Stealing or Not?
Published 4 years, 11 months ago in leadership + management, life stories, marketing + advertising, publishing + content, small businessThe public posting by Noel from a few days ago about Nick Denton ’stealing’ his work has taught me some great lessons, and might teach the rest of us a few too. I’ll try to list a few of them here:
1. Free never means free.
It’s become apparent that Noel did some work for free and in good faith, for Nick and his company. He showed that work (and all the raw work behind it) to Nick without promise of payment. Nick used the work that Noel did, without restitution for said work, and now Noel’s mad about it. Nick’s gotten a little bad publicity out of the whole deal, and thus the ‘free’ work that Noel did has ended up costing Nick something, thought how much that bad PR hurts Nick in the long term is anyones guess.
2. Understandings aren’t always understood.
It’s pretty clear that Nick and Noel each had their own ‘understanding’ of what the fair use parameters for Noel’s work was. Both understandings weren’t clear to the other party though. Communication broke down between these two parties, and that’s really sad. Noel has pretty much lost the opportunity for further work with Nick (not that Nick had guaranteed Noel any paying work in the future) and Nick’s lost the faith and readership of a few people that also don’t understand the reality of the miscommunication, but have nonetheless made up their minds about who cheated whom.
3. Blogs opened this conversation up
Not that this will astound anyone, but without weblogs, a few things wouldn’t have happened here: a) Noel wouldn’t have been able to comment this publicly about the deeds involved, b) Nick wouldn’t have been able to comment on his attackers own website for all the world to see, c) I wouldn’t have been able to join the conversation, and d) We all might not have seen this little event transpire.
I used to work for a person that was pretty ruthless in business. He wasn’t all that honest with the people that worked for and with him all the time… he was sort of slimy to say the least. That doesn’t mean he didn’t have the best of intentions, he just wasn’t all that ethical. At the beginning of all of this, I jumped to conclusions and thought for sure Nick Denton was just like my old boss… but…
After reading all of the comments from Nick, Rick, and others, all I’ve decided at this point is that Noel and Nick had a misunderstanding that should likely have been resolved privately. Nick probably handled the situation badly at first, and Noel grew frustrated enough to post a public comment about what had transpired up to that point. The result is a likely impassable situation that no-one wins from.
Any number of more positive outcomes could have presented themselves if both parties had worked a little harder with the other toward a more tenable solution, but it’s almost too late for that.
Big Lesson: If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
I could have followed that lesson when I originally posted about the situation between Noel and Gawker. Some of the other people commenting on this situation probably could have too. Noel could have followed that lesson when he first brought the situation into the open. I’m sure things could have worked out better had the communication lines been more open.
Some Good News: Noel has posted an update saying that “Negotiations are in the works.” Good to hear they’re communicating again.
5 Responses to “Stealing or Not?”
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Put me down as a vote for “stealing.” No one made the well-respected (for reasons best left to the reader) Mr Denton use the contributions he was sent. Given that he had the power (and some reputation, if that matters in the modern world) in the relationship, it should have been incumbent on him to say, “hey, this is great, and I’d love to use it. I can’t pay cash: can I credit you in the code?” or “this is great, but since I can’t pay for it, I can’t keep it. Thanks for the offer.”
I think you are putting the onus on the wrong party here. As for “if you can’t say something nice . . .” I also disagree with that, especially in this case. Would they be negotiating if this had not drawn the attention it has?
good points… and thanks for the comments… I think both parties were in the wrong here, and while Nick may or may not be more wrong than Noel, I guess I’m thinking I’m not the person that can make that decision… there really are too many unknowns for me here, and I’ve never met either of the two…
I’ve a lot of respect for Noel’s coding abilities (he’s proven his abilities many times over).
I also have respect for what Denton’s been able to build over the years…
But both come from different worlds. Denton probably should have taken the high road here, but he didn’t… still, they are the ones that have to work things out…
the whole “if you can’t say something nice…” quote is more for me than for anyone else…
Well John, your text shows that you are attributing this whole thing to the fact that I’m mad that my “free” code got used. It’s not that at all. If Nick would have used the Fleshbot code for Fleshbot only, I could have cared less. It’s the fact that he went behind my back, edited my work slightly and passed it off as his own, without a single word of it to me.
