Boycott Douglas Coupland–Or Not

Here’s another opportunity to use social media to get something right. Douglas Coupland recently taped a YouTube promotion for an upcoming book. In the promotion, he blatantly rips off an idea from ZeFrank’s The Show called “The Earth Sandwich.” Now, ZeFrank isn’t necessarily the first person to generate the idea of an Earth sandwich, but Coupland uses locations and terms almost word for word from ZeFrank’s project, videos, and user-comments. On his blog, ZeFrank admits that Coupland does give a small attribution in the video, but also explains that Coupland emailed him about using the project in his book. ZeFrank requested a footnote accreditation. He did not receive it. Seriously. Boo. You can find Coupland’s video on ZeFrank’s site.

To be honest, I hadn’t heard of Douglas Coupland before today. And I know that any amount of controversy this generates will only serve to provide him attention. So, don’t think of an asshole here. Seriously. Don’t even think of that asshole Douglas Coupland. Go watch ZeFrank to help prevent any such thinking.

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