
Dear Al-Jazeera: Why Steal Our Code? - tilsammans
https://www.scrollytelling.io/al-jazeera.html
======
gulbanana
[https://mobile.twitter.com/Hiddemhigh/status/769636034749558...](https://mobile.twitter.com/Hiddemhigh/status/769636034749558784)
it appears the journalist works for both de volkskrant and al-jazeera.
scrollytelling is mad that they haven't got paid twice.

~~~
tilsammans
Well, this is our product. Wouldn't you be?

In addition to copying the code, they left some original asset urls in there
as well. Which means that those come out of our bandwidth bill. So yeah ...
we're a little mad. Not terribly so, though. Life's too short.

~~~
morgante
You absolutely should have included that detail in your article. It completely
changes the story and it's highly unethical to exclude it.

It's still wrong for Al Jazeera to use your code without licensing it, but you
need to let your readers have all the facts. Without that detail, I was rather
curious why de volkskrant wasn't also upset.

~~~
jpgvm
At no point in his blog post was it even implied that the content was stolen,
only the frontend code which appears to be generated by their proprietary
frontend tool. I don't think the blog post does anything unethical to not
clarify this further as it seems fairly obvious the contention is about the
code copyright and hotlinking.

~~~
danso
Here's the changelog for the post:
[https://github.com/scrollytelling/website/commit/21e9c8ba8f6...](https://github.com/scrollytelling/website/commit/21e9c8ba8f6bdbcc87aadc2eb751c424303549f2)

I mean, with a sentence like this, it's hard not to jump to the conclusion
that there's more than hotlinking and code copyright going on: _" We know you
love us Al-Jazeera, but stealing from us and then ignoring us is not the way
to express it."_

I wouldn't call them unethical, just incomplete. We have a case here where
someone paid Scrollytellio to create a story in their content-management
system. Their system is such that, to a layperson (which I assume the reporter
is when it comes to webdev), the code and presentation is inextricable from
the content.

The reporter was wrong, but that's just one level of confusion and ambiguity
where it's possible to understand why AJ messed up. Even more confusing is
that AJ itself uses the same open-source tech that ScrollyTelling does:

[https://twitter.com/Hiddemhigh/status/777535017383845890](https://twitter.com/Hiddemhigh/status/777535017383845890)

[https://twitter.com/pageflow_io/status/777562569468964864](https://twitter.com/pageflow_io/status/777562569468964864)

A web dev/producer at a media company not knowing the difference between the
open-source code they've used in the past, and the modified version that a
freelancer has given to them for this one package? Yeah, incompetent, but not
malicious.

Again, it doesn't excuse AJ, their web producer, and the reporter, for not
following up with more speed. But I can see why it's more likely that
incompetency is the culprit and not malice.

------
HillRat
This ... is not the best way to take advantage of what is basically a sales
lead. After all, Scrollytelling is a small company with only a handful of
clients, of whom De Volkskrant appears to the most important, so why barge in
with DMCA takedowns and angry allegations before you have to?

This would have been a great opportunity to work through Scrollytelling's
existing relationships with their clients (and their clients' reporters) to
get in front of AJ and make a case for their platform (and only go for the
lawyers _if_ talks broke down). Instead they've now ensured that, regardless
of anything else, at least one reporter is _never_ going to use their platform
again and is going to be one hell of a net detractor. For a small company,
garnering a reputation as being troublesome loose cannons isn't a good way to
grow market share.

~~~
tilsammans
It's worth noting that we didn't barge in with the DMCA, so I updated the blog
post to reflect that. Besides, nothing wrong with a DMCA. It's a valid, and
expected way to take down infringing content. Which Al-Jazeera chose to
ignore.

We're not treating them as a sales lead. What they did is not a great start to
a fruitful relationship. We just would like them to take down the infringing
code and at the very least stop using our bandwidth for their stories. It's
kind of ridiculous.

As you say, we're small. So when a large bully steals from us, that makes it
okay? I really don't understand. People go to jail for copyright infringement
but when Al-Jazeera does it to a small startup nobody bats an eye. We chose to
speak up after it was clear that Al-Jazeera would keep ignoring our friendly
requests and formal demands.

