This really rather bothers me
Perhaps they go through the thinking:
- ban that competitive link
- oh, we need that information
- let's ask if anyone can find out
- oh, good a member has supplied it and we can satisfy ourselves that we haven't directly ripped it off from someone else's site
I can't see why they don't either
a ) organise tests. They have a huge community. It's not a great deal of work if you get other people to do it ;)
or
b ) give credit where credit is due
Quite apart from anything else if they really are taking that business-minded "competitor sites" issue so seriously are they not at least slightly concerned that they lay themselves completely open to expensive legal action from their "rivals". Reproducing mistakes has been very compelling evidence in instances of copyright legislation in other fields. In my country for instance the main cartographic service puts deliberate minor errors in its maps so they can have an effective copyright enforcement programme.
And getting their information "innocently" from a member of their community would be no defence in court
Just my (lay) opinion
Perhaps they go through the thinking:
- ban that competitive link
- oh, we need that information
- let's ask if anyone can find out
- oh, good a member has supplied it and we can satisfy ourselves that we haven't directly ripped it off from someone else's site
I can't see why they don't either
a ) organise tests. They have a huge community. It's not a great deal of work if you get other people to do it ;)
or
b ) give credit where credit is due
Quite apart from anything else if they really are taking that business-minded "competitor sites" issue so seriously are they not at least slightly concerned that they lay themselves completely open to expensive legal action from their "rivals". Reproducing mistakes has been very compelling evidence in instances of copyright legislation in other fields. In my country for instance the main cartographic service puts deliberate minor errors in its maps so they can have an effective copyright enforcement programme.
And getting their information "innocently" from a member of their community would be no defence in court
Just my (lay) opinion