Friday, January 3, 2014

"Busted 'N the Shoals" is Busted!


Busted 'N the Shoals is a local online "news site." Busted is also a one-trick pony. The only content that Busted produces is local mug shots. Is that so bad? No, that's not what's so bad.

It's no secret that one of the owners of Pen N Sword is a retired local detective, and at times he's privy to information not yet made public. Several months ago, Pen N Sword had an exclusive on a most wanted fugitive in the northwest Alabama area. Shortly thereafter, Busted not only ran the enhanced photo from PNS, but also published the PNS article word for word. When we mentioned it to the detective, he merely laughed. Unfortunately, overlooking such hijinks seems only to have made the site worse.

Due to some new software at the Florence-Lauderdale Detention Center, mugshots for most of November and all of December have not been available until today. Our friends at the Quad-Cities Daily pay for the privilege of bringing their readers this information. Several mugshots from November were finally published today--all bearing the hallmark of QCD close to the bottom edge.


Guess what? Busted posted each of these photos, hallmark and all. We're pretty sure the owners at the QCD don't mind one or two being used in stories related to various crimes, but when another online site takes all of them without paying? We're pretty sure that's called theft...

Like the Quad-Cities Daily

Like Pen N Sword



Shoalanda

3 comments:

  1. I was under the impression only the Colbert County Sherif charged for mugshots. Didn't know that changed. And sure didn't know you could copyright second hand information.

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    1. I'm not sure how much Lauderdale charges, but if it was free, "Busted" would have had no need to take the ones the QCD had published. That's not even addressing the copy they stole from PNS.

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  2. I don't think Lauderdale charges at all. The reason Colbert County is never listed online or in the HardTimes is they charge 5 bucks per pop. Florence is free too. But "Busted" is a piece of work anyway or at least the facebook page used to be,...

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