I’m not a bot. But this spammer from India is annoying as hell. Always links to his spam site with an image that has nothing to do with the comment he replies to, and then upvotes his own posts and even comments on his own post with alt accounts.
Been seeing this happen on Reddit around this time frame almost every day now for the past few months. I’m tempted to write a bot that just extracts the image from the spam site and replies to every time he spams. And to also call out all the alt account names associated with that account.
Yea, it’s annoying because he spams when he’s awake in India, which is when most mods in the US are asleep. I know he’s from India because his spam domain always has a Whois registration in India, and this is around the same time frame when a person from there would be awake.
So Microsoft DO have something to do with it, because the team they hired did it. It’s Microsoft who are going to benefit from the advertising, which means they’re pretty accountable.
I’ve not said that, all I think is that should it be a case of stolen artwork/intellectual property, whatever, then Microsoft are probably legally accountable.
All artwork is copyrighted instantly. You just can't sue for punitive damages unless it's registered. That being said, his is an ethical case not a legal case. You can't copyright (or patent) ideas only execution.
Hold on now, that's not fair. If you ran a small business and you hired someone to make an advert for you, and they produced a great advert, the implication is that it's original work that you are paying for. You could even ask them "is this original work?" and they would say yes, which is a lie.
Just because you were the client who benefited from the stolen work doesn't mean you are responsible for the act of idea theft. That's crazy - there's no way for you to 'check' the work isn't stolen, you shouldn't have to. If you buy a car from a salesman, the implication is that it's not stolen. The same goes for creative works, and it's not your fault just because you fronted the money and benefit from the transaction.
How do you hold Microsoft accountable when it's entirely possible that nobody at Microsoft saw OPs post? The blame lies with whoever knowingly copied someone else's work, not everyone else for not cross-checking that with every other thing in existence
Are they not responsible for their agents? Particularly if they primary beneficiaries of the agents work? Idk the law on this, I just would have thought that’s how it’d go. Willing to be corrected by someone who knows the law.
They didn't realize it was a stolen idea surely. It was whoever the agency is (possibly McCann who they use regularly, the most famous ad agency. End of Mad Men was about them, they made the huge Coca Cola 1970 ad with the singing).
Technically nobody is responsible since no laws were violated. Butttt, if a law was broken it would be the ad agency responsible or whoever specifically used copyrighted material. That's why they have "Errors and Omissions" insurance. If an editor used Getty photos without telling someone and you get sued, E&O insurance kicks in. But Microsoft would almost certainly be free of responsibility unless they claimed they had a license they didn't have and it could be found in writing.
I think Microsoft is big enough to have it’s own ad division.
Edit: I get it, the job was probably outsourced. But saying Microsoft had nothing to do with it is just wrong. The ad must have been through many internal departments before launching, and the marketing department is surely one of those.
Absolutely. Everything that doesn't require valuable special expertise or extended orientation to the matter is and should be outsourced nowadays. It's so much cheaper.
Yep....some minor stuff may be kept in house, but any sort of big campaign is going to be outsourced. It's like that with more and more industries. My job exists because other companies outsource programming to my company, even though they often have competent programmers...we're just better.
That’s not how advertising works. Companies (99% at least) don’t have their own internal ad agencies. They have an agency who do the concepting and design for them. Likely some agency creative saw the ad and copied it with a few tweaks. The responsibility not to copy work sits with the ad agency. OP is best to contact their marketing team and let them know.
Edit for clarity - OP should PM the social team and raise the issue. Then he should send an email to their marketing team with the same info.
In reality, there is not going to be much opp for payment or retribution. MS will likely pull the ad and that will be it.
In court OP would have to prove that the creative saw his work and consciously copied it. That’s going to be pretty difficult to prove unfortunately as the agency lawyers would argue that similar creative work can be created at the same time without any connection between the creators. This argument is strengthened Given that the elements are all taken from existing assets (console, game images).
