Forget copyright, that's a red herring. And forget security issues. I administer a couple of seriously private areas for some mailing lists and I don't care if 100 or 1000 people had access. This was still wrong.
The people who chose to do this have exactly the same attitude toward privacy and complying with standards as the Bush administration. They aren't Woodward and Bernstein, they are spiritual kin to the attitude that says that anyone's phone can be tapped, and it's ok if your motives are pure.
Typical ends justify the means reasoning.
It would even be one thing to say something like -- as a member of SFWA, I am disgusted by what I have read that was posted by X, Y and Z, and I dare them to repeat it in public.
But to excerpt and repost, and when called on it to insist that people must individually request the return of their stolen words, is contemptible. And I'm a pretty mild person who doesn't use that word lightly.
I agree with you
Forget copyright, that's a red herring. And forget security issues. I administer a couple of seriously private areas for some mailing lists and I don't care if 100 or 1000 people had access. This was still wrong.
The people who chose to do this have exactly the same attitude toward privacy and complying with standards as the Bush administration. They aren't Woodward and Bernstein, they are spiritual kin to the attitude that says that anyone's phone can be tapped, and it's ok if your motives are pure.
Typical ends justify the means reasoning.
It would even be one thing to say something like -- as a member of SFWA, I am disgusted by what I have read that was posted by X, Y and Z, and I dare them to repeat it in public.
But to excerpt and repost, and when called on it to insist that people must individually request the return of their stolen words, is contemptible. And I'm a pretty mild person who doesn't use that word lightly.