Despite Legal Threats, GitHub Staff Kindly Grant Licenses to Use Their Photos (Thanks Y’all!)

LicensePicture

A screenshot of a Creative Commons 2.0 License allowing commercial usage with attribution.

Yesterday, your author revealed that GitHub objected to a forthcoming article about controversial passages added by staffer Amy Palamountain in the new TODO Group Open Code of Conduct.

GitHub ‘legal’ told me that usage of photos of their staff from their website would be an unlawful breach of Copyright. I considered their complaints respectfully and determined that could be a problem. UK Copyright law now has very similar exceptions to US Fair Use. It is called ‘Fair Dealing’ – but there is no exception to use photographs for news reporting.

What to do?

  • Use the photos anyway? X Too risky, could be validly sued
  • Photoshop a black armband onto Amy Palamountain and call it a parody? X Clumsy
  • If only, … somehow, I could get them to give me a valid, irrevocable legal license? ✅ YES!

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GitHub Getting Upset

Earlier today I sent a draft article about the Todogroup ‘Open Code of Conduct’ (archive here) to GitHub. The Code has been criticised for a passage under the ‘Definition of Harassment’, which reads as follows –

“We will not act on complaints regarding:

  • ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’”

I sent GitHub the whole draft article. Just before publication I received a 2 paragraph unsigned note from a ‘legal’ email address at GitHub –

“We write on behalf of GitHub. We have received your message regarding your proposed blog post. Your use of the images of our employees is unlawful and violates, among other things, international copyright law.

We have no comment regarding the substance of the post beyond noting that it contains a number of factual misrepresentations that are likely themselves also actionable. The company reserves all rights and advises you to proceed accordingly.”

Perhaps. If they object to my use of photos from their website I can always license stock photos of their CEO, or otherwise lawfully obtain licenses. If they object to content, UK libel law requires they set out the text complained of, the meaning imputed to it and the facts disputed per the Pre-Action Protocol for Defamation.

So my article is not appearing tonight. Instead I have written back inviting them to set out which facts are disputed and I will look at them ethically. I am offering to delay until Monday, 5pm PDT to give them time to set out their concerns more fully.

In the meantime, people who disagree with the Code can politely tweet @defunkt, the CEO and let him know how they feel.

[EDIT 2 09/08/2015] – the author of the controversial paragraphs of the Code of Conduct is @ammeep (twitter) and @ammeep (GitHub). I am sure she would also welcome feedback.

(Updated to clarify as some people thought she was the nameless ‘lawyer’)

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KotakuInAction Reforms – We Came for the Games, Now we Must Stay for the Politics

Vivian James

Vivan James has been called the daughter of #GamerGate. Will she become mother of a new political movement against the authoritarian left?

The phenomenal success of KotakuInAction has revealed the spectacular groundswell of dissatisfaction and rage not just against gaming journalists but against the oppressive and increasingly extreme ‘Social Justice Movement’. As the population of KotakuInAction grows larger its moderators have recognised the need for change. The Witchfinder agrees and urges them to seize this opportunity.

KotakuInAction, a Reddit forum less than 9 months old. has been spectacularly successful. It now boasts over 34,000 members. At slow periods it always seems to have at least 500-600 users logged in and at peak periods there are thousands.

KiA, as its members know it, is a forum that was set up in relation to the #GamerGate scandal, which is broadly about the corruption of journalists in computer games and in particular their attempts to shill extreme left wing ideologies that normal people rightly reject.

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Cambridge Police Are Awesome, Rescind ‘Harassment’ Notice, Exonerate Witchfinder

Your author has been very impressed with the diligence and professionalism of Cambridge Police and also with its Professional Standards Team. The Block Bot team have recently boasted online, using my real name, that I have been served with a Police Information Notice. The police have now completed a thorough internal investigation and revoked it. I have therefore decided to publish the rescinding letter to set the record straight. Screenshots below. (NOTE – the police were informed I was publishing this article and have not objected).

Your author is a Christian. Every so often there is something so good it restores your faith and requires thanks. This is one such occasion.

You would think that if you run an online database like the Atheism Plus Block Bot that describes people as ‘racists’ or ‘child abuse apologists’ you would expect to be sued. But no, on 05/03/2015 having received pre-action correspondence from me (checked by awesome solicitor Stefano Lucatello), former Block Bot administrator / blocker @AuntySarah turned up at a police station in Cambridge in tears claiming she was being harassed.

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Report From the #GamerGate Meetup – Celebrate!

Foie Gras 1

Foie Gras on Warm Brioche with Apple – All the Richer Whilst Contemplating the Ruin of Bigoted SJWs!

The Witchfinder reports from the #GamerGate meetup on Saturday 18/04/2015 .

Central London is a great place to celebrate, and what a lot of things GamerGate has to celebrate! This week alone Liberal Democrat and former Block Bot administrator (she used to host the Block Bot checker) Sarah Noble has been suspended from her role on the Liberal Democrat regional executive committee and forced to resign from the executive of the Secular and Humanist Liberal Democrats.

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Resources on the ‘Pay Gap’

Recently the beautiful and persuasive @Shoe0nhead of YouTube fame shared a pastebin with information and statistics about the alleged male / female pay gap. Your author thought it might be useful to collect the documents in a more accessible page and the video for context is below.

The essence of the debate is that some on the left say there is an unjust gap between male and female earnings. The counter argument is that in fact these figures only arise from contentious studies that do not adjust for occupation and that male and female earnings differ because of different life paths whereas women and men in the same jobs have similar earnings. As Shoe points out, there is … a lot … of evidence for her point of view –

Consad Report (via US Department of Labor)
In short –

“[…]this study leads to the unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers.”

Articles
Wall Street Journal – “There Is No Male-Female Wage Gap”
New York Times – “Fair Pay Isn’t Always Equal Pay”
New York Times – “Women Now a Majority in American Workplaces”
New York Times – “For Young Earners in Big City, a Gap in Women’s Favor ”
New York Times / Economix Blog – “Share of Men in Labor Force at All-Time Low”
Time Magazine – “Workplace Salaries: At Last, Women on Top”
Bloomberg – “Don’t Blame Discrimination for Gender Wage Gap
Forbes – “It’s Time That We End the Equal Pay Myth”
Reuters – “Female U.S. corporate directors out-earn men: study”
Telegraph – “The gender pay gap does not exist”
Telegraph – “Sorry ladies, I’m not worried about wage gaps”
USA Today – “More parents share the workload when mom learns to let go
ABC News – “Women CEOs Beat Men in Pay in 2009”
CBS News – “The Gender Pay Gap is a Complete Myth”
CNN – “Survey: Working dads want more family time”
CNN – “Women ‘opt out’ of career success”
MSNBC – “‘Sea change’ seen in spouses’ financial roles”
Business Insider – “8 Reasons Why The “Gender Pay Gap” Is A Total Sham”
Huffington Post – “Wage Gap Myth Exposed — By Feminists”
Examiner – “Gender pay gap is not what activists claim”
Marketwatch – “The gender wage gap is a myth”
American Thinker – “The Wage Gap Myth”
Zero Hedge – “The Biggest Shock From This Friday’s Payroll Report (Sorry Men)”
Payscale – “Majors by Gender: Is It Bias or the Major that Determines Future Pay?”
Science 2.0 – “Women In Science: No Discrimination, Says Cornell Study”
How Stuff Works – “Is there a gender gap in the workplace?”

Videos
American Enterprise Institute – “The pay inequality myth: Women are more equal than you think”
Shoe0nHead – “#equalpayday”

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