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I don't know technically what the etiquette should be for something like this, but I would call this plagiarism. They copied the original verbatim, then they p

I don't know technically what the etiquette should be for something like this, but I would call this plagiarism. They copied the original verbatim, then they put a new date on it, and surrounded it with a bunch of ads.

jessaustin 11y ago
EFF might care less than most other authors about this otherwise-shady behavior. After all the message is still getting out.
- datashovel 11y ago
  I'd be interested to know if HN moderators take note of this kind of behavior and consider blocking domains that have a history of doing this kind of thing. Even though it's probably not a big deal to EFF, it's almost certainly a big deal to whoever is making money on other peoples' content. Not that I have noticed a problem on HN with this kind of thing before, but it seems it's the sort of thing that if it goes unchecked can potentially degrade quality given that HN would become a target for that sort of thing. I personally wouldn't mind if a few of those articles didn't show up if the submitter was blocked, since it would only mean the submitter wasn't interested in doing the work to find the original source.
- krapp 11y ago
  It appears that the EFF licenses its content under the Creative Commons Attribution License[0][1], which would make it acceptable to redistribute original content which is not already under a more restrictive license, if attribution is given, which the original site does not appear to have done. They also altered the content to remove the final paragraph, which would require attribution as well. The EFF would be undermining their own credibility (not to mention that of free/open source licenses) if they were aware of this and choose to ignore it. I'd bet no one bothered reporting it, though. [0]https://www.eff.org/copyright https://www.eff.org/copyright [1]https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

jessaustin 11y ago

EFF might care less than most other authors about this otherwise-shady behavior. After all the message is still getting out.

datashovel 11y ago
I'd be interested to know if HN moderators take note of this kind of behavior and consider blocking domains that have a history of doing this kind of thing. Even though it's probably not a big deal to EFF, it's almost certainly a big deal to whoever is making money on other peoples' content. Not that I have noticed a problem on HN with this kind of thing before, but it seems it's the sort of thing that if it goes unchecked can potentially degrade quality given that HN would become a target for that sort of thing. I personally wouldn't mind if a few of those articles didn't show up if the submitter was blocked, since it would only mean the submitter wasn't interested in doing the work to find the original source.
krapp 11y ago
It appears that the EFF licenses its content under the Creative Commons Attribution License[0][1], which would make it acceptable to redistribute original content which is not already under a more restrictive license, if attribution is given, which the original site does not appear to have done. They also altered the content to remove the final paragraph, which would require attribution as well. The EFF would be undermining their own credibility (not to mention that of free/open source licenses) if they were aware of this and choose to ignore it. I'd bet no one bothered reporting it, though. [0]https://www.eff.org/copyright https://www.eff.org/copyright [1]https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/