~~~
simbalion
Actually, the DMCA is evil. It was invented by evil men. It's been used
countless times to terrorize people and maintain a corporate oligarchy. Nobody
should utilize the DMCA, you should find a way to get the things you need
without resorting to that particularly evil method.

There is some philosophical debate to be had regarding whether your code is
deserving of copyright protections. Precisely what parts were duplicated? Just
the CSS? Is there a better way to write those parts? If your way was the best
way, copyright laws cannot prevent someone else from duplicating that method.
This is known as reverse engineering, and is completely legal.

I'm a designer and developer myself so I understand your perspective, but you
are not necessarily the righteous ones in a battle of good vs evil. It is
definitely a blurry grey area.

Quite frankly, "code borrowing" happens everywhere in development. Most
lessons on "How to learn to code" encourage people to explore other's code and
adapt it for their own projects as a means to learn. The history of computing
supports borrowing and adapting other people's code. You probably aren't aware
of these things.

~~~
extra88
The Safe Harbor provision of the DMCA is extremely important to preserving the
Internet as I think we all want it to be. It protects joesvideoshack.org as
much as youtube.com. If you host a site to publish your own blog articles, I
don't think you would want to be legally liable for the contents of someone's
comment on a blog post.

~~~
simbalion
You suggestion implies we can't have one without the other.

Tacking on small concessions is how the most evil people in American politics
are able to pass insane and crooked laws.

------
ricardobeat
Looks like a) journalists using their platform don't really understand what
they are paying for [1]: a license to use the story platform, when they expect
to use it as a content creation tool and fully own the result. And b) either
Al-Jazeera has copied them before [2] or there is some mutual stealing going
on...

[1]
[https://mobile.twitter.com/Hiddemhigh/status/777509638002634...](https://mobile.twitter.com/Hiddemhigh/status/777509638002634752)

[2]
[http://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2015/BanishedNepal/](http://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2015/BanishedNepal/)

~~~
Macacity
> And b) either Al-Jazeera has copied them before [2] or there is some mutual
> stealing going on... looking at the source and at what they are showing in
> the updated page of the eggplant story[1] they seem to be using an open
> source version[2].

[1] [http://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2016/gmo-eggplants-
aube...](http://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2016/gmo-eggplants-aubergines-
bangladesh/index.html#2208)

[2]
[https://github.com/codevise/pageflow](https://github.com/codevise/pageflow)

------
chillydawg
I'd start serving hilarious, huge pictures of dicks and boobs on the dodgy
asset links or injecting js that does silly (but not malicious) things to
browsers.

~~~
diggan
Well, if you understood their motivation for this post, you wouldn't.

> We’d love to work with you Al-Jazeera. But not like this.

> So how about starting over and signing up for an account.

> We will even keep that eggplant emoji in there for you.

> We look forward to hearing from you.

~~~
emerongi
That isn't directed at Al-Jazeera though. If they wanted Al-Jazeera to sign
up, they would not have started with a DMCA.

This is pure marketing. They go out of their way to explain what features
their product has and why it is beneficial to sign up. If they get even just 2
new sign-ups with this article, it has already paid off. The "our service is
great!" message is not there to remedy things with Al-Jazeera.

~~~
ptaipale
Well, it appears they didn't start with a DMCA.

------
dewey
"We knew there must be some mistake, so we quickly sent you a DMCA takedown
requests and waited patiently."

That does not seem like the best way to start a business relationship...

~~~
sgt
Personally I'd try to first contact Al-Jazeera (in a friendly and direct way,
not DMCA) before a name and shame. This could after all be the fault of some
technical intern at Al-Jazeera who didn't think twice about ripping code. And
I suppose DMCA notices are easily ignored if they come via e-mail.

