My friend and colleague, Tony, has been the "copyright infringement" cop on this forum since it started. Whenever anybody posts the text of copyrighted material, Tony is there to remove it, fearing that we could end up in a legal battle with the original writer.
Even I have wondered why he has been so vociferous about this issue. He and I have had several discussions about it during which I have insisted that he's chasing ghosts. His feet have always been firmly planted in concrete on this issue.
WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL! Turns out that we have learned that several large national newspaper companies have directed their attention to forums like ours. They have people full time looking at the TOTVs of the world and if they find any of their material copied, they lower the boom. "Boom?' What kind of "boom" am I talking about? A lawsuit, demanding $150,000 damages for theft of copyrighted material. NO SECOND CHANCE. And, they have collected in several cases.
It's easy for them to find too. Since you might say, "this was printed in the Ball Street Journal" all they have to do is enter their name in "Google News Search," and voila, their is your post with their material. I was going to post the text of a news story about it, but had second thoughts.
You can rest assured that since this will become a source of revenue for them, more and more of these companies will join in this pursuit. So, you can expect that Tony will be putting in even more hours, patrolling for the posting of copyrighted material being posted on Talk of The Villages.
So, for the second time in our 43 year friendship, it turns out that Tony is right.
