Not to diminish this problem, but do the people upvoting this realize how pwned they are by these journalists? The journalists know (1) HN is a giant pipe of page views, and (2) any story they write with new revelations about some misdeed by Curebit will be reflexively upvoted by enough users to rise high on the frontpage. And so they write said story, people upvote it as predicted, and this fluff is our news for the day.
I usually err on the side of not killing stories criticizing startups we'd funded, but if this was about a startup we didn't fund I'd kill it in a second. (Though of course I wouldn't have to, because few would upvote such a story, which means no journalist would bother writing it.) So I'm going to bury it. I'd rather seem like I'm censoring bad news about startups we funded than let Venturebeat fill HN with crap like this.
Please, then, don't be selective: ban the site. You ban lots of other sites. Venues that "pwn" HN shouldn't be allowed space on the front page. If they write something uncharacteristically excellent, someone is sure to blog it, and that person can collect the pageviews.
Also, Venturebeat is far from the worst offender. At least they (ostensibly) have reporters.
It generally takes multiple offenses before we do something like that. From a comment you made elsewhere on this thread it sounds like you've noticed multiple instances of VB baiting HN, but this is the first I can remember.
How about instead of us unproductively arguing about this, you make your point by telling us about some of the popular sites you have banned for baiting HN. I'd be particularly interested in the existence proof of any site that regularly writes positive things about startups that you've squelched.
That'll give us an idea of what the standard is.
Edit: I accidentally wrote that first sentence more combatively than I meant to.
The "bad" at Venturebeat (and Torrentfreak and Techdirt) outweighs the good, even before you consider that a bad story is more harmful to HN than a good story is helpful.
On those occasions where Venturebeat gets it right, someone will inevitably blog it. The blog posts won't get banned. People will find out about the article. Meanwhile, Venturebeat has that much less incentive to directly troll HN.
I have zero illusions that Venturebeat is going to get banned. The incentives are wrong for Paul Graham. Venturebeat writes more positive stuff about YC companies than negative stuff. But if Graham is serious about Venturebeat trolling the site --- which it clearly does, all the time --- he shouldn't be choosy about pushing back on it.
Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Curebit's follies definitely interest hackers in two ways:
- How far is too far when 'Keeping It Lean'?
- How important is design to startups?
Off-Topic: ... If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
Can't really prove a negative here, but this is certainly the sort of inside baseball that belongs on a startup-focused medium and not on broadcast television.
Edit:
It could be that this is the ballyhooed YC naughtiness [2] at work:
Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not Goody Two-Shoes type good. Morally, they care about getting the big questions right, but not about observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil. They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter. This quality may be redundant though; it may be implied by imagination.
Yes, the story may be written in a slightly sensationalistic way to go along with current sentiment, but that's how most news, from all verticals and from most news sources from TV, newspaper and radio all the way to one person blogs, is presented in modern times.
The fact is that this is an incredibly pertinent tale for startups, especially those launched by these high-profile programmes where the spotlight will be on from day one, and the lessons it brings, along with the negative publicity is extremely important.
Sure, you can bury the story and say that it's the fault of the community (that YC has fostered itself, organically) for taking an interest in a story, that whilst presented as fluff, contains (as far as we can tell from the comments made by all parties) very solid facts that compound those in a current thread of news, but hey, it'll blow over soon.
Clearly this is the sort of story the Hacker News community finds interesting, worthwhile, and informative. If they did not, they would not have upvoted it.
I think it'd be a lot better if you just killed submissions or banned sites outright. Burying submissions is as bad as if Google started manually tweaking search results. Google only deindexes webspam, they never manually adjust PageRank.
People already think HN is a YC propaganda machine, which long time users know isn't true, and this kind of thing just fuels the conspiracy theories.
Well I think people are interested in the story, it's like girls that like to watch a girls serie, like to gossip.
That said the "tech" relevance of the story isn't that big & I feel bad for Curebit, I read DHH 's post on twitter about it yesterday & although they are making incredible stupid mistakes, one public flame is enough, they're also just trying to start a company.
This is a tough situation for Curebit. People are now looking for a pattern of behavior, and unfortunately for them, they're finding it. The company hasn't been given the opportunity to change their behavior. Should they? If you find a spouse cheating, should a history and pattern of dishonesty be ignored because they say "I didn't know it was wrong"?
I think the lesson here is to behave with the same integrity and respect for other people's work before funding as you would when you're a big and successful company.
It's a matter of degree. It's somewhat similar to the GoDaddy support of SOPA/PIPA and reversing their position after the online protests. On one hand they reversed their position but on the other they supported the shitty legislation in the first place.
One of the curebit cofounders here. We spoke with the artist as soon as we got his message and began discussion to get the music licensed on Sunday. (Its possible Jolie O'Dell had some stale news as it was posted monday).
As of an hour ago, we have come to an agreement on acceptable licensing terms with Random Rab for the music we used, and an apology.
We've been combing through our assets and code to make sure we have all the appropriate licenses (and obtaining/replacing) for any assets we do not. It may take some time to get through everything, but this is our first priority.
Meanwhile, if you'd like to bring anything to our attention, please let us know at support@curebit.com. We'll act on it promptly.