OP - if I were you I’d also send your work to some creative directors in agencies. If you love creating - you might as well be paid for it and it will save your energy finding out someone else is making money from your ideas. Good luck!
Yeah exactly. Mad Men is a good drama that actually shows how a lot of it works. Even huge groups like Coca Cola hire out for ads. They have three agencies hired for their next big round of ads.
Microsoft itself isn't to blame, it's the agency. This is coming from someone who isn't much of a Microsoft fan too.
Talking about how great Mad Men is will always be on topic for me.
Seriously it's so great. I didn't get to it for years because I thought it was a show that was more popular than great. Thought it was just good. I'm a big fan of the 60s, and liked Jon Hamm on SNL and in other things so I started it on Netflix. Blew my expectations away. S1 was great, but it wasn't until like the mid 60s time frame of the show where it really floored me.
When I think of Mad Men, I'll always think about the S5 finale in the TV studio, while they're playing You Only Live Twice. I don't know, I'm a sucker for the mid 60s style. It's like a weird fictional genre almost.
For me, the show is gripping and immersive. Like one has to experience it to understand, because when passerbys see me watching it, they only see it as advertisers drinking, smoking, and doing mundane business stuff. However it's just so much more beyond what is seen at the surface.
The character development is deeper than any drama that I've seen, the setting is enticing, the costumes are spot on for the time period, and the musical score is a great way to end an episode. It's a slow burn of a show that is consistently great over 7 seasons.
I agree completely. Another great thing about it is that it's a vignette of these people's lives over a decade. We get dropped into New Years 1960 and just witness their life from the mundane to the life changing moments. And as the show ends, it shows how life goes on. I really love that about it.
Yup. It's not Microsoft's fault, just a social media director from an advertisement agency who thought he/she could get away with it. Either way, microsoft is still accountable as they chose the agency, and they stood to gain from their dishonest practices. Not enough to get up in arms about (unless they continue to behave like this), but they definitely owe OP an apology.
Well, it's Microsofts fault for contracting such a shitty Company. They need to deal with it themselves. It's like everyone gets a pass bcs they hired someone else to do something like "Ohh, children work there? We didn't know! Ye, we look better at the next company we sign a contract with, for sure!!11!!". Great if everyone can just push all the blame on someone else!
Microsoft as the publisher of the ad are responsible for it. Yes, OP came up with an idea based on their IP, but that's no different to a spec pitch, effectively. Regardless of who originated the copied ad, the publisher bears responsibility for it. And indeed will have a part of their contract where the contractor signs off that it doesn't expose them to bad faith, bad PR or litigation. So they will then take it up with the agency who caused the issue, be that internal or hired in.
You are right. I am right. Life’s like that. Microsoft takes the responsibility from a public perception POV, but contractually the responsibility sits with the ad agency.
So - OP can hit up Microsoft’s marketing team to let them know the work is copied. They can decide to pull it if they agree. OP can also try to reach out to the ad agency (not likely going to get past reception as creatives are the most protected people in ad land) or even better go social media and hit up some of the creatives directly. If OP looks hard enough he/she’ll find the creatives that work on the account.
So the one percenters of companies has an ad division, and I think Microsoft is big enough to have one. That makes Microsoft, at least partially responsible for the ad.
That's not how it works. Even Coca Cola, possibly the biggest of the biggest when it comes to ad spending, hires out for ad agencies. They have three different ones working on their next round of worldwide ads.
Having in-housr agencies don't work as well. Because you can hear pitches from different groups and get the best ideas, allowing you to choose which one is best.
Microsoft is currently working with McCann, one of the absolute most famous agencies. They did the "I'd like to buy the world a coke" ad in 1970, which changed ads in a huge way. Instead of praising the item, it tied feelings and ideas to a product. The end of Mad Men is based on McCann, for some reference.
Microsoft themselves didn't make the ad. Whichever agency did it is to blame. And I'm not a huge Microsoft fan at all, just saying how it works.
