I’ve contacted the Pioneer Press via email about republishing the Birchwood story from the Seward Profile (see last post). I sent the email to Kathie Jenkins and Life editor Heidi Raschke.

In the email, I pointed out the Creative Commons license I publish under prohibits commercial use of the content and it requires attribution. Given “fair use” under copyright, I don’t really have a problem with summarizing and quoting a portion of the content even in a commercial venue. But not attributing and linking to the source is not OK and it’s not something I expect to see in the twenty-first century from a major daily.

I’ve asked for the link and suggested an apology might be in order. I’ll keep you posted.

We are all vying for attention on the web. Still we need to play by some basic rules and I don’t think the size of your operation should make it OK to steal content from any of the many excellent local blogs that are providing relevant content to neighborhoods. I doubt if the Pioneer Press would appreciate my republishing its content and attributing it to “a local newspaper.”

from my email to Pioneer Press