur discussion” excuse
link-baiting is all it was. there’s nothing wrong with that necessarily as long as you admit to it when you’re called on it, or at least think of a more creative way to do it
you’re still a tool yo
If it was linkbait it worked :)
I will be checking your site for some original content this time in the days to come.
To the former practicing attorney, what are the chances of Darren winning a case in court and collecting something from Vince? even collecting attorney’s fees? … watch out Vince, someone maybe doing an asset search on you right now, better start hiding all your yachts in someone else’s name.
One other point I would like to get some input on is that I noticed Darren’s camera blog was 100% copied content, at least I looked at more than a dozen posts and they were, with out a doubt, all copied content.
Ahhh, the whole content issue…
It is generally considered “fair use” to quote small portions of an original text providing full attribution is given - online this generally means a link.
However, I suppose it would be within a manufacturers’ rights to demand that particular ‘catalogue’ images (ie not an amateur picture of someone using their equipment) were not used in particular contexts.
It’s not quite the same issue - even if Vince had lifted complete content (a la splog). Darren doesn’t lift entire articles and reviews from photography magazines, etc. (and neither has Vince, btw)
According to Brent, look out for anyone who quotes any source whatsoever, for you will be posting 101% copied content, yep, without a doubt. I feel for all the scholars out there who are destined for legal trouble. Thanks for the heads up.
I don’t have any problem with quotes from a source.
By quote I assume you’re talking about taking a few lines… So you obviously never looked at the site I am talking about because there is no quoting going on. Unless you also consider copying and pasting pages from another site as quotes??? hmmm…
Of course I’m at the right site: http://www.livingroom.org.au/photolog/
Because what I’m seeing in his posts (for Jan 25) looks like the following:
Post #1 (where you see my parenthesees is where he quoted the original source - with a link):
*************
ePhotozine reviews the (Nikon Coolpix P2) and writes - ‘There is no doubt that this is a quality, feature packed digital camera…
***************
Now, do you happen to see that single quote before the word “There”? I didn’t include the entire piece b/c I’m sure you can understand there’s an ending quote in there somewhere. We could try another post I suppose.
Here, post #2 - right after the first one:
****************
Trusted Reviews has posted a review of the (Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T5) and writes - ‘Ultra-slim design and a good array of options cannot compensate for very…
*****************
There’s that damned single quote again, well what do you know? It’s a miracle.
Silly semantics. The gist of the matter here is that Andy is completely right…the content use that Darren employs is perfectly permissable under the fair use laws.
Even it we played without the punctuation (quotes), think RSS. Great, now I had to go and think about that too. I feel so bad for the future of RSS technology, its inventor, and the aggregators as well. I can only imagine the impending doom that is to befall everyone (including the aforementioned scholars)now…
hmmmm…
I stand corrected, I made a huge mistake and was way off when I said Darren copied 100% of the content. I looked at your example page the sony cyber shot page - it has 1424 words, 5 times he used his original words “reviews the… and writes” for a total of 20 words that were not copied, I don’t know how I could have possible over looked these words they are so important and the way he writes them really makes the whole article. This means that Darren’s content is only 98.56% copied on that page. I will never be able to forgive myself for making such a hugh mistake thank you for point this out to me.
I am going to go copy some web sites now but don’t worry, I will make sure to copy like Darren copies, not like Vince copies.
It’s called fair use brent. Darren, in a mix of original content and commentary is posting links and extracts to reviews on other sites….believe it or not that’s legal. If you actually bother to follow through the links you’ll see he’s quoted 5-10% of the article he is referring others to! If you really think he’s stealing that much I suggest you stop taking whatever drugs you are currently on.
And trust me, if he was reprinting whole works he wouldn’t be in business and the same blogswarm that occured here (at amblogger) would happen to Darren. You are free to quote ppl, you aren’t free to take their whole posts or their entire CSS and call it your own.
Very interesting how you added to what I said the part about stealing, and not legal. I only said it was 98.5% copied (which the page is).
So those are your words not mine, maybe a Freudian slip on your part?
Would you like to tell us more about why you think what Darren is doing is stealing, and illegal?
[Moderator's Note: this comment was deleted as the poster was impersonating Darren. Yes, I realize the irony of moderating this comment of an impersonator. I stand by my statement that I was not trying to impersonate Darren, as you have seen from my posts that my contents are not the same as his. I really do not want to close comments, but I may have to if this discussion continues without any body presenting any points, logic or merit and adding value to the discussion. Someone said that comments after the 10th one are just drama. I'm beginning to lean towards that. The comments remain open... for now while I'm left feeling like Google]
Hmmm, if you’re going to even attempt to impersonate Darren, at least learn his style, learn how to spell, and realise that he most likely wouldn’t even respond to timewasters like you (the commenter, that is, not Vince)
Why not just say who you really are, or be an anonymous coward - don’t pi$$ take people you don’t understand on subjects you don’t understand.
Moron…
[Moderator's Note: Here's the comment of the Darren impersonator after Andy Merrett confronted him. The ip was from Australia]
Your wrong I’m not moron, and your right I’m not Darren. Learning to spell takes time (I’m working on it as I type). My sarcasm was to point that there aren’t high grounds in the blogging community to speak from, apart from a handful of experts promoting their businesses, you are all a bunch of copycat in masks. A scaled down version of TV infomercials. You dont get out to report to people who weren’t there to see it, you don’t create a product that others can use. You’re all in your bedrooms copying and pasting like there’s no tomorrow. Don’t take your selves seriousely just because google gave you spare change.
BLOGGERS ARE THE SALT OF THE EARTH.
HOW COULD WE LIVE WITHOUT?
Wikipedia definition of a blogger: THE NEW INTELLECTIAL, our only hope!
The only thing you can hope for is to be amusing, don’t get angry, laugh @ me & yourself (things I don’t understand?! whooowee? Teach me, save me oh lord.
OK I’m confused now. I probably don’t need to contribute to this thread any more. Time for lunch :)
Probably time for a new post Vince?
[...] This obscure person stole a template from this widely read blog, with minor changes made. Of course, designer of blog finds out and is annoyed. There follows a stream of publicity for the obscure person. Note that all the comments on his blog are on these two posts relating to the incident. Another success. And again, not easy to repeat. [...]
Cheers to Vince for showing us the way to instant blogging success.
Sandbox? Not for you. From “design” publication to real traffic in 4 days flat! The advice on prologger don’t teach the “secrets” of success, actually try to prevent; show opposition to instant success, saying quote: “THE WAY NOT TO START A BLOG” and adding “it takes years and hard work” what bullshit.
Vince we are listening, teach us more please.
Vince I love when you say “why does everyone think this was wrong?” indeed why, it worked so beautifully, isn’t it what we all want to achieve when we dream of starting a blog? I’m here everyday and if you show me more I’ll click on every link on this site, that’s how I plan to pay for your SIX FIGURE BLOGGING. This method is way better than Darren’s, wait three years if your lucky maybe crap.
Consider me subscribed to SIX FIGURE BLOGGING for ambloggers in less than three years.