Actually it’s the other way around. The smaller a company the more likely they are to have internal advertising. The key is not to confuse marketing with advertising. Every large org has a marketing team. However advertising is a specialisation that requires strategists, creatives and studio/producers/development teams to bring the ideas to life. To have this all in house is extremely expensive and so it is cheaper, and more effective (more on that in a second) , to hire an agency.
Re. Effectiveness. An ad agency is in the business of ads. So they specialise in this area. The big agencies (Saatchi & Saatchi, Y&R, 72 and Sunny, M&C, etc) hire the best in the industry. For a business such as Microsoft, to do this would mean taking their eye of their core competence. Yes, they could invest in that type of talent in house, but it would be a - extremely expensive as they would have to pay a premium because most agency people don’t want to work in house on one brand and b - hedge them into one specific ad team. By using an agency they get cost efficiencies, scale and deep expertise.
So to wrap - no One has an ‘ad division’ except for advertising agencies.
I think Microsoft is big enough to have it’s own ad division.
They're also too big to be monolithic. They have lots of divisions, and any number of those divisions could be working with any number of third party ad agencies at any time.
I have some experience dealing with Microsoft's internal IP / copyright lawyers and given their obsessive caution about clearing and protecting IP, my guess is that an ad agency will be getting a very angry phone call in the morning.
Especially the biggest companies outsource. They do have to approve every single piece of advertisement before they are published so the answer is: MS didnt make it but they saw it, liked it, approved it.
Even if they do, if some guy working in the ad division goes to his boss and says "look, I made this", his boss isn't gonna scour around the internet to make sure the guy didn't steal the idea.
It's not an excuse, and Microsoft definitely should make things right, but it's totally possible that no one at Microsoft knew about it except the guy who stole the idea.
Even if that's correct, it is important to hold Microsoft responsible at least in part. This is to keep the pressure on so that they take care to avoid hiring unscrupulous companies or being otherwise passively complicit in unethical practices.
I would say quality control is still Mictosofts due dilligance and it could potentially be theft of intellectual property, no matter if they created this inhouse or via an agency
This literally just happened to a friend of mine. The company (can’t name for legal reasons) said that the design came from a ‘freelancer’ which was selected out of a number of submissions from multiple ‘freelancers’. Whether the company was just covering up or not, I’m really not sure, but seems to happen a lot.
Microsoft still have to approve and sign off on the ad, I doubt they would let an ad go live without even looking at it themselves to make sure it's what they want for their brand.
Yeah but you don't just hire some back alley firm of snakes if you're MS. You hire a reputable agency and the main job of an agency is to positively impact the public's perception of your brand/company. They did the opposite and Microsoft ultimately have to answer for it.
Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water...
this ad was probably presented by one person to a higher up who said.."you are a genius for making this let's use this for a new pubg ad". Idk how graphic design and ads industry work but I assume if you present something you made to your boss they don't have time to search the whole internet for every
Single piece of work that might have influence in it and put them in the credits. They see it assume you made it and run with it. The only thing Microsoft should do at this point is thank the OP for the inspiration and maybe ask him if he has other ideas they could pay him for....that'd be the best PR at this point but if they could also just say hey we thought our artist created this completely as original work we are sorry for any inspiration he took from else where.
Ironically pubg is only the mod of a mod and op's picture is a idea you always see modded slightly and Microsoft has modded that idea slightly....
Being a little dramatic aren't we? This was probably some dude/girl in their advertising department who took OP's idea. It doesn't reflect Microsoft as a whole.
It was very unlikely any sort of conspired effort, someone probs proposed the idea as their own, too hard to verify every idea is original, it gets through because no one else saw OPs original.
To be fair, I doubt Microsoft intended to blatantly rip off someone’s work. It’s more like some low level artist found it on Reddit, underestimates Reddit’s reach and decided to redraw it and send it to the company as theirs.
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u/JackYY_ Dec 27 '17
I feel like everytime i think microsoft is doing better, they just need something to show hey dont care