34 thoughts on “Jewlicious Violates Copyright, Joins in Plaut, Masada2000 Cyber-Bullying Campaign – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. This is absolutely unacceptable and I’m sorry you are their target here, Richard. I’ll definitely post a message in your support condemning their pathetic (and copyright-violating) behaviour. I call others to join me. The desperation of these people is telling as they target even progressive zionists. I do not need to agree with your politics Richard to know that you are a fundamentally decent person who has actively engaged in bridge-building and that you are sincere in your efforts to see peace. As Uri Avnery would see, your peacemongering is what poses a threat to these belligerent imbecilic cyber-bullies.

  2. Question NO. 1: Exactly what, among the things a blogger posts, is protected under copyright laws? For example, are the personal photos of yourself and your child which you posted, protected under the copyright laws?

    Question NO. 2: Why do you feel that direct confrontation with them is the best way of dealing with them? You are giving them publicity, perhaps it would be better to ignore them. Why give them the pleasure of seeing you get upset?

  3. Richard, you have my sympathies. These people are scum. I’m really disappointed in Jewlicious. I was a regular visitor to its site but as it helps and promotes scumbags like the bigoted trash at Masada2000 I will not be going back.

    I hope you sue their asses into next year.

  4. Question 1: Yes, my photos are protected under copyright as is anything I create here. Some bloggers adopt Creative Commons licenses which allow people to use material more freely than under traditional copyright. But precisely because of abuse like this I’ve been forced to resort to a more traditional copyright mode.

    Question 2: Yes, you are right. An easier way would be to ignore the infringement. After all, the 7,000 people featured at Masada2000’s S.H.I.T. List (many of them with photos) seem to ignore this breach of their privacy. But if I did, I’d potentially lose control of the images that are violated. If I know someone is violating my copyright & do nothing, then I lose the copyright. Also, I resent bullying. It violates my sense of justice and fair play. When you allow bullies to beat you that only emboldens them to beat on others & do so in an even more savage way. Someone’s got to stand up to them.

  5. Better to shift to my net name. I should not comment, since I had not much time to look at the whole affair in context. But I watched the circles James Wolcott calls the attack poodles with much amazement in the US and noticed they are gaining momentum over here in Germany too for quite some time now.

    Please do not misunderstand: But it feels you have to try to get out of the vicious confrontational circle you are caught in. Consider this could be exactly their intention.
    Do you really want them to succeed? Take a look at the approach of both James Wolcott & David Mills aka Undercover Black Man: humor creates a little distance if feels; they might be less caught in the deeply emotional vicious circle you are caught in now, but definitely their humor helps them to deal with closely related matters. If you do not know UBM’s blog I highly recommend his David Horowitz tread. I am aware it might be much more personal in your case. Still!

    Take a step back and leave the fight to your lawyer, AGAIN: the anger that fills you might be exactly what your opponents want. It will color your way of judging things, even completely unrelated matters. I think humor is the best defensive shield in these matters, it lifts up and creates a little distance.

    Kraut de Cologne

  6. You do seem, Richard, to be continually tasked by the activities of Messrs.S.Plaut and co.

    I imagine the best outcome for you would be to have every one of these detractors well and truly ‘hoist with their own petard.’ Figuratively speaking, of course. There are enough real explosions going on in the world as it is.

    My own particular preference for addressing such issues is to introduce into them some small degree of negative feedback. What energies they do possess are then redirected back towards the source. Why make life difficult for your enemies when, with a little bit of extra effort, you can make it absolutely impossible.

    The method I prefer has its origins in engineering. It’s known as ‘Crowbar Technique,’ a technical term which, for reasons of brevity, I won’t dwell upon at this stage. Suffice it to say it refers to various machine monitoring systems. These can quickly shut down any process should things start getting seriously out of hand. The ‘fuse’ which is now, no doubt, supplying power to your computer might be considered one very crude example.

    You may be aware of the ‘system’ I’ve already posted on your site. Although fuelled generally by aspects associated with violence in the Middle East, there’s no reason why it should not, in time, incorporate much lesser crimes, even misdemeanours. A written libel, a casual slander, some unfounded accusation, even the hard word: all these could eventually become grist to its mill. Of course, this might mean everyone concerned going about being incredibly polite towards one another thereafter. And very careful about what they say and write. No bad thing in itself but then you’ve got to wonder where such a Nemesis would leave all the Steve Plauts of this world?

