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One user is posting pirated content from the site overclock.net, here is what their TOS say:

Posting Content and Assets By posting content: You have confirmed that you have not made this content publicly available before and do not wish to publicly repurpose/reuse this content at a later time You agree that your submissions to Overclock.net will only be removed if deemed necessary by Overclock.net. Due to the nature of Overclock.net, we will not delete user accounts or mass delete their posts. We will only delete posts that we are informed of and deem do not comply with the forum rules/ToS. Please only sign up and use Overclock.net if you are comfortable with your contributions staying part of the collective conversation on Overclock.net now and in the future.

Ownership of Content Submissions All legal content, information or any other form of member submission, that conforms with the site rules/terms of service, immediately becomes exclusive property of Overclock.net

Advertising/Promotion/Commercial Use You ARE NOT allowed to use Overclock.net to: [...] Copy content, images or any other Overclock.net assets (in part or in whole)

Clearly, this explicitly prohibits you from reposting any material on any other website. It goes on to mention punishment for this sort of infraction.

If you do choose to use the site for any of the activities outlined within the Advertising/Promotion/Commercial Use section (directly above), YOU AGREE to the following: Every instance of breaking one of these rules outlined with the Advertising/Promotion/Commercial Use section constitutes you entering into an agreement with Overclock.net to pay for such initiatives at a cost of $500 per incidence.

I think in this case reperations are due.

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    Haven't you just done the same by quoting their TOS?
    – ChrisF
    Commented Dec 14, 2011 at 23:34
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    One has to wonder: If this had been someone else other than Jeff Atwood, would you have even bothered bringing this up?
    – Robert Harvey
    Commented Dec 14, 2011 at 23:35
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    I don't know if that's the main point of this post, but for what it's worth: I don't see the value in a complete copy & paste answer if the content could as well be summarized and linked to. Regardless of who posted it. We also don't copy Wikipedia articles as full answers. At least I hope that's not what we encourage.
    – slhck
    Commented Dec 14, 2011 at 23:44
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    As for the legal parts: Do you think it's justified in the sense of "fair use"? Also, I don't think adding these tags was really necessary. We should be talking about all users, not blame a single one.
    – slhck
    Commented Dec 14, 2011 at 23:47
  • Post has been deleted.
    – studiohack Mod
    Commented Dec 15, 2011 at 0:01
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    @studiohack So what's the official position?
    – slhck
    Commented Dec 15, 2011 at 0:02
  • Apparently, the official position is to do what the law requires of them and then to close the discussion and burn the evidence like the Vatican in the 1500s.
    – Evan Carroll
    Commented Dec 15, 2011 at 0:03
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    @slhck see my answer below. in general, I would say to keep the copy/pasting to a minimum, or just copy the most needed parts (and keep it brief), and include attribution... but, if the TOS prohibits it, then don't do it. Check first or paraphrase/summarize.
    – studiohack Mod
    Commented Dec 15, 2011 at 0:21
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    Wow. How this post, while being nothing but helpful, gathered 8 down votes is completely beyond me. It is a legitimate question and only helped SE possibly avoid legal trouble. // Edit: Aaah yes. Should have looked at the editing history...
    – Daniel Beck Mod
    Commented Dec 15, 2011 at 8:18
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    This raises an interesting question. Why not everyone put a note in front of their house saying that those who took away stuff without permission agree to pay $1 million. For that to work terms must be reasonable or something.
    – user4951
    Commented May 11, 2012 at 13:06

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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The post has been deleted and the user asked to summarize and/or paraphrase the post, instead of copying a large block of text.

As for this meta post, I have closed it as too localized, as it simply focuses on one post at one point in time.

A simple moderator flag would have been more than enough to bring this to the moderators' attention and to let them deal with it - not raise a Meta post over one post by one user. In the future, please flag and keep the drama to a minimum.

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    Half of the questions on meta are specific to single question on the site proper, or use them as an example. And, the title was broadened to include more than just this one question. This is clearly not a genuine reason to close -- I imagine you're just working for the system and trying to push this under the rug.
    – Evan Carroll
    Commented Dec 15, 2011 at 0:17
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    While you have a point -- lots of Meta questions are focused to one post by one user -- you're making it sound like a personal thing, which is totally uncalled for @Evan
    – slhck
    Commented Dec 15, 2011 at 0:21
  • Some moderator ignored a similar flag about Wikipedia attribution at first, marked it helpful and moved on. I needed to raise the issue in chat before it was acted on. Wasn't that even you?
    – Daniel Beck Mod
    Commented Dec 15, 2011 at 8:20
  • @DanielBeck: yes, I dealt with that flag, it was a large copy/pasted block from Wikipedia, and not referenced properly, thus plagiarism, so deleted it.
    – studiohack Mod
    Commented Dec 15, 2011 at 8:44
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    I know, and as we discussed it afterwards, the issue wasn't straight plagiarism, but attributing a copyright violator. My point being, flagging just isn't always more than enough if the issue is as unusual as this. You are moderators, not copyright lawyers, and it's too easy for a flag to fall through the cracks. This topic would have been useful, if the OP were just able to tag in any appropriate way.
    – Daniel Beck Mod
    Commented Dec 15, 2011 at 8:51
  • Well, let's see how effective flagging for these kinds of issues is :-)
    – Daniel Beck Mod
    Commented Dec 15, 2011 at 9:24
  • that other flag, I just marked helpful, but left it be, since the OP selectively quoted parts of his source, and has his own words in between, I feel that that post is okay, @DanielBeck.
    – studiohack Mod
    Commented Dec 15, 2011 at 14:45
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I'm assuming you posted this right after I rejected your edit. Here's my reasoning:

  1. This isn't the first thing that been posted from Overclock.net. A quick search brings up plenty.
  2. The post's author, Jeff Atwood, gave attribution to Overclock.net, as well as adding in some references to Super User from there.
  3. Users regularly post content from other sites, with links and credits to their respective authors.
  4. This seems way too legal crazy. It's not PIRATING. It's written with credit to the authors. If we quoted copyrighted books in essays, would we all get sued each time? No.

I feel this is just going way too over the edge. Not to mention I can't even find exactly where this is copied from anyway. You are specifically targeting Jeff, for what reason I'm not sure.

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    Giving credit to the authors is defense against allegations of plagiarism. It has nothing to do with piracy. When kids steal MP3s, do you think it becomes OK when they have the name of the act that performed them in the filename? And, because SuperUser.com has other pirates does not make it ok, nor does it mean we should ignore the issue. What is illegal, is illegal. Nemo est supra legis.
    – Evan Carroll
    Commented Dec 14, 2011 at 23:55
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    @EvanCarroll You are specifically targeting Jeff Atwood at this point, looking at your choice of tags. You're taking this to an extreme, and its ridiculous.
    – Simon Sheehan
    Commented Dec 14, 2011 at 23:56
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    @EvanCarroll SimonSheehan was correct to reject your edit, it is invalid and an incorrect attempt to take matters into your own hands.
    – studiohack Mod
    Commented Dec 15, 2011 at 0:17
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    @EvanCarroll it's still fair use to quote parts of the content, but I agree in this case perhaps I quoted too much, and I'll fix it.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Dec 15, 2011 at 1:24
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    Thanks @JeffAtwood.
    – studiohack Mod
    Commented Dec 15, 2011 at 8:46

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