Regular readers are familiar with Gavin Boby of Law and Freedom. For the past couple of years Gavin has been tireless in his opposition to the construction of new mosques in England through action in local planning councils.
Yesterday The Sunday Times published what it must have believed was a hit piece on Gavin. They accused him of “ideological hatred of Islam” and connected him with “the far-right blog Gates of Vienna”.
I can’t show you the whole piece, because it’s behind a paywall. But here’s a screen shot of the top of the article by Richard Kerbaj and Robin Henry:
And a brief snip from the opening of the article:
A SELF-STYLED “mosque buster”, who boasts that he has blocked plans for 16 mosques across Britain, was once linked to the far-right English Defence League (EDL) and claims that Islam encourages paedophilia, sexual abuse and pimping.
Gavin Boby, a planning lawyer from Bristol, urges his followers to undermine planning applications for mosques by raising their opposition with councils.
Boby, 48, runs a planning consultancy but under the banner of the Law and Freedom Foundation he also provides a free legal service for those who oppose mosque developments…
More than that I dare not quote, for fear of exceeding “fair use” and violating the copyright of The Sunday Times.
Interestingly enough, the Times itself seems to be a bit slack about copyright.
The photo at the top of the article looked familiar to me. It was obviously taken last July at the Brussels Conference sponsored by ICLA in the European Parliament.
With a little bit of digging, I uncovered the original. It was taken by my good friend Steen of Snaphanen, and posted on his blog last December.
If you look at the full-sized version of the photo, you’ll notice that it is clearly watermarked with “Foto © Snaphanen.dk”.
Trivialities such as copyright are no obstacle to The Sunday Times, however. The editors must have passed the photo on to one of their graphics specialists, who edited out the pesky watermark. Look at the two detail shots below — on the left you’ll see Steen’s original, and on the right is a blowup of the Times’ edited version:
You’ll notice that the graphics editor was a bit sloppy, and left in a fragment of Steen’s © to the left of the microphone.
Whoops!
The evidence is clear. Even an amateur like myself can see that the venerable Sunday Times stole that image from Steen.
It would be bad enough if they had simply borrowed it, and left the watermark intact. But they actually went to the trouble and expense of removing the watermark, in a fumbling attempt to erase the evidence of their theft of Steen’s intellectual property.
How crass.
How tacky.
And how typical!
I hope Steen has a legal case that he can press against the mandarins of the Times. But even if he doesn’t, they have been revealed as what everyone already knew they were: a bunch of second-rate hacks.
For those who are interested, a publicly available version of the Times’ story was published by The Daily Mail.
Previous posts about Gavin Boby and the Law and Freedom Foundation:
30 comments:
Yesterday The Sunday Times published what it must have believed was a hit piece on Gavin. They accused him of “ideological hatred of Islam” and connected him with “the far-right blog Gates of Vienna”.
What an honour!
Paris Claims
The photo in the Daily Mail clearly has an ICLA watermark as well.
And the fellow in the picture is a solicitor as well ...
I wonder what will happen next ...
btw anyone else have a laugh at the authors saying that he's blocking places of worship when the planning applications themselves don't make that claim - they say that they're community centres etc!
So by saying that's what GB is blocking - they're agreeing with him & supporting the arguments he makes!!!!
What a hoot!
I'm still waiting for a definition of the term 'far right'. Bodies such as the Sunday Times throw it around when they want to slur someone's or some other body's reputation. But if telling the truth makes one 'far right' then what's not to like?
ChristianInfidel says:
Good news: the first 150 comments on the Daily Mail's story are overwhelmingly in favor of Gavin Boby or against mosques.
Not only is there a fragment of the copyright's circle around its "C" to the left of the microphone, there is a shorter one slightly above it from the bottom tip of the "C" itself. And if one looks closer, you can see someone seems to have hastily applied what looks like paint to smudge up the background to cover the tracks of the deletion, leaving the background murky and washy with no clear delineation, where in the original there is a clearly delineated right angle of black. Whoever did this degraphics job should apply for work with the Obama office.
We MUST organise 24 - 7 picketing protests right outside the front doors of these goebels media traitor lie factorys!
The bbc, guardian, the times, and the whole bunch of these left wing nazi propaganda lie factorys.
The EDL and the British Freedom Party, will organise 24 - 7 picketing, well supply our people with soup and tea, bread and sausages, and well have banners, and hand out leaflets to the public telling the the TRUTH about what these left wing nazi commies are doing to destroy britain and allow the takeover and destruction of our culture by supporting the islamistaion and mass immigration colonization of the British Isles.
