The Daily Mail took our story about a potential source for Brad Pitt’s new tattoo, which we were probably wrong about anyway, and ripped off our idea without even mentioning our site.
I found a map of the New Orleans French Quarter on Wikipedia and compared it to Pitt’s back tattoo. It’s a close match, but not perfect. I mistakenly identified the roads as the levees that failed during Hurricane Katrina and was corrected by a commenter and the post was updated.
The Mail takes the same map we used and sticks it up on their site, never crediting us with the idea. It took me over an hour of wracking my brain and surfing around to find that map, and chances are I was wrong, but this pisses me off immensely.
Here’s our original story on this, published yesterday morning.
Here’s the Daily Mail’s version, published today.
I guess it’s not that big of an ethical breach to steal someone’s idea when your only other option for writing material involves scrutinizing some actress’s knees.
Gotta say, I’m a little pissed too. They ripped off my comment on the damn story!!
My comment yesterday: “How hilarious would it be, if after all this intense speculation and thought, it turns out he was just letting one of the kids go nuts on him with a magic marker? That was my first thought when I saw it, as a father who’s had more than a few marker incidents himself.
It sure as hell seems more plausible than getting levies tattooed above his ass”
Their Story: “On first glimpse, it looks like one of Brad and Angelina’s many children have been drawing on their famous father’s back with a marker pen.”
What the fuck? They are so hard up they have to rip off random internet posters?
It’s a huge compliment, in a way.
Or, considering that it’s the Daily Mail, maybe not.
Scott you’re right! They copied you too! They are such slime. Last week they ripped off our “Posh gets cupcakes from Victoria Beckham story,” which we got from In Touch and credited. They ran the story and added some fake insider quotes as if it came from their site.
We published our version on May 5:
http://www.celebitchy.com/11405/heidi_klum_gives_victoria_beckham_cupcakes_every_week_for_a_year/
I think theirs was out the next day or so, but the timestamp is dated yesterday, because that’s when it was last edited.
http://tinyurl.com/6joowv
How shameless and rude!
And ethically wrong.
It does however show how reliable and appreciated Celebitchy really is throughout the world.
Let’s eat a cupcake to that!
This is the kind of situation in which you might understand how someone like Rowling feels about one’s own ideas and even words being taken and made profit of (regarding her trial versus the Harry Potter Lexicon paper version).
What bulshit!!
Do you think they have people on staff who just surf the web looking for stories to lift? How do I land that job, lol?
Can’t you sue or something? I saw this last night but it was hours after your post and was thinking they ripped you off, too!
I think Diebitch is a Daily Mail employee.
@Skyko – they told me to delete it, so I did. 🙄
Did you see that idea written on any other blog before this one freedomofsp? It wouldn’t have been my original thought – mine was that it was the framework for a more elaborate tattoo 😕
But if nothing else, the fact that it appears in the Daily Mail means it probably isn’t accurate 😉 😆
However considering it was the Daily Mail, it is surprising that they didn’t analyse the tattoos possible effect on house prices 😯 (it’s a sign of the Apocalypse it is!)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=497476&in_page_id=1770
If anyone wants to complain against the hacks…
what time was the original article posted at?
i was asking because cbs42 mentioned this on the 12th at 9:42 and they credited the daily mail… but you said that the daily mail published their article on the 13th …if thats true then how could cbs42 have used them as a source on the 12th… i think you should check your sources… http://www.keyetv.com/entertainment/story.aspx?content_id=1c9298de-2e01-4e9c-bee6-50eb3aebc2c3
ilovebrad — I saw the Daily Mail ripoff last night at around 6:30 PM Central time (12th May). But Celebitchy by then had it on for at least 4 hours before that on the same day. I have the weblogs.
I am absolutely certain I brought this on. They’re pissed at those stories I wrote mocking their ugly knee fetish. If I had just given the fine investigative journalists at the Daily Mail the respect they so obviously deserve (instead of the vile and ridicule I unnecessarily subjected them to) none of this would have happened.
