Jim Roemer - Theft/Misappropriation/'Honest Mistake'?

steve@jpr in another unrelated topic on Jay Peak":2pkuf2tr said:

I actually do like Jim Roemer, but he is often overly optimistic with his forecasts and often will shoot first before double and triple checking.

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I've unfortunately just discovered that he also misappropriates copyrighted material. See:

http://www.firsttracksonline.com/index. ... le&sid=834

then see:

http://letstalkweather.com/bskiwx/entry ... r&e_id=401
Edit 8 p.m. MST 12/7/2006: Mr. Roemer has removed the offending material from his website in the face of my objections.

Word-for-word copy-and-paste, without so much as a mention of the source. He's even hot-embedded the image so that I'm paying bandwidth to display the image on his website.I only discovered it because folks clicked on the embedded link to the Killington opening story that he carelessly forgot to edit out in his copy-and-paste zeal. I'm thrilled that we can spend hours creating content just to have someone else take credit. :roll:

Pathetic.

I humbly suggest that those paying Mr. Roemer for his services should carefully examine if they're paying for his work or for someone else's.

Admin":1438a6k3 said:

I've unfortunately just discovered that he also misappropriates copyrighted material.
(...)
Word-for-word copy-and-paste, without so much as a mention of the source. He's even hot-embedded the image so that I'm paying bandwidth to display the image on his website.
(...)
Pathetic.
I humbly suggest that those paying Mr. Roemer for his services should carefully examine if they're paying for his work or for someone else's.

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Definately sucks big time.

With your italian contacts, I though that you were going to suggest that one of your associate pay him a nice visit. :-({|= :wink:

Admin's got it all wrong. He's supposed to be "honored" that a meteorological maverick like Roemer thinks so highly of FTO's content to have unilaterally appropriated it.
:shock:

Well, apparently my "honor" was to be rewarded with a "free subscription" to his website :lol: That, apparently, is what Jim thinks is just penance for taking someone else's property. I offered him a very generous opportunity to pay a token amount within a week to compensate us for the unauthorized use of our content and the use of our server's bandwidth, something that our web host bills us for, but apparently he's refusing to do so.

Jim Roemer in email":2wkgvvep said:

Marc...I just re-read your e-mail. I am not going to pay [amount hidden] it was an honest mistake. My suggestion is that I give you some weather info, etc. that will help bring traffic to your site.

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(I don't know why I'm doing this for him, but here I'm snipping out insults slung at other forecasters' abilities.)

Jim Roemer in email":2wkgvvep said:

Or I can give you a free subscription or something.
In additon, if you want me to use some of your info to promote your site and credit you, I will tell my employees and will make sure this will not happen. Let me know...calm down, it was nothing intentional.

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How a precise copy-and-paste operation of someone else's copyrighted material to your own website constitutes an "honest mistake" or "nothing intentional" is beyond me. Maybe he was having a seizure, during which his fingers just went crazy typing CTRL-C/CTRL-V? Perhaps he was sleepwalking? :roll:

As the offending web page on Roemer's site has since been removed, I've attached it as a PDF file to this post.

He's sent me no fewer than 7 emails since this issue first arose last night, and even called me before becoming frustrated and infuriated during the call and hanging up on me. What Mr. Roemer fails to understand is quite simple: pay a token amount for what he's used, then move on and never let it happen again...or purchase content legitimately. We're entitled to be paid for use of our work product and our server's resources. Other people pay for these services, why does he believe that he's entitled to have them for free?

We'll have to closely examine our options.

One more little tidbit from my email communication with Mr. Roemer last night. In one email:

Jim Roemer":30m0zdfy said:

Supposedly the article was cut and pasted from a google search for snow-making later in November from a page like this. Apparently, at the time, there was an article regarding Sugarloaf and Sunday River that must have been written by you, that was on a google page like this. No one intentionally went to your web site to grab any story, though it is proper and professional for one to check on who wrote an article and at the very least give credit to the author.

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Thank you very much, Jim, for your documented admission that you and/or your corporation's staff "cut and pasted" material which you do not own the rights to. However, no articles appear on Google pages. Google does not publish news, Google indexes news. We cooperatively allow Google to index our news content as an approved publisher source. Clicking on the Google link takes one to our website, a process that, if replicated by Jim, would have been legitimate. However, he and/or a staffer for which he has responsibility could have only obtained that article, photo, and HTML code for his own website by copying copyrighted material from our website.

In fact, we have long allowed other sites to index our news, but of course not reprint it in its entirety without permission. I specifically refer to the following page that outlines those conditions:

http://www.firsttracksonline.com/index. ... d_cat=3#q4

And no, Jim, simply giving credit to the author does not permit you to reprint an article without permission, and without compensating the author for their work.

When people get caught in University about Content Theft they offer get failed or kick out of a program.

Admin":18x8jp8z said:

We'll have to closely examine our options.