Sobieski
British Freedom Party
Good PR for Gavin as well as for GoV, that must be welcomed.
As for the open theft and the removal of the copyright watermark, an act that constitutes open fraud, I'm sure the photographer will set things right towards ST.
Also recommended is this video with Gavin Boby, recorded last summer in the European Parliament, where he explains more about the Law and Freedom Initiative.
The Times has been swinging left for several years by now. The whole media establishment has been sneaking that way for some time, even though "left wing" newspapers like the Mirror and the Graun still reflexively berate their competitors at the Times and Telegraph as "right wing".
Their circulation figures are all in a terminal nosedive. It's not surprising given they're mostly catering to the Notting Hill set. Nobody reads the papers any more.
As stated above, the article should be welcomed because without it, I wouldn't have known about your blog! Thanks ST for that and thanks Gates of Vienna for being here. Apologies for not knowing about you sooner!
No one ever beat a dead dog. Those of us who are opposed to the encroachment of Islam upon our free society should be ready to receive criticism of the sort dished out by the Sunday Times. Every cause that was ever worth fighting encountered strong resistance even from the quality media of the day. Keep your head down, Gavin, and your collar up and take no notice but persevere. The fact that the ST has given you some coverage will draw others to your cause.
Yes, it's a "hit piece." But anyone concerned with the encroachments of Islam will read it for the information: aha! here is this person, Gavin Boby, who has been blocking mosque building applications. Very interesting.
What can you expect, I also go. They would not dare to publish something openly in favor of Gavin's work - even it they secretly supported it.
You would think that a newspaper corporation would have more fortitude than to photoshop someone elses photo. Alas, no. Hence, question every photo you see.
I am reminded of the Hezbollah "Teddy Bear" that kept popping up in many of their propaganda photos a few years back.
I have the paper copy of this newspaper and would not have noticed it if you had not pointed it out. Although the Sunday Times does have some good articles in its various supplements I have to agree with commenter No. 8 (Graham Dawson) that it has been 'swinging left for several years now'. Very positive on your Democrats and the opposite with the Republicans.
The Times has been swinging left for several years by now. The whole media establishment has been sneaking that way for some time, even though "left wing" newspapers like the Mirror and the Graun still reflexively berate their competitors at the Times and Telegraph as "right wing".
We have the same phenomenon in the USA, with FOX news being exceedingly soft on Islam (and, of course, compliantly silent about Obama's Eligibility Issue), yet because they happen to tilt rightwards on a few other socioopolitical issues, they are routinely denigrated and mocked as "right'wing" -and therefore automatically "biased".
You really should get some payment from these newspapers for using your copyright photo.
Baron
How about publishing your hit rate statistics from before the publication of the Sunday Times 'advertorial' and a few days after publication.
Might be interesting reading.
Ivan Winters
Ivan --
I hate to tell you this, but based on my previous experience (during the aftermath of Breivik, and last year when Chris Knowles was targeted), The Sunday Times has virtually no readers. We experienced no significant increase in traffic when we were mentioned in it.
The Daily Mail is another matter entirely, but yesterday’s article in the Mail, unlike the Times, did not mention this blog.
I must presume that only a few political insiders (and maybe some fellow journalists) actually read The Sunday Times.
Baron, you got a new fan from the Times in Steve Cymraeg, above.
I just hope you are well backed up in case Google pulls your blogspot one afternoon. I just saw a special where wordpress will move all your stuff for for $100. I'll help fundraise that.
Who is acting as your collection agent for your wonderful photo displayed at the Times? How about having one of your unemployed buddies be a collection agent, and visit the Times. Like this.
You New --
Alas, it is Steen's photo, not mine. I have no case against the Sunday Times; only Steen does.
Yes, it's Steen's photograph and his profession is...wait for it... photography. This image is not a one-off from someone's cellphone. It is how Steen makes a living in his home country.
You can bet your bippy the Times would be quite officious if someone had used one of their copyrighted photos without payment OR attribution.
I hope Steen's attorney has sent the form letter to the Times by now, especially given that they used it in the print edition also.
Should be interesting...
----------------
By the way, the correct terminology is "far right". Those jornolists don't recognise any entity as being on the "right". It's "far right" or perhaps "extreme right wing"...As in "extreme right wing agitators". On the left, one has activists but they're never radical. Boy Scouts to the core...oops, I forgot. Boy Scouts are extreme and rightwing. And don't forget homophobic bigots.
Having all these terms cliched by now means that jornolists don't need to think. That is an advantage since so few of them ever engage in anything requiring the use of rigorous rhetorical devices.
