Breach of Etiquette

[oscar jubis]

A member of this site has posted my review of Turtles Can Fly on another website without asking for my permission. The member did not provide a link to filmwurld but actually posted my review there. I recognize there is no illegality involved, but I believe the action constitutes a breach of etiquette. In other words, I think it is a matter of common courtesy to consult with me before posting any of my reviews elsewhere.

There are numerous film sites on the net. For a variety of reasons, I choose to post my comments and reviews here and only here. I use my actual name and divulge personal information as required to convey the reasons behind my opinions. I make my opinions public in this forum because of the potential for meaningful exchange and mutual learning. A potential often reached thanks to excellent administration and select membership. Filmwurld is unique in those respects.

My interest is not to discuss the specifics of this minor incident, but to request opinions, pro or con, regarding the issue or any of my related comments.

[arsaib4]

I agree, even if the link was provided it still constitutes as an unethical act.

This thread now allows me the opportunity to say what I was about to say in another. It deals with a similar issue actually. I've noticed that many of us here- including me - are relying a bit too much on what others have to say about a topic in order to form our opinion. The regularity with which metacritic and its grades are being brought up to defend ourselves is unhealthy in my opinion. It is great that sites like that have given us the opportunity to read a wide variety of reviews but to simply post someone else's review or a # from metacritic to respond to a member is something I'm trying not to do. It was refreshing to have a brief discussion with tabuno recently where he took the time to talk about some of the films I listed as my Best of 2004 including The Village. He could've easily posted the low grade it got at metacritic or could've told me the high number of critics who disliked the film but he didn't and that also allowed me to conjure up my thoughts instead of finding critics who supported what I said. This is just an example but it shows what makes a site like FilmWurld so great. All of us here are capable of originality and we need to be careful to not simply use Hoberman, Dargis, Rosenbaum etc. in order to support our thought process.

[hengcs]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
A member of this site has posted my review of Turtles Can Fly on another website ...

Hi oscar jubis,

I apologize.
Please do not take offense.
I have deleted the post from the other forum.

** To others who are reading this thread, I just wish to clarify that on the other site,
(I believe oscar jubis, arsaib4 and members of the other board can provide testaments to the following)
-- I indicated that it was a "cross post",
-- Also, I honored and cited the original author's name (in this case, oscar jubis) on the "cross post".
-- I did not assume that the review was mine.

My initial misconception was: as long as I cite the author, it is not unethical to do so. I honor that it was written by him.

Initially, it really did not cross my mind that it would be unethical to do so. This is because I often share news articles, movie reviews, (e.g., from NY Times, Rottentomatoes, etc) or anything public on the web with my friends. Sometimes, I put the link; Sometimes, I just cut and paste the article for them, with the author or source cited. Why? Because some of my friends are on UNIX, and clicking is not possible; Also, I dislike opening too many windows, so I like it when people just post the article for me.

Why the misconception that citing the author suffices? I often see people on this forum and various forums discussing about reviews made by others from other website, so I thought it was okay.

I apologize.
I should not have posted oscar jubis's review there.
However, it should not be misconstrued as an intentional malicious act.

[oscar jubis]

I agree, you identified me as the author. That's not the issue. My simple point is: It is polite to ask. You can either send a personal message or an e-mail, like the one you sent me last year (did you receive my response?).
I am not a member of the site where you posted my review. I visit that site to read the posts of a man from Wales who writes under the pseudonym Mizoguchi. Unlike the bulk of the membership, he can write intelligibly and has well-reasoned opinions.

*The issue raised by arsaib is much more complex. For starters I'll say that I am not only interested in cinema but also in film criticism. Hence I appreciate quotes from critics and links to reviews that provide an added perspective, or that convey my views on a film or issue more eloquently than I can. I don't think that this practice is overused. I was prompted to re-read my journal entries and found few instances of such practice. I prefer to put my own take into my own words.

I also think that "critical consensus" is often a relevant variable (for instance when discussing whether a film is over or under-rated, and also when deciding which films merit the expense of a theatrical viewing). Metacritic provides me a simple measure of critical consensus without being forced to read reviews before I watch a given movie. It's not perfect, but what is? (In general, if a movie gets a score of 70 or above I head to the theatre). It serves the "radar" well.

