From the same folks that wanted you to write a suicide note

Remember when BYT wanted you to write a fake suicide note to win Morrissey tickets? http://forum.930.com/index.php?topic=22868.0

Now @marissacetin and @emwhitenoise have uncovered the fact that their "Managing Editor" plagiarized basically BYT's entire Summer Guide:
http://twitter.com/marissacetin
http://twitter.com/emwhitenoise

These guys get press credentials and special access to events? Give me some free tickets and stuff and I'll actually write my own content! And edit it!  ;)

wow.  just wow. 

"well, the stuff is online, right?  and everyone steals everything online, right?  so what's the problem with blatantly taking other people's text and adding my name as if i wrote it?  i mean, c'mon!"

they changed the attributions in the online version.  i got the "original" (unoriginal?) version of the BYT summer guide via email, and ALL blurbs that were previously attributed to Logan Donaldson have been changed to their true authors.  what a douche.

Meh. A good way is to just not read, click, or support anything they do. Which I don't.

I don't, either. The news popped up in my twitter feed, but I didn't click through to give them any more hits on their website. It's just lazy at best and unethical at worst. What is sadder, though, is that when they actually produce their own content (aside from the photos), it is just not very good (and that's the most generous way I can put it). They should have their "press" credentials rescinded, but they probably won't, because they'll just delete the offending content, or add attribution later, and pretend that it never happened.

how do you know that their own content isnt any good . . . if you dont support, read or click them?  i do hate the borrowing of others and calling it your own though.  thats why i am on the fence with big freedia.  bitch borrow so much, she cant even put out an album.

From what I have heard big news publications like the Washington Post do the same thing. Take a wire service article and put their names on it.  Maybe the editor was hopeful of getting a better job and was practiciing. 

walkonby wrote:
how do you know that their own content isnt any good . . . if you dont support, read or click them?  i do hate the borrowing of others and calling it your own though.  thats why i am on the fence with big freedia.  bitch borrow so much, she cant even put out an album.

Maybe because I *used* to read it when I first moved back to DC and didn't know any better? Or maybe someone will occasionally alert me to some particularly heinous "writing" of theirs?

They're nonplussed, though: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2013/03/26/brightest-young-things-editor-accused-of-plagiarism/

As for using wire services, newspapers ATTRIBUTE the wire services. It's the lack of attribution that makes it unethical plagiarism.

I won a pair of Devendra Banhart tickets off that site back in 2007ish and don't think I've been on since.

the plot thickens:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2013/03/26/even-more-plagiarism-from-brightest-young-things/

This guy got all butt hurt about my BYT tweets and decided to let me know. For a good hour. Sweet revisionist history he has there.
But back to the topic at hand, watching this all unfold on Twitter was crazy.

Edit: And now you can watch it all, too. http://storify.com/marissacetin/bright-young-thing-s-managing-editor-lifts-from-ot

The content on BYT's site has now been edited yet again, and all external content has been completely removed.  There's a note at the top of the article that reads:

Ed Note: This post has been updated to include only original content produced by BYT writers.

showlistdc wrote:
The content on BYT's site has now been edited yet again, and all external content has been completely removed.  There's a note at the top of the article that reads:

Ed Note: This post has been updated to include only original content produced by BYT writers.

well this whole fiasco probably only helps them because does anyone even know about this site?

Maybe they'll just get sued by every publication they stole from & it will put them out of business…

MonkeyPants wrote:
Maybe they'll just get sued by every publication they stole from & it will put them out of business…

No one is going to sue them.  What would that accomplish?  You would spend more money on legal bills than you could ever get from a blog. 

a blog (that has advertisers & paid staff)/"event production" company…

copyright law provides for statutory damages, as well as injunctions and impoundment and disposition of infringing material…

Businesses that value their IP highly enough don't care if infringers can pay. They sue to deter future infringers.

As egregious as BYT lifting content wholesale and posting it without sourcing or attribution, I can tell you from first hand experience that both WCP online and DCist have run with our content unattributed, so for them to be calling out BYT is a bit ridiculous and hypocritical. (My comment to this effect at DCist went unpublished…)

TVD wrote:
As egregious as BYT lifting content wholesale and posting it without sourcing or attribution, I can tell you from first hand experience that both WCP online and DCist have run with our content unattributed, so for them to be calling out BYT is a bit ridiculous and hypocritical. (My comment to this effect at DCist went unpublished…)

what publication/source are you from?  who is "we"?  sorry i don't recognize you…

The Vinyl District (TVD)

Good! They took some accountability.

TVD wrote:
The Vinyl District (TVD)

When I saw a user called TVD my first thought was "The Vinyl District???" haha.