I mean, with a sentence like this, it's hard not to jump to the conclusion that there's more than hotlinking and code copyright going on: "We know you love us Al-Jazeera, but stealing from us and then ignoring us is not the way to express it."
I wouldn't call them unethical, just incomplete. We have a case here where someone paid Scrollytellio to create a story in their content-management system. Their system is such that, to a layperson (which I assume the reporter is when it comes to webdev), the code and presentation is inextricable from the content.
The reporter was wrong, but that's just one level of confusion and ambiguity where it's possible to understand why AJ messed up. Even more confusing is that AJ itself uses the same open-source tech that ScrollyTelling does:
A web dev/producer at a media company not knowing the difference between the open-source code they've used in the past, and the modified version that a freelancer has given to them for this one package? Yeah, incompetent, but not malicious.
Again, it doesn't excuse AJ, their web producer, and the reporter, for not following up with more speed. But I can see why it's more likely that incompetency is the culprit and not malice.
I mean, with a sentence like this, it's hard not to jump to the conclusion that there's more than hotlinking and code copyright going on: "We know you love us Al-Jazeera, but stealing from us and then ignoring us is not the way to express it."
I wouldn't call them unethical, just incomplete. We have a case here where someone paid Scrollytellio to create a story in their content-management system. Their system is such that, to a layperson (which I assume the reporter is when it comes to webdev), the code and presentation is inextricable from the content.
The reporter was wrong, but that's just one level of confusion and ambiguity where it's possible to understand why AJ messed up. Even more confusing is that AJ itself uses the same open-source tech that ScrollyTelling does:
https://twitter.com/Hiddemhigh/status/777535017383845890
https://twitter.com/pageflow_io/status/777562569468964864
A web dev/producer at a media company not knowing the difference between the open-source code they've used in the past, and the modified version that a freelancer has given to them for this one package? Yeah, incompetent, but not malicious.
Again, it doesn't excuse AJ, their web producer, and the reporter, for not following up with more speed. But I can see why it's more likely that incompetency is the culprit and not malice.