    Wouldn’t you be feeling just a little bit sorry for them at this point? Perhaps shedding some small tear at their discomfiture?

    There again, it has been said, ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold.’

  7. A few years ago – I got interested in reading Jewish blogs – and read Jewlicious for a while – and found the stridency and snarkiness to be unreadable for me.

    What bugs me the most about this (and a LOT bugs me about this) is bringing your children into this. It takes a real low-life scumbag to use someone’s pre-school-age children to try to humiliate them. I would say the behavior borders on psychopathic.

    And by extension – anyone who supports that activity is in essence engaging in same behavior. I wonder what Jewish ethics and values would say about that?

  8. From what I understand, CK posted the picture Sept 11, 2006. Did you ask him to remove it? If the other blog linked to his picture, how does that prove that CK had anything to do with it?

    Tikun Olam does periodically use images (almost entirely from the news media) for which it does not own copyright. However, unlike some other scumbags, this blog prominently declares that it will willingly and immediately remove any image if the copyright holder requests this.

    Wouldn’t the right thing to do is to ask for permission BEFORE posting a picture which may be copyrighted? You may be violating a copyright for years or forever without the owner of the copyright even knowing about it. That doesn’t make it o.k.

  9. I guess the picture was created May 6, 2007, and added to an old post. I don’t understand why he needs to do that for anyone to link to it. Why couldn’t whoever just receive the image via e. mail and embed it directly in his website?

  10. You know, you have been awful fast in jumping to conclusions and attacking those you think attacked you. But I listen in on a Kahane Chai chat list under a different name and there I read a posting by someone calling himself “Big Al” claiming to run Masada2000 and bragging that he set up the “Little Dickie” site.
    Your penchant for attack rhetoric has made you a large number of people who dislike you and hostile for being criticized in your blogs. (The “Big Al” in question is pretty clearly not Dershowitz, who you also call Big Al.)
    The various other rightwingers you attack may be racists and reactionaries but you should be more careful in lashing out at people who actually have nothing to do with the fake blog attacks on you. You jumped to the wrong conclusion. It has already apparently gotten you sued once.
    You can contact me off line if you want to discuss this more.

  11. Hmm, not following this interaction much nor reading those blogs, I’m unaware of the larger context. But, while certainly in bad taste, wouldn’t taking 1 photo and manipulating it in a patently obviously insulting way, especially in a blog context (as opposed a product or marketing context), fall under fair use as in news reporting or derivatives (such as making fun of someone on Letterman)?

  12. Hi John,

    I wish I knew more about your “system”, but I get an idea? !?

    & hi Activa,

    just subscribed to your blog. So you would be the one that could take me by the hand and lead me through the Jewish year? And concerning the question that brought me here today, you might be the one to ask. I think better not bother Richard now. At least that’s what it felt like coming here today.

    As far as law is concerned: I have the impression the copyright issue is only a part of the larger story, from what I can tell and watched through the lens of German law it seems to involve what we call over here: personality rights that in Germany are closely related to the rights on your picture AND I think more importantly a relatively new phenomenon “stalking”. Like calling you up privately and hassle you or your wife.

    As far as rumor is concerned the legal approach may not always be the right thing to do from a PR point of view, and it depends very much on the case in question. I am reading something like that between Johns lines. But I can see the stalking element causes fear, and that is definitely one step beyond defaming someone on the net. So Richard seems to have to deal with a rather complex story here. And I could imagine he fears for his wife and kids too.

    I am gone again for today.

  13. I had never heard of Plaut until I came across your blog, but I have surfing the internet for information about him. How is it that you know that he is the one who set up the spoof blog sites? Has he taken “credit” for them?

  14. wouldn’t taking 1 photo and manipulating it in a patently obviously insulting way, especially in a blog context (as opposed a product or marketing context), fall under fair use as in news reporting or derivatives (such as making fun of someone on Letterman)?

    That’s clearly what Jewlicious’ site owner believes. But you & many other people are mistaken in yr understanding of what constitutes fair use. Fair use has very specific definitions & those revolve largely around educational or artistic purposes which would include academic use. Taking an individual person’s photo over their specific objection & using it purely for purpose of ridicule hardly constitutes fair use.

  15. someone calling himself “Big Al” claiming to run Masada2000 and bragging that he set up the “Little Dickie” site.

    This is a red herring & fools no one. Plaut has created 3 blogs assaulting Jewish peace activists. All 3 of the specific inidividuals involved have been targeted specifically by Plaut because of run ins we’ve had with him. One of the 3 is Neve Gordon, who sued Plaut for libel & won. Plaut has denied his involvement to Rebecca Spence of The Forward but he’s a practiced though transparent liar.

