this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2025
296 points (93.8% liked)

PC Master Race

15237 readers
152 users here now

A community for PC Master Race.

Rules:

  1. No bigotry: Including racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
  2. Be respectful. Everyone should feel welcome here.
  3. No NSFW content.
  4. No Ads / Spamming.
  5. Be thoughtful and helpful: even with ‘stupid’ questions. The world won’t be made better or worse by snarky comments schooling naive newcomers on Lemmy.

Notes:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Wow.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 79 points 4 days ago (6 children)

I'm not sure these are the receipts GamersNexus believes them to be. They're all kinda stretching things into a gray area.

The plagiarism part is straight up incorrect. LMG did not say that their discussion was original reporting. The WAN show is explicitly a podcast reacting to news articles and events (WAN = Weekly Analysis and News). Plagerism needs a "passing off as your own" piece, while IANAL given react content typically ends up in the fair use category because of additional commentary and thoughts being added, the WAN show doesn't have to disclose sources. Usually on WAN show they mention where they heard of the story, and not mentioning GN is a dick move, but it's not plagiarism.

The history of not following up on issues was definitely better addressed in the original GN video. But at the same time, this just makes it seems like GN is trying to use the argument "Hey we warned you once that some of your methodologies aren't great and led to skewed results and you didn't really react, so now we're gonna release an hour long video on all of your previous fuck ups and not tell you, k thx bi*"

To Linus's original point on not getting a heads up, that's not industry standard behavior and also kind of a dick move.

The unprofessional communication part I can go either way with. Would I talk to my boss like that? No. Technical mentors and peers that I had a good relationship with? Absolutely and I have done it. By the book it's unprofessional it's hardly the damning statements Gamers Nexus is trying to sell them as.

Also for those of you who have not watched any LMG content since that original GN video, LMG has cleaned up their act quite a bit, so credit where credit is due. Linus also only asked for receipts since he was getting increasingly frustrated with several negative comments coming from GN whereas on the LMG side they've continued to praise and recommend GN content

[–] poke 5 points 2 days ago

I have not finished reading the article, but "Receipt 1" is just embarrassing to GN in my eyes. They claim LMG never addresses the plagierism and provides an email chain where Linus tell him what exactly LMG is going to do in response and GN responds indicating the solution is good. Where is the problem?

Specifically on publicly addressing it, Linus said they will pin a comment and Steve said that's OK. That's what happened. Is it truly unresolved? Just reading the emails provided makes it really look like an open and closed case.

I also dont get why they include the additional context in that part of their response. What does GN's recent criticism of LMG have to do with that interaction?

Sorry, on mobile and just had to type something out before I forgot, because this is a long read.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Your understanding of what qualifies as plagiarism feels wrong. Just because an organization advertises itself as a "weekly analysis and news" doesn't disqualify them from citing sources. They still are required to give credit where credit is due.. Even mainstream news channels will let their audience know where they are acquiring their information whenever it isn't coming from their own investigations.

At the end of the day, if a primary source privately requests a citation, then a citation is definitely required, so this is where lmg really messed up. GN (as the primary source) felt wronged when lmg used information from their own investigative journalism and did not give them credit (when they apparently gave Jayz2cents credit). At that point in time, lmg was obligated to give GN credit and lmg admitted to this mistake; but then did little to nothing to rectify it.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 days ago

And moreover, the question is from Linus about why they weren't given a right to reply to GN's first big piece. The plagiarism and subsequent lack of resolution is stated as a reason that GN felt uncomfortable. GN evaluated that situation and felt it met their own standard. I dont know if LMGs reporting on EVGA actually qualifies as plagarism, but GN is successfully providing the context for their decision.

Ultimately, Linus asked why? And GN said essentially because you did 'this' and it crossed our threshold for hostility, and we actually didn't give those other outlets right of reply either like your claiming we did so calm down.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 4 days ago

Agreed. I think GN missed the point by not publishing the smoking gun receipts, but an avalanche of receipts for things LMG was guilty of and have admitted to. It kinda makes it look like GN wants it to look like they're "burying LMG with evidence", but in reality the smoking gun would only need to be a paragraph & some screenshots.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

While I mostly agree with you, I do think there are problematic things in this article that make Linus come off as disingenuous at best, especially seeing that he played the "I have 0 idea what I did wrong, I want to sue you but i wont" card.