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I would say contact some associates, either:

FTO's skiing lawyers
OR
Get the Guido family to pay him a visit. :lol:

Speaking of deliberate online thievery in the ski world, did anyone pay attention to the TGR drama a few weeks back where some guy from Massachusetts (K-Stormchaser) submitted a photo taken by another Maggot to a Ski Utah contest and won a pair of K2 skis? They eventually tracked the thief down and outed him.
http://tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=65007

Interesting to note the parallels with this story, except that said thief quickly confessed and promised to repay any ill-gotten gains, which is clearly more than Roemer is morally capable of doing.

Patrick":2sk9sgap said:

FTO's skiing lawyers

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Already done.

However, this gets better:

Referring both to me and another webmaster on whose website this topic has been discussed said:

Guys, just so you won't be alarmed. I am filing a lawsuit for defamation of character. You will receive something in the mail, probably next week.

You guys have awesome web sites and have a great reputation and commend you for it, but slander, insult and lieing is impermissible.

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For someone who purports to accuse me of libel and slander, Mr. Roemer wrote this about me to a third party, and for some reason was careless enough to CC me on the email:

Jim Roemer":2sk9sgap said:

I know he has a great reputation, but I did not believe it when I heard from some friends in the ski industry years ago that this guy was a little "off".

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Mr. Roemer should acquaint himself with the term "counter-claim".

Mr. Roemer refers in email to our actions as "a spineless attack." No, Mr. Roemer merely has to compensate First Tracks!! Online for unauthorized publication of its content and misuse of its computing resources. Others pay First Tracks!! Online for use of its content, and I'm at a loss to understand why Mr. Roemer feels that he's entitled to it without permission free of charge. I don't know how much clearer I can be. In fact, in one email Mr. Roemer says of the fee we have proposed for such services, "This is peanuts." One has to wonder, then, why Mr. Roemer is unwilling to pay for services received in the face of such compelling evidence of his transgression.

In fact, Mr. Roemer again admits to committing the acts being described a second time in email:

Jim Roemer":2sk9sgap said:

one of my employees, a young college student who is helping me with blogs on my site and some forecasting, INADVERTENTLY went to google two weeks ago (the day we started the site) and put in the word "snow-making" and received this response
http://news.google.com/news?q=snow+maki ... s&ct=title (under the category snow making)--here are the latest articles
He then cut and pasted an article from here somewhere with regards to snow-making that was apparently a First Tracks On-Line article!!!!!!!

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It has yet to be explained to me how such an action could be "inadvertant." I also again point out that Google does not publish articles, it only indexes them.

Mr. Roemer writes in email of himself:

Jim Roemer":2sk9sgap said:

I uphold myself, as many others do, to be extremely honest, polite and even apologetic, if I think I am wrong about something.

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The reader may conclude for themselves by his actions if Mr. Roemer is "extremely honest, polite and even apologetic." I am merely allowing the reader to observe for themselves how Mr. Roemer conducts himself through his own words and deeds.

it is amusing the mr. roemer offered you free weather subscriptions and information when FTO has a more accurate and dare i say more professional forecaster. :-({|=

the amazing thing to me is that roemer has other articles in his blog that (unless he obtained permission from the author and publisher) are likely also in violation of copyright.

the slander issue is laughable. marc, you have been very professional about the whole issue and have merely reported to the public an overt theft of intellectual property. i better watch what i say lest i be accused as well. :roll:

perhaps mr. roemer is not very web savy and is just not aware of what intellectual property is and legal aspects of the web and content publication? i think the quote about googling the article is suggestive of a lack of knowledge. it amazes me how many people that use the web daily don't understand how things work. not that ignorance is excusable nor applicable in the legal sense.

i suspect mr. roemer would be just as upset if someone that subscribed to his services posted a full web page to a public blog at the expense of best ski weather. if it happened enough times, mr. roemer would surely be effected financially. perhaps he should think about it that way.

riverc0il":3ip584ti said:

the amazing thing to me is that roemer has other articles in his blog that (unless he obtained permission from the author and publisher) are likely also in violation of copyright.

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Evidence of those additional copyright violations have been saved as well and the copyright holders already notified to ensure that their work was reprinted with permission. If not, I suspect that they will be very interested in joining us to enforce their copyrights.

Oh my, the poll reports 1 vote sayin' it was an honest mistake.
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Gee, I wonder who casted that vote? :lol: How much ya' wanna' make a bet it was Roemer.

Then he bungled the "cc" on an e-Mail. This is like watching an episode of "The Brady Bunch" ........let's see, Marcia wanted to get laid with the High School quarterback, so per Greg's advice she put on a false front by stuffing tissues in her bra to make her boobs seem even bigger but she got caught 'cuz it was so obvious, so then Marcia .......well, we'll have to stay tuned :lol: :lol: :lol: .

I can't wait to see how much unauthorized content was found before Roemer cleaned house on his site. If Admin plays his cards right, he may own bestskiweather.com soon.

Zoinks, that's something I have nightmares about... writing negative stuff in an e-mail about someone, and cc'ing the person it's about.

jamesdeluxe":3atcicfa said:

Zoinks, that's something I have nightmares about... writing negative stuff in an e-mail about someone, and cc'ing the person it's about.

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It's happened to me before...YIKES!!!

And it was my old boss, lucky I was able resolve the situation before she read it. :?