~~~
bwilliams18
They didn't just rip code though. They ripped the entire story...that's gotta
go higher than some random intern.

~~~
angry-hacker
It's the same author. Probably misunderstanding about redistribution etc.
Shoddy work but dmca is stupid.

------
user5994461
Lesson #1 - It will be hilarious when they'll discover that Al-Jazeera is
actually paying a license to them. Just under a different name. (Yes, big
international companies have many legal names and subsidiaries and buying
departments).

Lesson #2 - Seriously. Do NOT let 20 yo bro-grammers handle the business and
marketing.

Noone could care less about your code + The DMCA notice is plain silly. This
is exactly how you SHOULD NOT handle business leads and customers.

~~~
sooheon
The "business" mindset is a funny thing. It turns bullies at worst and thieves
at best into leads and customers, just because they're big.

------
hiou
I almost cared until I read the snarky, passive aggressive tone this article
took along with the fact that it intentionally attempts to frame the entire
situation differently from how it actually happened. This is not randomly
scraping some content and then re-publishing it. It's a contract dispute about
whether the original publisher had rights to redistribute it. What a bunch of
brats. Grown up. Yuck

~~~
user1111111111
Yeah, kids these days, expecting their signed contracts to not be breached.
Why don't they get a real job, like used cars sales?

~~~
philtar
Except that it's the Dutch author who breached the contract. But bitching
about AlJazeera gets more publicity. What a bunch of brats.

------
jstanley
> We knew there must be some mistake, so we quickly sent you a DMCA takedown
> requests

Is that really the most appropriate way to start?

~~~
whack
When someone blatantly plagiarizes your work without any attribution, I think
it's perfectly appropriate.

~~~
sgt
Are they sure they didn't get permission from de Volkskrant to re-publish the
article (effectively white labelling the article)?

~~~
parent5446
Why would de Volkskrant have the legal ability to grant them permission to
redistribute somebody else's code?

~~~
mikekchar
Obviously they do not, but did Al-Jazeera even know that the original came
from there? They bought the story from the author. It is possible (even
probable in my eyes) that they thought that all of the assets were included in
the sale. It is possible (even probably in my eyes) that the author told them
this outright (because he was mistaken). And if I'm running a company in a
non-US country, a DMCA request is going straight into the round file. I'm
sorry that people assume they can inflict their laws on people outside of
their country, but it is not the case.

If you are in the business that storytelling.io is in, you have to assume that
some fraction of people are going to make mistakes. You also have to assume
that most of those people will _not_ be in the US. Al-Jazeera is in Qatar.
Qatar only joined the Berne convention in the year 2000. Their attitude toward
a DMCA request is pretty predictable.

Honestly, I found the article insulting, myopic and reactionary. The imprecise
(and legally incorrect) usage of the word "stealing" is simply used to justify
their outrage. Even though they appear to have edited their page 2 or 3 times
to improve the content based on suggestions in this thread, it _still_ has no
details on how the original transaction was handled (what did the original
author sell?). There is no indication that storytelling.io made any attempt to
rectify the situation other than sending an incorrect legal request and then
complaining on social media.

To be totally blunt, if I were thinking of using a service like theirs, I
wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole because they really appear to have
absolutely no idea what they are doing on the legal front -- something which
seems to be crucial to their business survival.

I hope they can figure it out. I'd start with realising that even when you are
in the right, you can do the absolute wrong thing to try to correct it. This
is going to happen again, so back up, take stock and ask yourself how you are
going to improve your reaction next time.

------
fivesigma
Someone should make a blacklist with websites that hijack scrolling. Or an
/etc/hosts.

~~~
mnadkvlb
I use an extension called stylish, where you can pretty much inject your own
css handlers for each website. I know its a bit tough to deal with but maybe
someone can make a list which people can subscribe to just like the ad-
blocking lists (eg. easylist).

------
hcho3
I'm really shocked how many people here are blaming the victim here...

~~~
omginternets
When the victim thrusts himself into the public sphere, it's sensible to raise
alternate hypotheses and call his story into question ... if only to conclude
that he is, indeed, the victim!

This knee-jerk cry of "don't blame the victim" is just that: a knee-jerk
response. Few people want to humiliate victims, but I don't see a reason not
to ask pointed questions.