    I have never been sued for anything related to this blog.

  16. Why couldn’t whoever just receive the image via e. mail and embed it directly in his website?

    Their pt. is that they want to do this together as a coordinated assault on me. It’s a twisted form of solidarity among scoundrels. There are other reasons they are doing this as they’ve done it but I won’t reveal information that could be used in legal proceedings against them.

  17. Wouldn’t the right thing to do is to ask for permission BEFORE posting a picture which may be copyrighted?

    Certainly, and I have done that often. And I allow others to use my pictures when they ask first.

    But it is extremely cumbersome to approach scores of news organizations & ask permission to use photographs. There is almost always a permission fee of potentially hundreds of dollars involved which I could not afford to pay since this is a non-profit blog. Not to mention the fact that in the time it would take to get permission the post for which I need the image would be old rendering the image obsolete.

    I have advocated here that news media outlets create a one-stop shop for bloggers such as myself which would allow us in return for paying a fee to have access to such pictures fr. a wide variety of sources. I picture as something like iTunes for photo journalism. Unfortunately, the current situation is piecemeal & makes it impossible for small bloggers like myself to conduct activities the way we would prefer.

  18. All I did was post a link to a Jewlicious post which, contrary to this blog’s assertion of a sinister defamatory alliance between Jewlicious and Steven Plaut, roundly mocks Plaut for his hysteria and hate speech. Not only was my comment not approved, my IP was blocked by Silverstein. Was my comment “profane, abusive or insulting?” No. I thought “disagreement is fine.” Apparently free speech ends where Silverstein’s assertions begin.

  19. Banned Jewlicious User:

    You’ve conveniently neglected to explain my image that you stole. All you did was appropriate it, doctor it in a photo editing program to include snarky visual references to Little Green Footballs, & upload it to your blog. All Steve Plaut did was direct link to yr image at his fake blog that defames me. Isn’t it coincidental that you included that LGF visual reference within the defaced image when Plaut’s defaming post dealt w. a dispute I had with none other than LGF??? I’m certain there was no coordination involved bet. you!

    Both your & Plaut’s displays of my copyright image are both DMCA violations carrying potentially heavy penalties. Take the picture down or risk what you have coming to you.

    You came to my site and stole my image and complain about my not wanting you back–Chutzpah! You apparently don’t understand the diff. bet. theft and free speech.

  20. Thanks for the re-banning, by the way. I don’t write or work for Jewlicious. I have no control over what is uploaded or posted to the site. I don’t know what communications, if any, ck has had with Steven Plaut, that guy who writes the Little Dickie blog, or anyone else. Is it absolutely impossible that there exists a sinister cabal between Jewish bloggers to defame you? No. Is it unlikely? Probably. I feel threatening me with legal action for something with which I have nothing to do is excessive. If you have an issue with ck’s images, maybe the appropriate course of action would be to e-mail him and ask him to remove the image, man to man, instead of continuing to participate in an increasingly hysterical blog war?

    But anyway, do you really think Steven Plaut has a warm and fuzzy relationship with a blog that stated “Steven Plaut’s junk is half the size of Shulamit Aloni’s”? Even this blog has been kinder to him.

  21. Hi again Leander.

    I’ve just noticed from a previous posting of yours that you might be of German extraction – (Kraut de Cologne?) You may therefore find my blog entry, http://yorketowers.blogspot.com , more pertinent than otherwise since it has its origins in Germany. Please note, however, that the very last comment on my blog is merely my feeble attempt to lighten the tone of such serious stuff. The British sense of humour may not translate
    successfully every time and I do hope, therefore, you will make some allowances for mine.

    John

  22. Thanks for the re-banning, by the way.

    David W: I’m not sure what you mean. You’re not banned. I looked up yr IP address and it is not on any banned list. You appear to be a first time commenter & if you check the rules written above the comment box it explains that first-time comments are always moderated. Any future comments you publish here will not be moderated.

    If you’re the same person as Another Banned User (you don’t say that so I’m not sure), then you should know that I get many troll comments providing me links to Kahanist sites which attack me. Since you only left a link with no message and your e mail address appeared fake, I (possibly) mistakenly assumed you were someone linking to a similar type of attack on me.

    I hope you will understand that this was an honest misunderstanding.

