Quote:
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Originally Posted by Matt Attallah
NEW YORK (CNN) -- <material redacted>
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I don’t care one way or the other about the politics being discussed here, or whether the conclusions are justified, supportable, or pure hogwash.
What I do care about is that the thread has been started by illegally posting copyrighted material. This is a violation of the law, and a violation of CD policy.
Once again (we have had this discussion before - see
this thread and
this thread for prior examples), posting copyrighted materials for which you do not have redistribution permission from the copyright owner is a violation of the law. You may want to start an engaging discussion on Middle-East politics. That is fine. But doing so by posting copyrighted material is not the way to go about it. The fact is, making a copy of a copyrighted article posting it for public download is an illegal act, no matter how well intentioned you may be.
Someone else owns the material that has been posted here. In this case, you have blatantly copied an article authored by Lou Dobbs and owned by CNN. CNN owns all the content, intellectual property, and reprinting rights. It is their article, and they have not given you permission to make it available to anyone else. CNN retains all the rights to that article, and we are honor-bound to respect those rights.
In your later post, you blatantly copied an article authored by Richard Curtiss and owned by WRMEA. The copied material is the intellectual property of someone else, and you have no right to copy or redistribute it without their permission.
To top it off, by posting the material here on CD, potentially you have made CD complicit in the act. You put Delphi and Innovation First (as the sponsors) and Chief Delphi, two organizations and a team that have gone out of their way to make this forum available for the improvement of the FIRST community, at risk. That is both inappropriate and a violation of CD policy.
There are going to be those that say this is an over-reaction to a minor issue. However, I believe that part of our purpose here is to set an example for the teams of professional behavior. Part of being a professional includes a respect for the law - including copyright law. As mentors we should be demonstrating the highest ethical standards possible. Particularly when presented in the course of a FIRST-related activity (such as posting on CD), honoring the law - even in matters as simple as copyright law - shows appropriate respect for ourselves, the students we mentor, professional standards, and the values that we purport to uphold as part of the FIRST community. And, it is just plain good manners.
-dave