Originally Posted by Aeran View Post
Thought I'd chime in on this since I know Derek personally (served NS together + alumni from his university).
He's a very nice guy and I don't think he thought the blog would get this much attention. Not that plagiarism is ever warranted, but he isn't a travel 'blogger' and doesn't make any money off of his site or Medium - its just for fun and sharing with friends.
If you look at his site & medium, he only has 8 and 4 posts (respectively) over 8 years, with 2 in the former being about random things like a home-made flamethrower or automating his dorm room. Besides this SQ one, all of his other travel-related posts are about travelling economically for very cheap (e.g. 1 month across Russia for $1,175).
Thus I don't think he is similar to - or trying to be - a luxury travel blogger like the ones most of us at FT keep up on. He blogs rarely, and about things that may interest his friends; plus he has no ads / credit card signups / etc for any form of revenue. It's just for fun.
Again, this isn't an excuse for plagiarism but I think we need to take perspective that he isn't another 'blogger' trying to gain fame and fortune by stealing others' work, nor did he anticipate it spreading so quickly beyond his group of friends and getting so viral.
What a load of crap. He had help spreading the word on this (why else would Casey Neistat and the like be tweeting about it hours after he posted it?) and fully intended for it to get as big as it did. He is currently listed as CEO of a company seeking angel investors. Sure he doesn't have any ads on his blog, but he's simply getting his name out there to generate buzz around whatever project he's working on.
I don't believe he's a nice guy just out to share stuff with his friends. If you truly are personal friends with Derek, call him up and ask him why he never responded to my email letting him know he stole my stuff, and then ask him why he deleted my comments on his Facebook post and blocked me as well as everyone else who said anything negative about his post?
He never apologized for what he tried to get away with and he STILL has two plagiarized sections of my work on his site that I've told him about that he pathetically tried to reword enough to avoid legal action. He also has a few stolen sections of my work that I haven't told him about, should he try to use this for his personal gain sometime in the future.
He knows how to get in touch with me, but I don't expect to hear from this "nice guy looking to share stuff with friends" any time soon with any sort of apology. But I'll bet you everything I have he never imagined a little-known blogger like me would make it this difficult for him.
Andy Luten
Andy's Travel Blog
EDIT: And if he truly stole my jokes and captions just to impress his friends, that's even sadder.