And as mentioned I agree with you that Michael should have asked before using the screenshots, but I still don’t like Paul’s reaction. But as you say we all have different opinions :).

I also agree with you about the point that Michael perhaps should have contacted Paul before he used the screenshots.

But I still don’t think that it’s stealing, and I think that Paul could have told Michael in a more polity way to remove the screenshots, then he could have gotten angry if Michael didn’t do it…

Paul’s first comment was:

If you’re going to steal my screenshots, at least spell my name right: It’s “Thurrott.” Also, please remove my screenshots from your site. You don’t have permission to republish them here. Thanks,

Paul
He is using the word “steal” which I think is wrong.

I actually thought that “rip off” sentence was clean enough – i’d sure get quite irritated if someone used my images without asking first + then reply to me in a wiseass way when asked to remove them.

Like “he has the balls to rip off my screenshots, describe them as being “supplied” by me (as if worked together on this project)”

I think that’s a weird way to behave – instead of just contacting Michael and asking him to remove the screenshots, he post it on his blog. I think that it would have been more suitable to contact Michael, and then if Michael didn’t remove the screenshots it would be alright to make a “story” of it.

The way of accusing Micheal of theft I think is arrogant too, it is not theft. Michael did credit Paul, so it can’t be theft.

Personally I’m actually looking forward to Vista – I’m a Windows guy (how dare I say this in the middle of a crowd of Apple geeks? :P).

Paul Thurrott is a guy who reviews Microsoft products.. his review site is winsupersite.com

Is this actually intersting to anyone? who cares… we’ll all soon hate vista and everyone will be dying in anticipation of the next amazing creation…

everyone needs to get off the chair and join the rest of the world instead of living your life vicariously though your computer and it’s OS. A computer is just a tool like a toaster – use it to make our life better but don’t live for the damn thing.

go outside and play now…

After all you did give him credit for the screenshots, so it really isn’t theft. I can understand if he won’t just let you use his screenshots, but then he could find a more friendly way to do so.

What he was doing was just arrogant and stupid! Shame on you Paul, how can a grown up man act like a child in that way?

Scott Vandehey said :

What I’m getting at is what when Michael says that posting the screenshots is the same thing as quoting, he’s ignoring the fact that the direct analogy would be to post a portion of the screenshot – by posting the entire image, he not quoting, he’s reprinting in whole.

Well that depends on how you view an image. In the same way that the entry above contains many paragraphs, the image part of Paul’s entry contains many images…

What I’m getting at is what when Michael says that posting the screenshots is the same thing as quoting, he’s ignoring the fact that the direct analogy would be to post a portion of the screenshot – by posting the entire image, he not quoting, he’s reprinting in whole.

(However, I’m just playing devil’s advocate here – personally, I think it’s rediculous of Paul to claim that screenshots are somehow custom work. It’s not a picasso, it’s a screenshot.)

(screenshots from Thurrott’s Supersite for Windows, where you will find not only more screenshots, but also Paul’s insightful commentary on the status of Windows Vista Beta 2)

But Michael did not originally say that, it said something simple like “Supplied by Thurrott”

Personally I am not fond of Thurrott, I have corrected several of his articles, to which he has politly responded agreeing but then didnt change all of his (now known) mistakes. He also is very bias, but can be a welome contrast to all the Mac hype that goes around, esp. from sites like TUAW who are actually pretty sickening in their sycophantic articles

However lets look at it rationally, they are his screenshots, like it or not. The law is pretty clear that he owns them and has automatic copywrite. Personally I think you should have either asked first or found someone to give you some had Paul said no.

In the light of the way things went I think Michael should have just pulled them at the start and appologised. I dont think the whole thing needed to become some weird drawn out bashing of Thurrott, esp. considering how easy it is in general.

Rather than continue with this rather futile ‘yes-no’-debate, I decided I would bring something useful to the table. Michael got me thinking about copyrights on the web, so I did some research.
The thing about copyrights, as with many other legal matters, different countries have their own legislation. I’m not a law student, so I apologize in advance for any misinterpretions that may follow. I live in Finland, and at least compared to the States, we have a more “relaxed” legal system when involving material on the internet (there aren’t that many million dollar lawsuits :) ..)

Anyway, at Finlex.fi, our goverment’s online legislation database, it’s stated that with photos, the person who has taken the photo own the copyright, unless there is a specific target, like for example your friend. Then it’s slightly more complicated. With text, the same thing applies – the writer owns the copyrights. I emailed a friend of mine who’s studying law at the University here, so she’ll tell me if I’ve missed something important.

So what’s my point, you ask? My point is that since the screenshots in question at Paul’s site, and here at Binary Bonsai, weren’t taken by either party (am I right?), but by Microsoft themselves, naturally MS owns the copyrights for all the images. And as they are screenshots that are public, ‘advertising/promoting’ if you may, a new operating system that will be released sometime in the near future (possibly), they may be distributed freely. The real credit of course, goes to Microsoft for originally taking the screenshots in question, if I understood this whole scenario correctly.

So if Paul or anyone else for that matter, wants a reason to bitch about, the only real issue would be about crediting the other for the pictures. This is also another thing that makes me giggle, since Michael very clearly writes in his Vista-review (it’s the second line of text) that:

“(screenshots from Thurrott’s Supersite for Windows, where you will find not only more screenshots, but also Paul’s insightful commentary on the status of Windows Vista Beta 2)“

Someone please explain to me how this isn’t understood as crediting another? Unless Paul (for example, since we’re still on the subject) is looking for a blowjob and his name on a park bench, I would deem this reasonable credit. Geez! A simple “Thx Paul” would’ve sufficed all the same, in my opinion.

I’d like to equally thank Michael AND Paul for both taking the time to write about Vista, since I still haven’t taken the time to download the sucker and test it out for myself. So you share the same screenshots, who gives a toss. Your own opinions are the ones that matter in the end.

As for taking a lot of time, not really, it took about an hour to install Vista (I ran into a problem with the hard drive I was trying to use being locked to my old modded Xbox – silly me forgot to unlock it before i removed it from said Xbox leaving me with a large paperweight), without that problem its about 45 minutes to install. And then its a case of taking some shots and firing them into PS then saving them and uploading to flickr.

I have photos of the install screens if anyone wants them uploaded to my flickr site I can do that for ya?