Interestingly, if one looks at copyright law in the UK, where the Sunday Times if printed, it's even more of a no-no to use someone else's images than it is to quote their words.
If Steen is a photographer then that's even worse because it's how he earns a living & his work is watermarked with a copyright symbol too.
So they used someone else's copyrighted WORK knowingly and deliberately.
As for their attempts to link Mr. Boby to the EDL - so far as I can make out they assert that someone in the EDL said they support what Mr. Boby is doing, therefore HE is linked to them - by that standard them there are people who have read the Sunday Times article who have come on to GoV, so the journalists from the Sunday Times are now "linked" to Gates of Vienna!
I used to be a ST reader - lots of content and a pretty good chess column. But over time I found it hard to stomach its multiculty, one world, pro-immigration stance. The final straw came just before Christmas with its lying assessment of the impact of third world immigration on Britain - only the infinitely thick skinned or a head in the sand liberal would not have found this patronising crap (can I say that?) an insult to their intelligence. I haven't bought it since - I thought I'd miss my Sunday afternoon read, but i haven't. And I'm £10 a month better off.
"Having all these terms cliched by now means that journalists don't need to think. That is an advantage since so few of them ever engage in anything requiring the use of rigorous rhetorical devices."
They daren't use rigorous rhetorical devices, if they did the ground would fall away beneath them.
First the Daily Mail, now the Times... so, where does this new sudden fascination with Gavin Boby come from? Could it be this hit piece by the "anti-fascist" organisation "Hope not hate"?
Interestingly, Hope Not Hate's latest article on "mapping the counter-Jihad" starts off by saying:
"I've just finished a really excellent day with the New Media and Digital Culture department at Amsterdam University. As one of their course modules the 50 students are investigating the anti-Muslim networks, known as the 'Counter-Jihad' movement.
First Norway, then Britain - and now Holland. Looks like "Fjordmanology" is really taking off...
He's not "blocking worship" at all. He's blocking the building of community centres (as they are called in the original planning applications) because the local residents would like to be able to park their cars & not be woken up by some illegible caterwauling five times a day when they're trying to get some kip after doing a night shift, etc.
What's wrong with that? After all, the local councils are finding in his favour.
No publicity is bad publicity and there is no such thing as bad publicity.
Gavin Boby will receive so many requests for help from that article that he will have to abandon pro bono work, even if he makes a nominal charge to cover costs.
All revolutions need useful idiots and those who think of themselves as on the left have always been willing to make themselves useful. The idiots in the obsolete media can be very useful to the revolution they cannot stop.
'We are the people of England and we have not spoken yet.' We're waking up, we can smell the coffee and we're saying that we don't like that particular blend. We will have change and we will have it on our terms, and those who oppose us will be washed away like coffee grounds.
"They" know, and we know, and he knows that "they" just made Gavin Boby a target for devout Muslim murderers. The ummah allows and encourages any individual Muslim to pronounce a death sentence on unhelpful infidels like Gavin Boby.
From Mapping the counter-Jihad: "Some might look at the networks and importance of certain individuals within this network, while others could investigate content networks and the rise of quotation culture."
So, it looks as though "they" are making a list and checking it twice, and gonna find out who's naughty and nice....
Now, we shall ALL expect a knock on the door sooner or later. Us sooner, unaware dolts later. The Copts are just the last Egyptians to be run out of Egypt by Muslims, but ALL non-Muslims get converted, murdered, or run out of town eventually - sooner or later. The Islamic alligator is voracious....
The rise of the quotation culture must scare "them" to death because anyone who quotes Islam can prove that it is indeed a devil-spawned death cult - with kind regards to Kevin Carroll.
Egghead
He's not even blocking. He's a lawyer, presenting the case to the council for why the application should be blocked. The council can then decide - either in agreement with him, or not. And he doesn't always get his way either - one of the cases went against him...
'Hope not hate'!? What an absurd title for an organisation! Surely 'Hope not despair' makes more sense, as does 'Love not hate'?
'Hope not hate' is nonsense; hope is not the antonym of hate. Why does the organisation 'Hope not hate' act as though it was?
Methinks the title 'Hope not hate' betrays the insecurity of those that came up with it; like everyone else of the liberal/left persuasion they are governed by sentiment and wishful thinking (as well as by hate!).
IVV
Quite so - this solicitor is merely putting the case of the local residents to the council, and it is they who are finding against the original application which seeks to build, as they call it in the application, a community centre. No worship going on here guvnor, honestly ...
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