[Chris Knipp]

My initial misconception was: as long as I cite the author, it is not unethical to do so.

This is very polite of you, hengcs, but I don't think this really is a misconception. I just want to point out that Oscar used the term "breach of etiquette," not "unethical." Etiquette and ethics are different. But I'm glad the issue has been strightened out with an apology. A self-healing group is a healthy group. As for UNIX, I don't know the details of that, but surely they can look up a link even if they can't immediately click on it?

I strongly agree with Oscar about the reference to reviews; I am interested in film criticism too and endeavor to produce it myself. In my reviews I only rarely refer to specific critics or at least don't quote them at any length, but even if you talk about, say, The Village, favorably, you are doing so in the inevitable context of its generally cold critical reception and you are forced to respond to that. It's also inevitable that despite my trips to New York I am mostly reviewing films after the print critics have had their say, so to pretend not to be aware of them is to dumb down my own remarks, or to falsify them. What is wrong is plagiarism, even more important than etiquette and more specific to this context than "ethics."

Not only "critical consensus" but also audiences are well worth considering, if one knows. This will be an issue in talking about Oldboy, Kontroll, and Sin City, three new films that in some ways seem to be related as to critical response and ideal audience. The advantage of dealing with reviews vs. with audiences is that one has the critics' responses in print as proof of what they are, whereas what the ideal audience is is more speculative.

[hengcs]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
I agree, you identified me as the author.

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
... What is wrong is plagiarism, even more important than etiquette and more specific to this context than "ethics."

... Not only "critical consensus" but also audiences are well worth considering, if one knows. This will be an issue in talking about Oldboy, Kontroll, and Sin City, three new films that in some ways seem to be related as to critical response and ideal audience.

(1) I was worried about accusation of plagiarism and ethical issues, that was why the post began with "I have cross post from oscar jubis ... ". I agree that I could have informed or emailed oscar jubis.

This is really an oversight even on issues of etiquette:

(i) In many research papers/books we write, we cite many authors and articles. It is a practice to just cite the authors/articles without the need to email them. In a way, they understand that anything in print or internet is available for citing (NOT plagiarism nor unethical nor without etiquette).

(ii) Initially, I want to just cut and paste my own review there (on Turtles Can Fly), BUT it would not make sense without the earlier post -- that was the only reason why I posted oscar jubis's review there. In no way was I trying to be nasty and invite harsh criticism on his post or anything. Unfortunately, the subsequent post was really HARSH on his review.

(iii) Often, among friends, we will circulate something that is posted on the Internet, without emailing the author. We may agree with that article or disagree. But of course, my friends and I are always respectful of the articles even if we disagree on the write up.

Honestly, when any of us on this forum start citing comments/reviews or linking from other sites (e.g., Ebert, AO Scott, etc), do any of us really email the authors to inform them? Often than not, we presume it is available for internet audience. Of course, we also hope the readers are respectful of the articles.

(iv) anything on the internet ... regarding your comments about reviews and targeted audience, I often take it with an open heart. Frankly, there is NO WAY to prevent anyone (I always see guest readers on this site) from cross posting or criticizing anything that is posted on the Internet and invite his/her circle of friends to talk about it or even slam it ...

all we can do as authors is to be more empathetic toward readers' perceptions or try to understand their strong views ... or at worse, simply ignore it.

e.g., SIN CITY ... I really do not see the point of either sides trying to be too nasty ... both sides should simply respect one another for their "perception/taste" of movies ...
e.g., even a non violent movie, BUT about euthanasia, can draw very divisive comments (e.g., Million Dollar Baby, The Sea Inside, etc)

[hengcs]

I have been thinking about this issue for several days, no joke.
In a way, I am feeling upset about the entire incident.

To understand the incident better, I would like to share the following scenario, which was what actually happened at the other forum ...

I am just very upset that a nice gesture has resulted in so much unhappiness ...

Imagine someone from this board, say Andy, ask about a film,
"Hey, have any of you heard about Movie XYZ?
Why is there no discussion about it?"

