[kernal_panic]

Ziff Davis the publisher of Electronic Gaming Monthly Magazine is trying to come down on Gunsnet because a poster there, Roman Stepanov a russian living here, posted a picture of an extremely disrespectfull picture that was published in EGMM. The picture is of a bunch of russian soilders holding copies of SoCom II. Problem is its a photoshop job and originally the soilders were holding pictures of their friends killed in the chechnian war! Worse off ZD is accusing gunsnet of copyright violations when the picture they modified is copyrighted material that doesn't belong to them!

here is the thread at gunsnet:

http://www.gunsnet.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=157365&perpage=30&pagenumber=1

[10mmshooter]

That was a horrific way to advertise a game. I have signed the petition against them, and hope that they pay for their gross negligence!:cuss:

[Kharn]

Original Image:
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2002-9/53088/Original.jpg
Photoshop'ed image: (copyright EGM, etc etc)
http://www.gunsnet.net/album/uploads//6673/f.jpg

:fire:

Note: it wasnt an ad for the game, it was just an intro page to the article regarding the game, Sony (the game's publisher) most likely had nothing to do with the image selection.

Kharn

[eatatjoes]

from what i understand the original picture was doctored by an editor at the magazine and i have cancelled my little brother's subscription to the magazine(with his blessing).

this is extremely disrespectful and i would not want something like this done to american soldiers or soldiers from any nation.

[M1911Owner]

i have cancelled my little brother's subscription to the magazineGood luck.

One of my kids got a subscription to EGMM as a gift a few years ago. He's never renewed the subscription, but they keep on sending it, year after year after year. It's even followed us through two or three moves. I take it that they get most of their revenue from advertising at rates based on the size of their circulation base, so it's more important to them to have the "subscriber" than it is to get the subscription money.

[WonderNine]

Is it just me or do they all look really young? Like 15.....

[Nightfall]

I bought one copy of EGM sometime last year for a preview they had.

It's in the trash now. Utterly inappropriate.

[4v50 Gary]

To mock a man's grief over loss of a comrade for commercial pursuits as a base as one can get. Glad I don't buy their rag.

[Pendragon]

ZD has lots of good mags - I am not going to stop reading any of them because of one idiot. I got a good deal on 4 subscriptions a year ago and I got all the good computer ones then got EGM - I never liked it or read it, but I really like PC Magazine.

That said, the doctoring of that pic is beyond bad taste.

[Blackcloud6]

I fired them off an email letting them know how disgusting this doctored picture is.

[nico]

That's ridiculous. I rehosted the pics on my webspace and posted them on another site to spread the word

[cwalker3]

I don't care how good their rags are. To disrespect deceased vets in this manner is beyond comprehension. I wouldn't use one of their magazines to cover the bottom of a bird cage. That would be too good for it.

[Pendragon]

My point is only that one or two idiots at a magazine aimed at boys probably 10-18 years old does not mean that a large publishing house has no respect for vets.

I really like PC Magazine - it is a magazine for grown ups.

Pretty interesting comments from us gun owners who are always quick to point out that the nut who twists off and goes on a shooting spree "does not represent gun owners as a group".

[Chuck Jennings]

The EGM editor has posted an apology here:

http://www.egmmag.com/article2/0,4364,1434661,00.asp

An Apology From EGM
1/12/2004

Dear readers,

In the February 2004 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, we printed a picture of soldiers holding what appear to be SOCOM II boxes. We altered this image to fit a story theme (soldiers preparing for online war), not realizing what the original context was (soldiers mourning their fallen comrades). We truly regret this and take full responsibility for our lack of better judgment. No excuses, we screwed up. It was completely unintentional, and we absolutely didn't mean to offend anybody. And then our company compounded the problem by sending a copyright infringement notice when the picture was scanned and posted without commentary on a third party's website, without understanding that the picture apparently was being displayed for critical purpose. We've addressed this issue head-on and are issuing apologies everywhere we can, and will also be doing so in our April 2004 issue. And, to further our apology, we're also making a contribution to The Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Please also note that this image was not used in an advertisement for SOCOM II, and was used without SOCOM II publisher Sony Computer Entertainment America or developer Zipper Interactive's knowledge or approval. We used it in our own editorial section, on our own efforts.

We'll try to be sure not to repeat this type of error again.

Sincerely,

Dan "Shoe" Hsu
Editor-in-chief, Electronic Gaming Monthly

[c_yeager]

My point is only that one or two idiots at a magazine aimed at boys probably 10-18 years old does not mean that a large publishing house has no respect for vets.

Um, if you would read the original post you can see that the "large publishing house" is accusing a gunboard of copy-right infringment because someone their posted their doctored up image and is pointing out exactly where that image came from. Now the original act of faking the picture could easily apply to what you said. But, the fact that the company itself is coming down on someone for having a problem with it is absurd.

[Blackcloud6]

Apology accepted.

They good by that.

[Andrew Rothman]

Works for me.

They bought the photo as stock, used it (in bad taste, and with a horrible lack of judgement), were informed of their mistake, and apologized.

Good for them.

[Pendragon]

Companies, especially large companies very often act reflexively and without a lot of communication between departments.

Some yay-hoo photo-shopped a pic, someone used it - perhaps not ever seeing the original.

Some guy posts it on the net and yet another person at the company sees it and fires off an email to legal: "get on top of this post with a cease and desist, etc".

Legal kicks into gear just taking the word of the person who sent the email that the pic is fully theirs and not thinking about fair use issues and here we are.


Thats why I think its pretty lame to just go from zero to boycott in one post. Boycotts should be reserved for cases where a company has a concious, thought out, deliberate policy that is harmful to you or your values.

Reasonable measures should be taken to try and show another side, persuade, educate, etc.

There is simply no way that a competent media organization would deliberately do what people thought had been done.

So it was a bungle - and everyone bungles things - we are human after all, but there is a big difference between bungle and evil and if we tread bungles as evil, we actually dilute peoples conception of evil.

[hksw]

Although I generally agree with Pendragon's opinion on boycotts, I think in this particular case it might have been deserved to be put on the fast track.

There was certainly a lapse in the mag's judgement in putting the doctored photo in its pages and should normally have been handled as noted above In this case, though, there was much more (emotional) damage done than say a doctored picture of Russian soldiers in parade holding the edited boxes in their hands or at the end of their extended bayonets. IMO.

One thing is for sure. The threat of a boycott certainly got the editors off their butts in a hurry to form their apology. In one post (on a few forums) it went from zero to boycott to apology and acceptance.