    The link you provided was to a post written by Michael and captures the Plaut I know. But you should also know that CK, Jewlicious’ owner, has called me a “whiny bitch” regarding my complaints about Steve Plaut’s treatment of me & condones the Plaut attack. If he doesn’t like Steven Plaut he’s sure disguised it pretty well regarding this particular incident. And why would he allow Plaut to direct link to my image on the Jewlicious site if he didn’t support what he’s doing??

  23. Hi Leander,

    (Apparently there was some problem posting my first reply to you. Not sure what happened to it before but here it is again.)

    Thanks for your interest and, if you would like a fuller view of the ‘system,’ this can be found at

    http://yorketowers.blogspot.com

    Of course, I may be biased but the admittedly unusual approach depicted there does present an opportunity for us all to move on. If, however, the powers-that-be chose to persevere with only more conventional methods, then the Arab-Israeli conflict may well stretch out until the very end of recorded time. Or, more likely, the end of the Arabs and the Israelis.

    But, if you or anyone else here has come across any other solutions, I’d love to hear about them.

    John

  24. You stole my image of me from the PJM site – despite the legal terms on my site that clearly state this is not allowed – and then proceeded to post it on your site, add your own mocking caption, and leave it up for over a year, despite my repeated requests for you to take down. And when I threatened you with legal action, you still left up the image, but merely smudged out my face. Now I see you finally replaced it.

    So cry us a river. You are a hypocrite.

  25. I took the image fr. the PJM site, not fr. yr site. The image did not say you held the copyright. I thought PJM held the copyright since you were affiliated with them. How would I know what you write at yr site about yr images when at that pt. I’d never visited yr site?

    You show me one message you ever sent to me directly asking me SPECIFICALLY to take the image down. You show me one attempt you ever made to get my webhost to take it down. I make it a habit to never read yr site unless I have to. I never saw any statement you made at yr site asking me to take the image down if you did make one. I did not know you wanted it taken down. Even when you wrote to me initially that you didn’t like my displaying the image you NEVER asked me to take it down. You waited a year after I put the image up & then demanded I take it down. And you only did that because you were pissed that I compared the group running the current JIB award process favorably to the way you ran it. Why did you allow the image to remain on my site that long if it bothered you so much?

    Unlike you, I have complained loudly & vociferously to the webhosts hosting the sites which have violated my copyright & done so immediately after finding out about the violations. They will be receiving second DMCA notices next week. It’s also likely the copyright violators themselves will receive cease and desist letters personally in the near future. Unlike the way you related to me, both they & their webhosts will know what I want.

    To say that I left up the image of you but smudged out yr face is ridiculous. There was no image of you. There was a black space where yr image used to be. No one would know it was you. Even the caption for the image didn’t mention you.

    I expected this response fr. you. I wonder why it took you so long.

    Oh, & I’m really sorry to hear that PJM dropped you as one of their featured bloggers. You really were meant for ea. other.

  26. Frankly, RS, I don’t understant your position. I don’t blog. I’m not a lawyer and don’t understand copyright law pasrticularly pertaining to the internet. I dont know RS, Aussie Save, CK or anyone from Jewlicious or from the web site mocking RS. I have no personel interest in this blog war. But from the answer you gave to my question, you admit that you use copyrighted images without permission from news services. You do this becasue getting permission would be 1) cumbersome 2) costly and 3) timely. Yoy know that if you asked permission to post images for free, that the owner of the image sells, permission would most likely be denied so you post the image knowing that no one is going to bother with a small blog. Nevertheless, in principal, I don’t see how what you do is morally different from what you are accusing others of doing.

  27. Leaving aside the fact that I clearly notified you to take it down (and the last time I did this, you left it up but smudged out the face – would you like me to provide a screen capture of it?!), it is clear you are hypocrite, since leaving aside the copyright issues, here is your complaint from the post:
    “One of the tactics Plaut and Masada2000 have used in their cyber-bullying campaign against me (and in the case of Masada2000–thousands of other Jewish peace activists in its S.H.I.T. List) is to feature their images along with defaming, often vulgar captions.”

    You clearly put up the image on your site with a mocking, defaming caption. So quit whining about bad behavior of which you are also guilty.

    For the record, I left PJM, and was not booted. Another case of blatant lying.

    I want your readers to know that you lie about the small things AND the larger things. If you weren’t so prone to moderating and amending my comments, I would take you to task for much of what you write which is patantly false and shows intellectual laziness and dishonesty.

