Fortune 500 Company Symantec Using Unattributed NWN Image of Unauthorized Dune Tribute in Second Life to Put a Poodle On It... So I Don't Even Know What to Say

So last week I noticed that Symantec, which is a Fortune 500 company, is using an image I shot in Second Life for a post about a user-created tribute to Frank Herbert's Dune franchise back in 2007, for a viral campaign on Twitter, which has something to do with a poodle fighting a sandworm. Now this would be fine except they didn't attribute the screenshot to New World Notes, which is not very cool (and against the Creative Commons license of this blog), but on the other hand, it's a virtual world news report on an unauthorized tribute. And in 2009, lawyers representing the estate of Frank Herbert sent legal notices to the Second Life users who were making all these Dune tributes.

So yeah, I kinda don't know what to say about the poodle and the sandworm (which was actually a virtual statue in Second Life, at least until the lawyers came calling). Except maybe this:

It's sort of strange when a large corporation acts thoughtlessly about attribution, especially when it involves intellectual property which its owners take very seriously indeed. And a mid-sized blog (at best) is kind of caught in the middle of this ambivalent place. But you know, like Fatboy Slim or I guess Frank Herbert but maybe Christopher Walken once said:

"Walk without rhythm, or you might attract the worm."

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Comments

[Iggy]

Fire the college intern who cobbled it together for Symantec. That altered image wins 5 wheels of Brie for cheesiness.

[Eddi Haskell]

Ideally you want to be paid for the use of the image, and if they image is yours, you can hire a lawyer in whatever state you live in and sue for compensation. In reality, you would need to pay a lawyer cash up front to do this (no one is going to take it on contingency), and it simply would not be worth the time and effort even if you won. What I would do is contact the head of communications or public relations and ask them to mention NWN in their materials, and request that they do not do this again. I would do it with a phone call and see what happens.

[melponeme_k]

Whats the matter?

Information should be FREEEEE! WHEEEE!

All kidding aside. Now do you see why the above is a fallacy?

Information is only free to the corporations powerful enough to steal because no one will have the clout or money to fight them.

That means you, little person, can be buggered up the backside left and right while they steal your IP.

However, steal Symantec corporatist advertising images? You will be in debtors prison for the rest of your life.

Wake UP people!

[Metacam Oh]

Its probably some intern working their twitter account getting paid nothing who knows nothing about attributing images.

[zz bottom]

Why should you care?
it is not enough proud to know someone used an old image of yours for something?
Copy is a GOD's right and only Him can question or lawsuit!

[Adeon Writer]

Everything is better with poodles, though.

[Ctreadwell]

I do know what to say... I sincerely apologize and want to make this right.

Symantec worm here... and no, I'm not an intern for those who tried to defend my inexcusable actions. I'm the global director of social media for Symantec, Charlie Treadwell.

We pride ourselves on using licensed imagery, or crediting the source whenever applicable. In this case, I messed up.

You may not be in the security industry or a system admin, so this won't mean much to you, but last Tuesday was the equivalent of The Emperor's Battle for Dune. We were fighting 3 zero-day vulnerabilities along with hackers holding 7 Million dropbox users passwords hostage.

On days like this, we do not market, we don't sell, we only want to help and provide a public service. At the end of a very long day, we were seeking to provide some humor to end the insane day on a lighter note.

I quickly grabbed your image from Google Images, did not follow through to the source to verify if it was rights free, rights manager, or creative commons. Added the poodle (Sandworm and Poodle were two of the 3 zero-day vulnerabilities) and published the post. Oddly enough, I did license the poodle image from iStock. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a stock photo of a Sandworm these days.

Being busy, and being in a hurry are no excuse. What can I do to make this up to you?

Charlie

[2014]

he wants you to hire a stylist in SL, and enough linden dollar for a full makeover and AO.

[Iggy]

Charlie, on behalf of the little folk, thank you! Now pay Hamlet a million bucks. Good thing you did not use an image from someone we at NWN call "she who must not be named." You would be *SO* sued.

[Wagner James Au]

Hi Charlie, thanks for responding; like I said on Twitter, I'm not even mad. It would be cool if you Tweeted the original link, if you like:

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2007/10/new-world-slu-2.html

Maybe Tweet it with copy like, "Poodle v. sandworm made possible by Second Life's talented sci-fi fans: "?

[Pussycat Catnap]

I've come very close to making this gaff before.

Google and other search engines have their image things that don't credit or distinguish between royalty free images and generally harvested images.

There's a good question for the lawyers there - are those search engines are outside the bounds of fair use?

I've grabbed something for internal use, or a mockup, and come very close to having it go out that way - only catching it when somebody debugging the project right before release sent things back - and I noticed my mockup image was still on there...

This makes a good argument for watermarking images. And I'd say... for SL, it'd be really nice if there was a feature to auto stamp your avatar name or something onto some part of the image - if you checked a box to have that done.

Good to see a happy resolution out of this one.

[Ctreadwell]

Done. https://twitter.com/symantec/status/525683250346606593

- Charlie

[Wagner James Au]

Thanks Charlie -- retweeted!

[anameofsomesorthere]

This was a psi ops piece by Symantec.

"All is fair in love and war" maybe?