Blogger "Goats" Microsoft RSS team blog

Steven Parker

08 December 2006 - 02:45 Hot!

Oh dear! What's the world coming too?

Blogger Niall Kennedy was not happy that Microsoft RSS team blog hotlinked a picture without permission. The blogger replaced the picture with a male human being speading his ass cheeks.

Microsoft RSS team Blog

Niall Kennedy Blog

Screenshot of RSS team blog with changed picture (warning pornographic material!) source www.webwereld.nl

The goatse has become a cult, see wiki and http://sam.zoy.org/goatse/

News source: Bink

95 Comments

OWNED...lol

glad to see MS likes to hotlink as well as if they dont have enough bandwith on their own servers

Have to admit, i did roffle at that :)

I also have to admit that ive done the same (not the same picture obviously) to people hotlink.

the guy pays for his bandwidth, and personally i think he should claim against microsoft for bandwidth usage :p

:nuts:

Silly Microsoft.

Hah...that's hilarious.

-Spenser

ahahahaha, nice

The sweet smell of PWNAGE, cooling on the windowsill...

Is it sick that I've seen that picture on a hacked website before?

And, who cares, everyone hotlinks at some point...

Yeah, I've unsubscribed from Niall and posted my response here:

http://brandonlive.com/2006/12/07/niall-ke...y-unsubscribed/

immature response to a immature response.

I think MS will never hotlink again. Some of you that say this type of thing is immature are just trying to be the older, wiser, and look good type of people. Imagine you make your own OS and someone steals it from you (the code) changes something and call it their own without giving credit. You'd be ****ed.

Besides it doesnt affect you. I see its pointless to unsubscribe but oh well. You're the stupid "mature" adult so I guess you're right.

rIaHc3 - I have no problem with him taking action if he thought he had rights to the photo (turns out he really doesn't).

However he didn't need to take action against the readers of that blog as he did. One commenter's 12-year-old daughter encountered this. That might seem funny to you or Niall, but her father certainly didn't think it was.

Finally, it wasn't "MS" that linked to that photo ON FLICKR (you know, a photo sharing/hosting site), but rather one blogger who happens to work for MS. There are thousands of bloggers at MS and many of them will never hear of this occurence. So saying you think "MS will never hotlink again" makes it sound like we're all plugged into some hive mind or something.

This particular guy probably will be more careful about trusting the sources he uses to not pull childish pranks on his readers - but I think the only lesson in all of this is that Niall Kennedy is a jerk.

WHAT A LOOSER.... Couldn't he just email Microsoft and ask them to take it down. They should now take him to court over tarnishing their blog. I would.

...Never reading that blog again...

Quote - mrmckeb said @ #9.5

WHAT A LOOSER.... Couldn't he just email Microsoft and ask them to take it down. They should now take him to court over tarnishing their blog. I would.

...Never reading that blog again...

Did you actually read his article? It wouldn't do any good to contact MS even if he could. I like this quote:
"Photo swapping is a definite way to grab the attention of the site misusing your content. The Goatse meme is particularly apt for cases of direct or attempted IP theft."
It may have been immature and possibly not an ethical thing to do (matter of opinion), but it is not illegal and it appears that it was effective.

MS was in violation of the Creative Commons by-attribution non-commercial license. If anyone would go to court, it would be MS for violating his IP rights.

I don't think it's good to post the link to the tribute of goats on Neowin...

That’s just funny lol

LMAO

news just in: I don't care.

Then why did you waste your time posting a comment?

You do care.

No, I still don't care.

It's rather immature, if the original post had a problem they should've contacted Microsoft and resolved this in an adult fashion.

This is rather attention seeking and thus, I don't care and I don't care to see this sort of rubbish on Neowin or the internet.

Quote - Z3r0 said @ #13.2

I don't care to see this sort of rubbish on ... the internet.

lol

This rubbish is the internet.

Quote - AfroTrance said @ #13.3

lol

This rubbish is the internet.

The lad has a point, Z3r0

PWNED

Maybe I'm getting old, but it doesn't seem like this is appropriate for frontpage Neowin news.

If this is going to be considered news, at least get it right. It's called being "goatse" not "Goats".

The reason why is it called this is because the claimed image originated on a site www.<< filtered for offensive content >>, which just displayed this single image. The idea was to send someone to it to see the image, so it became common to use the term goatse as "goatse'd".

Example: I goatse'd my brother yesterday. He hates me now.

Sheesh.

Funny that it filtered it www.[goatse].cx considering that the site doesn't even exist anymore.

Quote - xelencin said @ #16.1

Funny that it filtered it www.[goatse].cx considering that the site doesn't even exist anymore.

Funnier that everyone calls it "goatse" when it's "goatse . cx" ... clearly "goat sex" ... "goatse" makes no sense...

Quote - ieatlint said @ #16.2

Quote - xelencin said @ #16.1

Funny that it filtered it www.[goatse].cx considering that the site doesn't even exist anymore.

Funnier that everyone calls it "goatse" when it's "goatse . cx" ... clearly "goat sex" ... "goatse" makes no sense...

neither does 'pwned' but it has become a part of internet vocabulary.

the correct term is to 'goatse' someone.

He was a fool to do such a thing. He could have notified them or even just removed the damned picture, but noooo, he had to be an ass.

Burned.

Heh, yeah, an ass indeed.

rofl goatse

That's pretty damn funny... and incredibly immature. I guess that's what life is all about these days though...

bloody discusting. some people are idiots!

Bloody stupid, but still cracked me up.

LOL

What a petty, immature, and childish thing to do on this bloggers part. Removing the picture from flicker would have been a much easier way if he didn't want Microsoft using it. How old is this guy, 15?

Quote - Marshalus said @ #23

No, he's the guy who developed Technorati, Pricegrabber and NexTag. He also worked for MS.