I mean no disrespect, but I think comments like yours lower the level of
discourse and are pretty toxic despite their good intentions.

------
microcolonel
Al-Jazeera is owned by the government of Qatar, the only country in the world
with a major slavery problem in 2016; I don't think plagiarism is what you
should be worried about.

------
nxzero
Something feels off about this whole post, but can't put my finger on it.

For example, appears the company makes money selling their code to online
newspapers, but when a major media company uses their code the response is to
tell them to stop doing it.

I would be curious to see the take down notice that was sent literally said.

~~~
vertex-four
Al Jazeera are essentially pirating - the company makes money selling their
code to online newspapers, not giving it away.

~~~
nxzero
Right, that's obvious, just like it's obvious you'd call them up and sell them
on paying you to use it, not tell them to stop via so legal notice that might
not even legally apply to them.

~~~
sooheon
So what's your move when they simply ignore your call and continue to use your
work? After all, they got it for free, no one else seems to care, why should
one call from you convince them to pay after the fact?

~~~
nxzero
AJ is a professional company. If you read the other comments, which were
posted after my comment, it's clear the developer made an agreement a
freelance journalist, not AJ; which isn't even mentioned by the developer in
the blog even though they're 100% aware of it. Given near the journalists or
the developer have committed publicly to the terms of the agreement between
them, I don't see the point in speculating what their agreement was; I do know
on GitHub that the developer use the MIT license for some other code, which
would have allowed the journalist to reuse the code where ever they wanted.

As for what to do, volumes of books are published on the topic. If the content
was hosted in the US, the next step would be contact the ISP that's hosting
the content.

------
csomar
Take down the AJ flag with swords. Russians will see it as someone is
acknowledging that Qatar is supporting ISIS. I'm not kidding.

------
awinder
What's up with the Al Jazeera logo with swords underneath it? Might be
misunderstanding but I thought misappropriating branding logos was usually
something that was a touchy subject (i.e., no license to modify the brand
logo).

~~~
mhurron
It would appear to be a modification of the Anonymous Pirate Flag. They're
making a 'statement.'

They were so mad about this event, they photoshoped Al Jazeera's logo.

------
t_fatus
Whoa ... I'm sure you've thought about changing the urls of your assets and
update you code before publishing it again, then why haven't you done this ?

~~~
diggan
Probably because they are trying to open up an account for them, rather than
Al-Jazeera stealing their code. Changing the URLs would probably make them
angry/upset and not thinking about making business with Storytelling

~~~
GordonS
Probably moot; I rather doubt that sending them a DMCA takedown notice will
make them too interested in doing business with them

------
mlinksva
Dear Al-Jazeera: 1) instruct your developers to only use open source code so
as to avoid situations like this 2) slideshows are terrible, lots of work for
viewer to get through. text or video work great, stick to them, don't use a
format only suited for demo-ing the limited capabilities of cd-roms circa 25
years ago.

------
leke
I would love to hear the AJ response to this. I hope they are allowed to make
it public.

------
kylehotchkiss
Homepage:

> We are ready for you hitting the big time. We make sure your stories keep
> being told, even if they're on the frontpage of The New York Times.

So they wouldn't have send the DMCA to NYT?

------
webwanderings
How does one scroll on a laptop without the browser's scroll bar on the right?
What's the point of the "software" if you take away the base feature of a
browser?

------
baybal2
Good luck enforcing an dmca on a website code vs a foreign company. The court
history of such cases is rather funny. From cases thrown out of the court, to
unenforceable defaults

~~~
tilsammans
They do have a documented procedure for this, posted on
[http://america.aljazeera.com/tools/terms.html](http://america.aljazeera.com/tools/terms.html)
\- paragraph (V)(B). It likely does not apply to Al-Jazeera worldwide, though.

------
emptystacks
It might be wise to just hire an attorney and file a copyright infringement
claim. You have a pretty solid case.

------
zeckalpha
What's with the flag?

~~~
icebraining
It's a pirate flag (often in copyright infringement articles) with Al
Jazeera's logo replacing the skull.

~~~
zeckalpha
Still, a bit tasteless.

