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The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is not happy with Ashley Flowers and her team at The Crime Junkie podcast. On Thursday, attorneys for the newspaper sent a cease-and-desist letter to Flowers regarding the episode of Crime Junkie called “Caught in The Web.”
This all began when former Gazette reporter Cathy Frye pointed out that Crime Junkie hosts Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat used her copyrighted series from a 2002 cyberstalking murder case in that episode without crediting her work.
A few days later Flowers told Variety that the episode Frye was referring to was taken down but offered up this bizarre explanation: “source material could no longer be found or properly cited.” That explanation surely must have puzzled Frye as she posted right on the Crime Junkie Facebook page where that material came from…her material.
The Democrat-Gazette reports that three days after the Variety comment Crime Junkie re-posted the episode in question with notes linking to credits, including one for Frye and the Democrat-Gazette.
That did not satisfy Frye or attorneys for the newspaper.
Here’s what Democrat-Gazette attorney Alec Gaines wrote in the cease-and-desist letter to Flowers: “This correspondence is to protest your unauthorized use and broadcast of ADG’s copyrighted series, Caught in the Web, originally reported and authored by Cathy Frye. ADG owns all the rights, title, and interest in and to its copyrights, including but not limited to the copyrights to the archival stories and photographs published in its daily print publication or through its digital properties.”
The newspaper is asking Flowers to either edit it to “fully and unequivocally credit ADG’s Copyright and Cathy Frye’s reporting at the beginning of the Podcast” or to take it down.
The newspaper has given Flowers until September 12th to respond and notes “the newspaper may take further action including but not limited to filing a lawsuit.”
Read the Democrat-Gazette article HERE.
Comments:
This reminds me a bit of the issues that the owners of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette caused back in 2010 or so when they hired RightHaven LLC. Stephens Media LLC owned the ADG and RightHaven would scour the Internet for potential copyright violators and sue them. The proceeds would then be shared between the two. I remember blogging many times about it. Here is a link to a Wired article from July 2010 which examined the business model of suing bloggers. https://www.wired.com/2010/07/copyright-trolling-for-dollars/