Nick felt that saying he was going to hire me for another gig would cover up the fact that he did something wrong and uninformative to me. I don’t want to work for someone who doesn’t communicate well with their employees. I will not let myself be used just so I can get the next (vapourware) gig. I respect my work and everyone else should too. It’s obvious what happened and the IM transcripts with Nick show two things, 1) Joe was going to help with any work free of charge (he states this as (a-calibre help”)) and 2) that I told Nick this all was very upsetting and unfair. It doesn’t show that I lied about our agreement.
Above all, this whole thing is not about money, but respect and honesty.
I wasn’t saying anything mean about Nick in my post. But Nick obviously would not recognize the fact that I was upset about what he did to me and he knew he did it to me. This was not a misunderstanding but bad communication on Nick’s part. Would this have happened if he would have said, “Oh shit Noel, you’re right, we used your code on all of our other sites and I didn’t even credit you for it. How about I order you a pizza on my credit card?” I think not. I’m an honest guy and I like others to be honest with me, that’s how I do business.
Noel,
I’m actually on your side on this one, but am obviously not saying that very well… I think nick was wrong, yes, but I also think there are lessons for you and him in this whole ordeal (and me too) - the question is *who* wants to learn from it, and who doesn’t care. I do for one…
I have a feeling I can use this particular situation for my own betterment… and that’s what I’m trying to do. I do think you were wronged, that’s obvious, but it’s also pretty obvious that Nick miscommunicated with you, maybe even made you feel like he was a liar, cheapskate, and general asshole. I know a few people that can manipulate people pretty well and this is what it seems like has happened here… People who are good at manipulation sometimes take it too far, and eventually, someone calls them on it.
Use this event as a learning situation, and never give your code away for free ever again. Period. It doesn’t pay … ever. There are too many slime-balls in the business world. Trust me, I’ve worked for 3 or 4 of them, so I’m sure there are many more out there…
Noel,
Here’s the thing I keep coming back to, the end of your IM conversation:
nicknotned: well, apologies if I wasn’t sufficiently explicit — we work off one basic skeleton, and then drop in a logo and a few design tweaks into each individual site. I guess I took that as read.
nicknotned: anyway, I really have to go now
nicknotned: we can chat about this when we discuss the other project
Noel: Well, I apologize for interrupting you.
Noel: Not trying to cause a stir. Have a good day.
nicknotned: you too — and let’s catch up during the week
From that I interpret that:
A) Nick apologised for his role in the misunderstanding.
B) Nick indicated he wanted to finish this conversation to your satisfaction, but he couldn’t at that time. He indicated that you two would continue sorting the situation out in the coming days, but two days later you decided to burn the bridge with your post instead of following up with him again, as you had both agreed to do.
C) You emphasized that you were “Not trying to cause a stir.” Overall, your tone in the exchange sounds deferential and respectful, not making it all that clear that you were “very upset,” as you say here. You sign off telling him to “have a good day.”
I just don’t see where you had a case to take this thing public. As I said in my earlier post, I’m a friend of Nick’s, so of course I come off here as biased in his favor. (And no, he didn’t put me up to this. That’s hardly his style. I’m also friends with John, so I read his blog, which is the only place I’ve entered into this debate, particularly since you closed down comments on the thread on your blog.) From what I know of him, however, he doesn’t have a reputation of getting where he has by screwing people over. Rather the opposite, my experience is that associating with Nick has been benefitial to for the reputations of people like Elizabeth Spiers, Pete Rojas, Chorie Sicha, Jason Kottke.
He’s one of those people with money (and, despite the speculation I’ve read in some of these threads, he’s not exactly Bill Gates) who knows that the first rule of keeping your money is to be tight with it. I know more or less what he pays those who’ve worked with him on his various blog projects, and let’s just say it’s not much, arguably below what their time is worth, but in most of their cases, association with his high-profile projects has lifted their careers and markatability. In any event, though, it’s my understanding that he’s always been straightforward with those people about money, even if tight.
My read on your dialog is simply that he heard your concerns, wanted to continue addressing them a few days hence and was planning on working with you in the future, but before the next conversation came, you decided on a different course, bad-mouthing him publicly (and if you don’t think that your post came off that way, you really lack self-awareness). That really looks to me like the communication problems are more yours than his.