As for the reciepts for lack of citations, while I think it's obvious that Steve is asking for citations and he shouldn't have to ask, it's always best to make your request explicit. It breeds animosity to have expectations and not state or ask them clearly. I could absolutely see someone being naive in these exchanges and thinking that Steve was reaching out not to get a citation but to fix future mistakes.

The worst thing about this bullshit though is the lmg clips video title. It's a serious allegation that Linus allegedly wants to resolve, but they cover it in cringe memery. And I say this as someone who watches LTT and not GN.

I think if Linus had just called out Steve's beef and publicly requested some forum to speak privately or publicly and sort out differences, that'd be one thing. But with the lmg clip title and the "want to sue, but I won't" bs, it all just seems kinda gross. I know that Linus may not be personally responsible for that, but the company uses his name, and he started it.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I took Linus's statement to mean that he doesn't understand why he is continuing to get heat from GN since they have addressed the issues GN pointed out.

The could sue but won't part I think it's coming more from a context with the ongoing Honey lawsuit, since at least on WAN show its been brought up several times that people recommend LMG join the lawsuit and Linus repeatedly refusing because as he puts it, he's not a litigious person. Given the rest of the his plea in that segment for the viewers to not go after GN, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on it. I also personally give a lot of leeway to people and organizations who have admitted mistakes in the past and corrected them so that definitely feeds into me choosing not to interpret things the way you are, even though I can see why you view it that way.

And yeah the dedicated clips channel video was moronically named imho. Linus or someone else at LMG should have vetoed it, it's a serious topic and deserves to be taken as such. If they felt the need to make a joke, do it like the "channel this angry energy into powering RTX 5090s". A small quip at the end, not leading into things

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 days ago

I'm my experience "I could sue, but won't" is only ever used as a threat by narcissist assholes who got called out and don't have enough evidence to sue, because if they truly did, they would. His ego was hurt by his own shitty attitude, so he's using threats he can't back up to be a bully. He's basically saying "I have more money than you and can drain your resources with a frivolous lawsuit if I wanted to"

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 days ago (1 children)

You can't publish an entire NYT news article verbatim and then claim, "I'm just reacting." The GN article is copyrighted.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Are we talking copyright or plagiarism here? GN is claiming plagiarism, not copyright infringement

Edit: spelling

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Plagiarism is when you don't make legal claims on someone copying your work or where the work wasn't copyrighted.

GN was being nice about it by calling it plagiarism instead of invoking lawyers.

Edit: don't just downvote. Explain why plagiarism of copyrighted work isn't a copyright violation.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

That is not what plagiarism means

Oxford English Dictionary

The action or practice of taking someone else's work, idea, etc., and passing it off as one's own

Merriam-Webster

to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source

Dictionary.com

an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author's work as one's own, as by not crediting the original author

All three definitions clearly state that Plagiarism is taking some production of someone else's and claiming it as your own. That there is some kind of deception going on as to who created the original thought/work. Merriam-Webster's definition has that second component talking about the act of using without crediting the source, which LMG didn't do at first but later added a pinned comment. While not immediate and the barest amount of effort on LMGs part, but it still is credit.

Plagiarism has no legal component to its definition.

Copyright does have legal implications as it is someone's right to duplicate a work. In general a creator of a work has exclusive rights to reproduce it, but there are exceptions (everyone's favorite Fair Use laws). With LMG being Canadian the legal side is more complicated but in US courts it's been tested that one such exception is around additional commentary and that the usage of the work was limited as to what was relevant to being actively discussed (big case here being H3H3 a few years back). Even by GN's own admission the WAN show was taking phrases and repeating them verbatim, but just that, only phrases. Ones pertaining directly to the on hand topic of EVGAs ending partnership with Nvidia. They were not showing GNs video, reading his script word for word start to finish. Again, IANAL but I find it highly unlikely that a US or Canadian court would say that what LMG did on WAN Show meets the definition of a copyright violation

Edit:

And to answer your last point directly, Plagiarism and Copyright are orthogonal to each other. You could plagiarize by not giving public credit but still get copy permission from the copyright holder. Semantically kinda weird to think about

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

That's the point I was attempting to make. Linus used Gamers Nexus copyrighted work without permission or even attribution. It was both plagiarism and a copyright violation. Steve was being polite by only calling Linus out on the plagiarism.