Erick: “He actually has some good advice. (…) And Jason Calacanis is not a private individual. He is the CEO of a high-profile startup and an Internet celebrity in his own right.”

Jason: “building advertising-based companies is my specialty”

This is just ridiculous and JC advices here are quite obvious. This email is no news. The only news here is how many people don’t actually see this as self-promotion and keep arguing with Erick about copyright. It’s so funny. If this was less obvious I would think Erick and JC were arrogant jerks. But no. They are just having fun and probably laughing a lot right now.

This email is private — the fact that it went to 9,000 people is irrelevant. The group is private and it doesn’t matter how big it is, its still private.

Yes, you can dictate publishing status on a per piece basis. It happens all the time in business. Some is public and some is private… what rock have you been under? Do you have any biz experience? Have you ever served on a board or in an executive position? Have you ever been part of a select user group? IF so, then you’d know that volume has no relevance to privacy.

Tell me, what is the exact recipient number at which things go from public to private? 1… 1,000? What? It doesn’t matter if you feel he’s getting extra press, its not your place to decide his delivery methods.

If Jason Calacanis wants a chunk of your ass for reprinting this in full, its his for the taking. You screwed up and you’re a content thief. Period.

More practically, everyone knows there is lots of content that can’t be protected once you give it to thousands of people. You can DMCA people in the US but not the ROW, and it takes time and money. If you take a typically copyrighted paywall WSJ article, if it’s popular enough you’ll find it on 3-4 websites within 24 hours.

What I don’t get is why Jason is using 20th century technology to run a blog. I suppose it could be an ego thing in a futile attempt to create switching costs. But from a practical standpoint, if he just posted his content on a blog then Erick could have just linked to the content.

Joel

You better hope the crunch isn’t so bad you need to look for a job in the next year or two – who would give you guys one? You can’t be trustsed, you have (at best) a crappy understanding of IP law, and would sell your own grandma for a few thousand page impressions.

Jason,

You see the the Obama email. He is an Arab, and a Muslim. Holy Shit !!!
Please kindly donate your money to Republican campaign because I love buy clothes, makeup stuffs, and shits. Who doesn’t ?

Your Sweet Heart,
Sarah Palin

So – in summary – an email incorporating a (legally meaningless) request to abstain from republishing was sent by a company’s CEO to 9000 people and was later republished on a tech blog, resulting in well over 100 bile-ladened posts of “commentary” and threats made against the well-being of those responsible for choosing to republish.

In (perspective enhancing) news outside the Sandpit of Silicon Valley………

Thousands of citizens of Zimbabwe, Darfur and Congo continued to lament the lack of food, water, shelter & mentally stable Government leaders …… oh and decent internet access in refugee camps of course!!!

Anyone around here attending the next Davos conference????

Like come on, really.

Get over it.

Come on.