  28. in principal, I don’t see how what you do is morally different from what you are accusing others of doing.

    There are several distinctions at least as I see it. First, I believe in reciprocating so that if anyone asks me for free use of my images I always oblige unless they are making a commerical use of it or using it to defame me. Second, when I use an image I do not defame or insult the copyright owner as Plaut, Masada2000 and Jewlicious have done. Third, Masada2000 also includes with each image it features, the personal e mail address of the victim which is an ever deeper privacy violation. Fourth, it is common practice for many millions of bloggers to use images in the way I have. Fifth, I always credit the photographer in my blog so that people know whose photo I’m using. Sixth, I prominently state that I will immediately remove any image if a copyright holder wishes me to.

    The sites I mention above violate each of these provisions.

  29. Leaving aside the fact that I clearly notified you to take it down (and the last time I did this

    No, you’re implying you asked me more than once & you didn’t. When you demanded I remove it I did initially. But petty annoyance with you got the better of me and I reposted a heavily edited picture which totally obliterated your image. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have posted any image at all, even one that essentially WAS no longer an image of you. But I didn’t & I’m sorry for that. The image is gone as you say and will not return.

    For the record, I left PJM, and was not booted. Another case of blatant lying.

    You’re confusing a lie with an inaccurate statement. If I say something I know not to be true, that’s a lie. That’s clearly not what I did since a number of PJM bloggers were dropped at the precise time your affilation ended. It would be only reasonable to assume that just as their contracts were not renewed, yours wasn’t as well. If you can prove here that you resigned rather than were dropped then I can accept yr word. If you can’t do that then I’ll accept Dennis the Peasant’s word that a number of PJMers were dropped around last April because they weren’t pulling their numbers and that you likely were one of them.

    I want your readers to know that you lie about the small things AND the larger things.

    Nothing you said in yr comment shows me to be a liar. And for calling me one w/o any proof whatsoever you’re banned once again for a few weeks.

    If you weren’t so prone to moderating and amending my comments, I would take you to task for much of what you write which is patantly false and shows intellectual laziness and dishonesty.

    Come off it, you’ve written thousands of words in my comment threads vainly attempting to do precisely that. If you haven’t succeeded till now you clearly won’t fare any better in future attempts.

  30. It’s not lying unless I know it not to be true. If you can prove here that you resigned rather than were dropped then I can accept yr word.

    He can’t respond if he’s been banned.

  31. He can’t respond if he’s been banned.

    Oh, trust me. He has my e mail address. He’ll give me a piece of his mind. But if he chooses to provide the proof I’ll publish the comment. But I strongly doubt he will.

    If his next e mail manages not to accuse me of lying or beating my wife, then I’ll likely unban him–till he goes & says something obnoxious again (there’s always a next time with him).

    Another reason I have to ban him periodically is that he’ll publish 20 comments in this thread if I let him saying virtually the same thing over & over again.

    UPDATE: Wouldn’t you know, Aussie Dave didn’t waste any time in e mailing me as I wrote above. He’s now threatened (or promised–I can’t tell which) a lawsuit. Not sure what the grounds would be–other than allegedly lying and making him very, very mad. Sit tight everyone, this could get hairy.

  32. I have to concur with the other commenter – you asked him to prove something, yet you banned him. I am also troubled by the fact you made an allegation, seemingly without without any factual basis, and then ask for proof to disprove the allegation. Would you like to be treated this way?

    I am sorry Richard, but you are in the wrong here.

  33. you asked him to prove something, yet you banned him. I am also troubled by the fact you made an allegation, seemingly without without any factual basis, and then ask for proof to disprove the allegation. Would you like to be treated this way?

    I am treated this way all the time both here & at other sites. Someone makes what I consider an inaccurate statement. I say so. They respond: “prove it.” And if I have the proof I do. That’s generally the way discussions & political argument works.

    My statement was not “seemingly without factual basis.” It was based on a conversation I had with a blogger who knows quite a bit about the inner workings of PJM.

    I didn’t ban Aussie Dave because I didn’t want him to present his proof. I banned him because he called me a “liar” w/o any proof of the claim. My comment rules clearly indicate (read them please) that if you make such charges against me you are liable to be banned.

    Also, I offered to publish any proof he would provide and said that I would believe him if he offered it. If he was acting in good faith he would take me up on this offer. Instead, his response was to promise me a lawsuit for being a “liar,” a charge he still hasn’t proven. Thankfully, judges have a bit higher standard of proof than Aussie Dave seems to have.

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