So during the SOPA protests the HN comment threads had a lot of people stating that copyright should be abolished, or that IP theft is a market failure, torrenting should be legal, etc, etc, etc...
I'm guessing those people are also against Curebit doing what it's done? Is there a rallying cry of "HTML is easy to steal and therefore it's a market problem and not Curebit's fault since it is so easy"?
I'm not saying it's a 100% parallel, but you see can see it. One one hand we have "IP theft is ok" and on the other "IP thieves! Get them!"
I know the difference is Curebit's potential profit motivations vs. "I'm a movie collector who wouldn't have bought these overpriced DVDs", but the irony is still present given the close timing between the two events.
I think it's important to scope the word "against" here. When one is "against" copyright, one is usually against extortion-esque tactics and expensive punitive judgments from courts against individuals in a campaign of intimidation. That's not really at play here, even discounting "potential profit motivations." There's just no threat of a lawsuit, and so that's probably why they'll be reasonably quiet on this article.
If you're a comedian, there is a professional artistic courtesy that you do not steal another comedian's joke -- that if you do, then you are "taking credit" for something which you did not produce. It strikes me that this is the same sort of irritation. The corporations who get mad that you've been seeding the Bourne movies on BitTorrent don't pretend to any sort of artistic outrage, and if they did it would be absurd, because you're faceless and not claiming to any sort of artistic innovation. But we're quite clear, I think, on the fact that (a) they're executives, (b) the government gave them a monopoly on copying these films, and (c) they're upset because end-users didn't care about the monopoly and shared anyway.
Given all that, I'm not sure I find the discrepancy particularly ironic. Actually, I think I'd more or less expect it -- if only because developers have clear human faces, while the RIAA's lawyers and executives do not.
One advantage that YC-funded startups have over everyone else starting businesses on the side is the coverage. Lots of eyeballs to admire and try out your work, give feedback, etc, without having to spam your twitter feed or beg family to try out your prototype yet again.
The flipside of starting a business under the limelight is the tabloid-like press that you get, which seems to intensify if you're YC, because a lot of people with seriously great hacker cred have basically personally endorsed your company and its people.
This is a good thing; it gives folks the chance to be a business on a hill and display exemplary ethical practices.
It is not okay for any business entity to break copyright law, and if one has found themselves to be in error (people make mistakes) then one must immediately remedy the situation. This applies to all businesses, and YC companies happen to be under the microscope.
So take advantage of the enviable perks of having press and use the limelight as an opportunity to show stellar maturity and ethical behavior!
For those of you who think people are piling on, understand that things could be much worse. They are company operating USA where copyright infringement is illegal, punishable by a fine and/or jail time. They can also be sued in court and cost the investors
thousands on dollars. An internet mob lashing is not their biggest problem, a lack of integrity is.
Could be a rough couple weeks for Curebit. Clearly the Internets is going to go through all their work with a fine tooth comb. I doubt any company could be 100% sure they haven't used non-licensed materials.
That said, Curebit seems to have a bit of a problem on their hands. Smoke, meet fire...
Curebit's demo video was created in 2010 so it's not as if they went about using the music illegally after the previous incident. Random Rab tweeted the founder of Curebit yesterday, he deserves some time. This seems like a hatred campaign...
The fact that they're being put under the microscope for everything they've done is unfair. They deserve time to change and improve. After all Random Rab only tweeted them yesterday, for all we know once the founder of Curebit sees it he will remove the video. Haven't even given him a chance.
It's weird that it's news, though; if "startup didn't license music for their demo video" was news, we'd have these stories every week. I've even seen one with a Michael Jackson backing track, which I'm guessing they didn't license from the Jackson estate...
When did we go from talking about how DMCA is old and flawed to talking about how people whose work is stolen should be ignored if they don't use DMCA and instead use more public and direct methods?
I don't know, but isn't the point to get the situation taken care of? Methinks the band might have ulterior motives that have nothing to do with copyright.
It is not the responsibility of owners to police their assets. Stealing is a crime. Part of the job of startup founders is to make sure that their team is careful.
I do feel bad for all the bad news that Curebit is getting for small issues. But I am glad that such issues are being highlighted.
Even if the vid was created in 2010 doesn't necessarily mean the artist knew about it until recently. I'm sure he isn't purposely choosing to attack Curebit just because they recently got called out
I'm not trying to excuse this but I don't believe Curebit are the only startup to have ever done something similar. As benjlang said it seems a bit more like directed hatred.
Oh, common. This is getting ridiculous now. This is just some random people jumping on a free PR wagon while it rolls. It's neither interesting nor it's news. Flagged.
(edit) Feel free to downvote, but do tell me - do you really think this belongs to the front page of HN? And do you not think this looks even a little bit like a group bashing now?
I usually err on the side of not killing stories criticizing startups we'd funded, but if this was about a startup we didn't fund I'd kill it in a second. (Though of course I wouldn't have to, because few would upvote such a story, which means no journalist would bother writing it.) So I'm going to bury it. I'd rather seem like I'm censoring bad news about startups we funded than let Venturebeat fill HN with crap like this.