------
calimac
Scumb bags

------
witty_username
This is slightly off-topic, but why does this website hijack the middle-click
button? It's pretty annoying.

~~~
lucb1e
It doesn't for me, not on the blog at least.

But I wouldn't be surprised as it's a "scrollytelling" website, which is
probably made to hijack lots of browser controls, especially those to do with
scrolling. We all hate it, but I guess it looks cool if you're trying to be a
modern newspaper.

~~~
witty_username
Actually, the middle-click is hijacked only for the main page.

------
homoSapiens
Ooops

------
batrat
Nice storytelling. (couldn't stop it)

------
qz_
They also translated the whole article from De Volkskrant and used the exact
same images. So, plagiarism and theft, nice.

~~~
Cyph0n
I highly doubt that plagiarism is taking place. I bet you that the original
outlet simply gave AJ permission to use the article's content and template.

~~~
JackFr
Do you have some special knowledge to indicate that this was done with
permission?

When reprinting it's common to include a 'with permission of' or 'originally
published in' or especially 'translated from the original'. I might have
missed it, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't there.

~~~
frankydp
There is a twitter post above of the author promoting the AJ story.

------
lumberjack
Copying front-end code is hardly "stealing".

At best you can call them out for not properly attributing merit where merit
is due.

~~~
cryptarch
It is copyright infringement and piracy; they had no right to redistribute
this code, even if they had kept the copyright notice.

Aside from that, I do think it is theft in the sense that AJ is using
bandwidth not paid for by them.

------
sneak
You still have your code, so your accusations of theft don't really hold up.

~~~
bluejekyll
They sell a product. That product is the ability to produce beautiful stories
for online publications. There is code in there, and because of the poor copy,
it's obvious that the code was stolen.

But, what I don't understand is, why didn't they call it plagiarism, which is
usually what you would call a copied story.

both are copyright violations, but is one worse in terms of law?

------
OJFord

        > What Happened to Journalistic Integrity?
    

Did Al-Jazeera ever have any?

~~~
harisvs
Al Jazeera always had one ! This must be the fault of some tech intern.

~~~
OJFord
It's owned by the Qatari government; I'm not sure why anyone should trust the
independence of a news outlet owned by a foreign democratic government,
nevermind Qatar's [0].

But then, a shocking number of people seem to love _Russia Today_ in the UK,
so it really is a sad state of affairs.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Qatar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Qatar)

------
FullMtlAlcoholc
EDIT: I understand the comparison to books and other creative works. However,
many writers don't outright copy someone else's work word for word, they
appropriate the tone, style, setting, etc.

The point I was trying to make is that front-end devs are like the creators of
Stranger Things. We may not outright copy code character for character on the
front-end, but we sure do give a lot of nods to the greatest hits. And the web
is a better place for it

~~~
sanderjd
Isn't the entire point of copyright to protect things that people put "out
into the world"? Proprietary server-side software is already a trade secret,
but creative works that must be published to have any use at all (like books,
newspaper articles, and client-side software) is properly protected by
copyright.

------
puppetmaster3
Each Andorid app is obfuscated by ProGurd.

If I'm in the jury and I can easily cut/paste - than that is on you.
Obfuscation has to get better in HTML5. There are now some paid tools that
obfuscate CSS and HTML5 variables, not just Base64, and inject that it can run
on only one domain.

Did they do any of that?

~~~
ameesdotme
Android applications are compiled, so they can be obfuscated. Web applications
do not work that way at all, and proper obfuscation is impossible. There will
always be a way to reverse this, and the actual content shouldn't be
obfuscated anyway, as this would have severe negative effects on SEO.

Other than that, just because you can steal other people's hard work doesn't
mean you should.

You clearly do not understand this situation.

~~~
puppetmaster3
'Web applications do not work that way at all'

You clearly do not understand the tech. Most (good) web sites are SASS, and
that gets compiled for one.

You clearly don't know what you are talking about.

~~~
ameesdotme
What. SASS doesn't get compiled, it gets transpiled to CSS, which is human-
readable. Trolling?