In my eagerness to reply, I did the following ...

"Hey Andy,
don't be upset, I have heard something about the movie ...
here is a review ...

I am cross posting a review by A. O. Scott, ...

... * I post the review * ... "


Would you be accused of breaching etiquette by doing so?
Would you have emailed A. O. Scott?

I guess I often follow my heart ...

[Chris Knipp]

hengcs, I appreciate your concern and sensitivity on this matter and I'm sure Oscar does too.

Of course citing sources is always allowed and even required, but remember there is a distinction between "citing" and "quoting," and while citing sources is always the right thing to do, quoting at length from them -- in print publications anyway -- may require permission from the author or publisher. If you were to publish a book about the movies, and in it wanted to quote at length from a review by Manohla Dargis or Jonathan Rosenbaum, you would have to contact them or the Times or the Chicago Reader for permission.

However, I agree that things get cited and quoted much more freely on the Internet and at least one thing I wrote turned up in toto on a website (in another country) that I'd never heard of. This was a political commentary, not a movie review. When a site that sells DVD's wanted to use some of my reviews to sell DVD's, they emailed me for each review to request permission to do so. And I would have been annoyed if they hadn't.

But the cause of Oscar's being unhappy in this particular case with his review coming up on the other website where you pasted it in, besides the fact that he prefers to restrict his contributions to FilmWurld, was that he doesn't like that particuar site very much.

The whole idea of mentioning "etiquette" I think is that since we have a little community here on FilmWurld and we've generally maintained very good manners and mutual respect in exchanging ideas on threads, it's a good idea to have personal communication from time to time among ourselves about what we're doing, especially when we take things from here to other sites. All the "flaming" or "slamming" or whatever it is that occurs on websites occurs I think because there is no personal relationship established between the contributors. If they exchange emails and know something about each other as people, they are more likely to be polite and have civil discourse.

Maybe you might have solved the problem of putting your statement on the other website in the context of commenting on Oscar's review by simply summarizing Oscar's review briefly -- and providing a link, the cyber-equivalent of a citation, to the thread on FilmWurld. Thus you might have avoided reproducing his whole review, and still established the context for your comment.

Widely published authors of print reviews that are also published online are in a different category (of course we can't be emailing them all for permission to quote them), but we have the advantage among ourselves on FilmWurld of emailing and thus protecting each other's sensitivities, which are greater in some cases than in others.

[hengcs]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
... quoting at length from them -- in print publications anyway -- may require permission from the author or publisher. If you were to publish a book about the movies, ...

However, I agree that things get cited and quoted much more freely on the Internet ...

But the cause of Oscar's being unhappy in this particular case with his review coming up on the other website where you pasted it in, besides the fact that he prefers to restrict his contributions to FilmWurld, was that he doesn't like that particuar site very much. ...

Widely published authors of print reviews that are also published online are in a different category (of course we can't be emailing them all for permission to quote them) ...

I am glad that you did see why I wasn't intentional in sharing the information ...
I admit I have seen too much quoting of widely published authors being shared and discussed on internet forum.

(1) I also want to highlight another important difference.

Often, when books/magazines/newspapers want to quote any articles/reviews, they are doing it for PROFIT. In other words, they do generate revenue by reproducing the articles, and are hence worried about legal liabilities. Otherwise, they would have to pay people to write those articles/reviews.

However, on internet forums, most of us are just trying to share information and help answer others' problems and discuss about the content of the articles/reviews. People are just being kind by sharing information, and discussing what has been written.

(2) As I am new here, I am sorry that I didn't know that oscar doesn't like that particuar site very much. Otherwise, I wouldn't have cross posted the article. I really didn't expect the follow up post by another member to his review to be that nasty.

I really felt bad ... but I can't edit the other member's post. I also did not want to add further comments because it will simply end up in a vicious cycle of strong comments
(just see the thread in SIN CITY and we more or less know ... )

However, I doubt the alternative of providing a link (e.g., here is a review by oscar, click here) would have avoided the strong comments from the other poster. I guess other readers will just have to be more respectful when they read others' reviews/articles.

If only the world is more empathetic towards one another ...
;)