[Foundation-l] Copyright status of press releases

[Christiaan Briggs]

Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Christiaan Briggs wrote:
>> Maybe some of you would like to respond to this interesting question, 
>> are press releases copyrighted?:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:News_release
>
> To quote what I responded there: In strict terms I would see press 
> releases as covered by copyright, but not the information in them. 
> They are theoretically issued to inform, but in some cases to spin an 
> air of truth into misinformation. When you use them as is, and in 
> their words you are likely helping to propagate their spin. That 
> result is sure to outweigh their losses arising from copyright 
> infringement. I would be surprised to see any cases on this.

See my rant in response to Jimbo on [WikiEN-l] here:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-January/018797.html

Christiaan