Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Thieving cunts

Remember a while ago we discovered a laughably dreadful piece of legalese bollocks on the Mail's website? There's an interesting paragraph in there:

Unless otherwise specified the copyright in the contents of all the pages in this web site are owned or licensed to Associated.
Unless otherwise specified, the authors of the literary and artistic works in the pages in this web site have asserted their moral right pursuant to Section 77 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of those works.
Conditions of your use of this web siteExcept as stated below, the contents of this web site may not be copied, reproduced, distributed, republished, downloaded, displayed, posted or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior express written permission of Associated.

The Mail really cares about copyright issues then. And they're also pretty clear on what happens when you submit something to them:

By submitting any material to Associated, you automatically grant Associated the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, edit, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such material (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed for the full term of any rights that may exist in such content. You acknowledge that Associated is not obliged to publish any material submitted by you.
By submitting any material to us, you also waive all your moral rights in such materials and agree not to post any material:
that is threatening, defamatory, offensive, abusive, liable to incite racial hatred, discriminatory, blasphemous, pornographic, in breach of confidence, in breach of privacy; or for which you have not obtained all necessary licences and/or approvals; or which constitutes or encourages conduct that would be considered a criminal offence, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise be contrary to the law of or infringe the rights of any third party, in the UK; or which is technically harmful (including, without limitation, computer viruses, logic bombs, Trojan horses, worms, harmful components, corrupted data or other malicious software or harmful data).

So they cares about the integrity of copyright issues, then...? Er, no. They're a bunch of thieving cunts. Tim links to artists on B3ta who have been completely ripped off by the Mail, their images stolen without any offer of payment for being reproduced in a vastly profitable national newspaper. You can bet your balls to a fiver that if this had been the other way around, the Mail would have wailed and bawled its way to an angry letter from their legal team, but no, seeing as it's just a website, fuck them. That appears to be the logic.

As ever, there must be a sneaky admiration for the cojones of the Mail in implying that actually it was they who had single-handedly inspired every single image (which had in fact already been published long before):

Yesterday, to cheer readers up, the Mail published the best credit crunch jokes. Now the internet is awash with visual gags

Er... as it had been for days, you lying bastards.

So there you have the integrity of the Mail: if they think they can get away with it, they'll use amateurs' work for free for their vastly profitable newspaper without asking permission. And they see nothing wrong with that.

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