02/03/2004
FEATURE BY MIKE LAWRENCE
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I have been quiet on the Toyota/Ferrari story of late, because everything has gone quiet. If there are any moves afoot which are known to the senior management at Toyota Motorsport, my sources are not so well connected as to be privy to them. I have gone to direct sources, not press releases, and I have not forgotten the story. Neither pitpass nor I have any intention of giving up on it.
When I first explored the topic of the possible theft of intellectual property, I looked at it as a general issue, the way we all copy someone else's music tapes and so on. I said that I would be really cheesed off if one of my articles was taken without my permission. It had never happened so I did not know just how cheesed off I'd be, until it did happen. I am spitting razor blades and here is the ironic thing, it was an article about Toyota stealing from Ferrari.
Most motor racing websites exist almost entirely by trawling the Net to pick up their news items from other, better-founded sites. In the past, pitpass has occasionally run a completely fictitious story and sat back to see which sites picked it up and ran with it. The answer is most of them.
It has never been an important story, it has always been along the lines of aerodynamist, Charlie Whippingtop, is rumoured to be moving from Minardi, when no such person has ever worked for Minardi. Most readers won't give it a second thought and, even at Minardi, the Italian arm of Minardi will think that Whippingtop works in England, while the English arm assumes that he is in Italy.
This sort of story is of no interest whatsoever to the average reader, it will be forgotten as soon as read. We are careful to put in something like rumoured so it will never impinge on motor racing history. It is of no interest either to the better class of website, because the serious operators all have their own sources. Many is the time I have said to our editor, 'Did you see such-and-such on so-and-so's site?' His response has always been the same, 'Good for so-and-so, he has a scoop. We do not copy.'
I get the feeling that the handful of elite websites, and it is only a handful, operate to the same rules. Atlas-F1 or grandprix.com would never pick up on a rumour about Charlie Whippingtop. I have just named two rivals to pitpass, and why not? The three of us have different styles and different agendas, but I'd be a very poor writer, and a very poor human being, if I could not recognise excellence in others.
When we pick up information from the print medium. We always acknowledge the source. On a few occasions, when writing a feature, I have always acknowledged the source of a news item which has appeared on another website. There is, however, a world of difference between writing a feature of perhaps 2,000 words and being prompted to do so by a short news item. Still, I always acknowledge the news source which prompted the feature.
The only people to whom a rumour about Charlie Whippingtop is of the slightest interest are those wretches whose job is to trawl the net and steal other people's stories.
Since I am still on the Toyota/Ferrari case, I sweep the Net as well as writing to my sources and anyone else who may help. Imagine my surprise then, when I located a Canadian website which was leading with words familiar to me. They were familiar because I had written them, yet I had never previously heard of the site.
There is a Canadian motor racing website called Flagworld. On 27th November, 2003, Flagworld took one of my articles from pitpass and published it in full.
Flagworld acknowledged me and pitpass as its source, but had the cheek to put a copyright sign at the end of every one of the eight pages.
There is such a thing as the Berne Convention on copyright and there is the World Intellectual Property Organisation, an agency of the UN.
Not content with that, Flagworld passed on my article to another Canadian website called Auto123.com, who also stuck their copyright sign at the end of every page. Not only that, but they said that the article was 'by Flagworld', those words appear at the top of every page. I am merely acknowledged as 'the source'.
It was not a news item, it was a feature. It was written in the first person and therefore is unique to me. Any competent journalist would know that news items are always written in the third person and would not contain personal comment as my piece did. Newscasters for radio or television, if they are professional, read the news as a factual account. If comment is called for, it always comes from third parties.
I couldn't work out how to write to Flagworld, but I did write to the editor of Auto.123, and it was a pleasant letter. I invited him to consider paying for my work and suggested that, since my work clearly met his standards for publishing, possibly he would like to consider commission further work. I received an acknowledgement, but no response.
Various things happened and a more junior member of staff apologised and assured me that the article had been removed from the site's archives. Fine, but it had been published illegally, Flagworld was credited as the author (unless you can think of another way of interpreting 'by Flagworld' and Auto123.com claimed copyright. They had the use of my featured for nearly three months and let's face it, the number of hits on an archived piece is not great.
Publishing is a business, Auto123.com features advertisements, and writers are part of that business, otherwise publishers produce only drawing pads and notebooks.
I am a simple man. I think that if my work is worth publishing, it is worth a fee, unless I, and I alone, choose to waive the fee. If I am worth publishing, I could be even be worth commissioning. Can anyone see a flaw in my reasoning? Please let me know if I have anything wrong here.
Remember, they not only stole my article, they each claimed copyright to it. That will be the thrust of my lawyer's argument and that is something they cannot contest.
For once in my life, I can see the point of lawyers who advertise 'No win, no fee', and they are so easy to access on the Net. This will be a walkover and I'll get to fly trans-Atlantic at their expense. I've always wanted to see Canada, now I'm going to Canada with someone else picking up the tab. Naturally, I shall bill them for every hour away from home that I have to spend in connection with the case.
They could have avoided all this. All that it required was a polite response to a polite approach. There are websites that can confirm I am a reasonable person to deal with. On occasion, I have given sites my work for nothing, just to give them a helping hand.
Why should I sit back and watch my copyright usurped? Can anyone advance a single reason why I should? I write for a living, it is what puts food on my table and shoes on my feet. What is your reaction if someone steals your wallet? You run after them. I am after these guys. I want my wallet returned and I want to see them punished in the hope that they will learn to steal no more.
Do you know of the Darwin Awards? It's a great website which records how people have killed themselves, or castrated themselves, through their own stupidity. By killing themselves they are prevented from breeding and thereby make a small contribution to improving the gene pool, hence Darwin.
There are many motor racing websites, but very few of them have much integrity, and even fewer employ people who can actually write. If Flagworld.com and Auto123.com are forced to close, Internet journalism will improve. It is the principle of the Darwin Awards.