Doesn't make him more mature, does it.

Removing the picture from flicker would have been a much easier way if he didn't want Microsoft using it.

Why should he have to remove his own pictures to stop MS from illegally using them? :S
Stop blaming this on the Flickr guy...

He also worked for MS.

But not for very long. I think maybe I'm starting to see why.

Why should he have to remove his own pictures to stop MS from illegally using them? Stop blaming this on the Flickr guy...

Are you referring to Niall as "the Flickr guy?" You're assuming that Niall's original claim that he owns the rights to the photo are in fact legitimate. Looks like it's not.

And who else is to blame? He's the one that knowingly exposed hundreds of his former employer's readers to a disgusting and offensive image for no reason other than spite and attention. So stop defending him just because you got a cheap laugh out of it.

He wasn't worried about the hotlinking, he was worried about intellectual property theft and copyleft violation.

oh and roflgoatse.

no, what's funny is that the MS Bloggers actually APOLOGIZED to him!!! Now THAT'S entertainment!!!

Only one thing to say..

LOL

And this had to get posted here... WHY!?

Does anyone see the irony here? The image was released with a collective commons license which required attribution and the Microsoft employee linked to the image without attribution, and we all know how "legally correct" Microsoft always is.

Well, yeah, that's probably what annoyed the user in the first place.

Flickr is especially known to feature CC material and it's easy to find out what licenses the images use, so it's pretty sloppy on Microsoft's part.

Not really - it's sloppy on Niall's part since apparently he didn't own the rights to the image in the first place. So he has no business putting it under a CC license.

I like the other picture better.. you know, the guy with the enormous penis. I wonder if it's real.

rofl. first front page news i really had fun reading.

IN OTHER NEWS:
Niall Kennedy now has a bill for $691 of bandwidth consumption.

Was it legal for him to take pictures of that person and stick licenses to it?

Nope - not without a release from Dean Hachamovitch (and Microsoft).

I want some sort of hell for that guy. Does anyone agree with me?

Lame. Should've just deleted the image if he had a problem. I mean, just about any other image would have been fine, but goatse? Bleh.

Why should he take down his material because others are violating the license? That logic makes no sense at all.

He was taking down his material either way... Better to have it be a 404, IMO. Then he could re-upload the image to his album with a new URI and everything would have been fine. Oh, and maybe send an email to the bloggers about it.

Goatse strikes again!

Ahahahaha . . . owned baby :pp

What an immature idiot. He should have just asked them to remove it, instead he's just made himself look stupid. Its not like he losing any bandwidth anyway since he was hosting it on Flickr. I'd love to see if he has the permission of the people/trademarks in the photo, especially now he's been involved in something as pathetic as this.

Its not like he losing any bandwidth anyway since he was hosting it on Flickr.

No, and MS isn't losing any bandwidth on me downloading XP from a P2P network... What kind of silly argument is that?

It's the usage rights to the property that's violated.

According to Flickr the picture is under a Creative Commons license:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

This means it can be displayed, remixed or shared freely, as long as the author is acknowledged. All he had to do was ask them to acknowledge him (an error on Microsoft's part not too initially); but instead he chose to be a jerk about it. He's shown he's totally unprofessional. Lets be honest though, he did it to get himself some attention anyway.

I'm no legal expert but I'm certain the usage rights on Windows XP are different to those of an image on a free hosting website.

Quote - ziadoz said @ #37.2

According to Flickr the picture is under a Creative Commons license:
I'm no legal expert but I'm certain the usage rights on Windows XP are different to those of an image on a free hosting website. :blink:

no. copyrighted material and intellectual property is the same regardless. Just because Microsoft own xp, it doesnt make copyright stronger.

I guess you can see who are the Microsoft fanboys from these comments...

Quote - bmaher said @ #37.3

no. copyrighted material and intellectual property is the same regardless. Just because Microsoft own xp, it doesnt make copyright stronger.

I guess you can see who are the Microsoft fanboys from these comments...

If only law was so simple as you make out, perhaps more people would represent themselves.

what an idiot.
he's too cool for this planet.

Such an idiot...
Actually he has no copyright to this material...
And such a childish behavior...
He should have renamed the image and contact that blogger...

Such an idiot...
Actually he has no copyright to this material...

Yes, he does. He was the photographer, ergo he produced the material.

Quote - Jugalator said @ #39.1

Yes, he does. He was the photographer, ergo he produced the material.

But he has photographed copyrighted products and persons, so...

Quote - sorlag said @ #39.2

But he has photographed copyrighted products and persons, so...

So that means even CNN cannot take photographs of Bill Gates or the Zune device without paying money to Microsoft?

So he would rather that they saved the image locally? Meh, kids!

goatse is very disgusting.

I have seen worse.

Man sitting on a bollard.

Why do they do it?

I do not get it.

Go Niall Kennedy!!

how would you feel to be the person that hotlinked that document!

how sad and petty. His blog is no longer worth reading as it has lost all credability after seeing the screenshot of the altered image. He could have simply put a message saying please do not hotlink pictures from this blog etc but no he had to put a disgusting picture like that for everyone to see. Also it raises the question the picture was at a microsoft event with microsoft work in the background so im sure microsoft do have some legal ground on this. The guy deserves to pay for this. Very sad and very pathetic indeed.

Also it raises the question the picture was at a microsoft event with microsoft work in the background so im sure microsoft do have some legal ground on this.

Nope.

Gotta love the "holier than thou" attitude here. Niall made a particular point: that Microsoft, which is soooo concerned about its own IP decides to breach the Creative Commons license on someone else's IP and Flickrs' TOS just because they felt like it and that's OK? He didn't think so and punished them. Why should he have been nice about it? Sauce for the gander.