👿
I noticed this too, but I was like, “Wait a minute… I thought Celebitchy was the one who figured that out.” Then I thought I must have read it wrong and you guys were referencing something else.
What a bunch of assholes. From now on when I steal photos from their site, I’m not even gonna feel bad about it.
I’m a journalist and this pisses me off majorly. You don’t steal stories, period. And if you do decide to lift a story or cover the same exact material, then at least be gracious enough to name your sources.
How very cheeky of them. 😐
Aw, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I guess you should be flattered? Still a pretty cheap (and lazy) trick by a rag that makes the National Enquirer look classy.
Celebitchy (and Scott!) FTW.
maybe they are just making fun of all of you bc this story is LAME.
and could you please stop with the cursing…thanx
I know you did not bring your uptight ass to a website called celeBITCHy and proceed to complain about curse words?
The Daily Mail do this all the time, plagiarize stories, I don´t know how they haven´t got their hats nailed on before now. One writer steals all the narrative from a few similar sites to Celebitchy, in fact I once commented that the writer of the article had filched the idea from the poof blokes site, I´m sick of the way they keep on at various actresses, have you ever seen anyone as ugly as a Daily Mail ho? They ming.They have no talent for journalism either, believe me, I´ve seen them.
My condolences. Those skeezy hacks were probably too hungover to do any actual reporting, so they stooped to thievery. I got ripped off by the Mirror once, but even though the Mail is for the British equivalent of suburban Kim Kardashians and pitched at that intellectual level, you’d think they wouldn’t outright steal (including comments!!!!)
I dunno what power the blogosphere has, but the Daily Mail has gotten its last link from me on Ayyyy.com for what it’s worth.
Fecking love it-wot do you expect from a tory paper-originality? Put a few red herrings out there and see how long till they get sued
Daily mail as scum of the earth. Those tattooes on Brad are trying too much. The whole Brangelina clan just tries too much a part from Shiloh who does not try at all 🙄 .
Kolby: If you land that job, can I be your assistant? Surfing and stealing are two of my finest talents.
The story was also carried in yesterday’s ‘The London Paper’ and this morning’s ‘Metro’, both free papers offered to commuters at tube stations. Both identified the tattoo as levees.
Think of it as a compliment, this site is awesome. Many papers and magazines are using internet sites to stay current.
Oh and ladygarden, the Mail is not particularly well revered here in the UK. On the subject of Tory originality however, several of the USA’s biggest shows were sold by the UK, such as the Office, American Idol (Pop Idol here), Kath and Kim, etc.
The United Kingdom was the first to recognize the market for celebrity based magazines (Hello, OK!). Perhaps without these gossip pioneers the world we live in would not have evolved to a point where there are literally thousands of celebrity blog and fan sites.
The Daily Mail is often abhorrent in content and offensive, as well as using possibly unfair practices (such as photoshopped pictures), this does NOT authorize all out contempt for UK magazines and newspapers.
You call the british tories, unfortunately the current government is actually the Labour party (PM Gordon Brown), not the Conservative party popularly known as the Tories.
Making biased and ignorant comments only reflects badly on your own standard of education. Get your facts straight!
I’m sorry to hear about The daily mail’s unethical practices regarding your story celebitchy !!!!! They are horrible! Complete rats!
it´s on german tv right now…they showed the tattoo AND the map celebitchy found. that´s hilarius!!
Meow! I am actually a British Editor though i thought you would have detected the hint of sarcasm-i called the mail tory because of its bias-as unfortunately there is not alot of difference between them and Labour nowadays-cheers for your comments-made my day lol!!
Apologies lady garden, my bad! Was expecting comments to have been made by an American and not used to seeing sarcasm/irony lol. What magazine? 😕
Well, I am happy to tell Somebody or Everybody, that I recieved an award for Outstanding Achievement in Poetry….THE EDITORS CHOICE AWARD…I AM HAPPY, BUT SORRY FOR WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU……Denise
Biotchessssssssss!
Meow! Cambs Evening News-not exactly the top; end of the market i know! Sorry if came off abit sarky-too many deadlines x
thanks !! very nice post!