[james]

Originally Posted by raquelle261

NB: What had followed was an extract from an article in the Chicago Tribune, travel section thereof. No breach of copyright had been intended, nor I believed actually broken (but there you go), as I believed it was obvious from this thread where the extract had come from. The extract was provided as the previous post hinted it might be against the rules to post links to articles.

No doubt, you weren't trying to breach any copyright, but you did. Irrespective of being obvious, it is not permitted to place copyrighted material anywhere on this (or any other) site without permission. That's what copyrights are for. There isn't any punishment (from us, anyway) for getting a rule like that wrong. Thanks for letting us know about the article!

Originally Posted by raquelle261

However, seeing as though its caused such controversy, I have deleted the quote and undergarment elastic may now be untwisted.

I don't think there was any controversy, and I'll make a stab at clearing this up with my comments on this reply, however I think the sign-up agreement (which is reposted as the READ ME Annoucement) is quite clear.

Originally Posted by raquelle261

Needless to say - La Tortuga, well done, well done, well done; Shangri La Caribe, well done, well done, well done; Playa del Carmen, well done, well done, well done.

Agreed, three cheers for all involved in the article!
I've been friends with the owners of La Tortuga for many years now. It's always been on the short list for my family and friends in Playa looking for a special lodging experience with attention to detail. I have a lot of respect for Laura and Giulio and the La Tortuga team.

Shangrila Caribe has pleased its loyal clientele for years as one of the original Playa beachfront resorts. We love the place!

Originally Posted by Michael

....and damn the rights of the copyright holder.

While Michael claims to be a Californian, he is still mostly English. The smirk on his face which accompanies his dry sense of humour and style is often subtle in his posts, and I believe we share this trait.

He is, of course, quite correct, and protecting copyrighted material is important to all publishers, Playa.Info included. Many times we (well, usually it is through the eagle eyes of DeniseA) have discovered large portions of our site lifted and inappropriately appropriated. Once a so-called "Unofficial RIU Resort site" took, well, basically our entire site, and was very rude replying to our requests to remove the stolen property.

Originally Posted by raquelle261

Er...... are trying to tell me something there Michael or am I just being paranoid? If anyone feels I ought to delete the quote of the article, please just come out and say so - alternatively, mods please delete it if you feel you ought to. Am off to hit the pillow - its late in the night here and am tired so my judgement is probably impaired....

We always reserve the right to edit anything in any way. This is because all submitted material becomes property of Playa.Info. It is copyrighted by us. Therein lies the sticky bit of having other sites' copyrighted material posted.

And, again, Michael is just English... or is that Southern Californian?

Originally Posted by JillyinMN

Seems okay to me. I've seen articles quoted on this forum many times before.

Well, they shouldn't be, really. Not all content is copyrighted, and not all copyrights are as expressively denying as that of the Chicago Tribune. Some websites allow quoting content with a link back or even as little as an acknowledgement of source.

Originally Posted by Babaloo

you just need to give credit to the copyright holder
nothing more

Since copyrights do indeed vary, it is best to always just post a link to the article. Grabbing chunks off of Wikipedia is another matter (at least last time I read their fine print).

Originally Posted by laurab

Ok, so maybe it's better to take it off..... just leave the title please, that's enough to keep big silly smiles on all our faces at the hotel

The link to the article is quite appropriate. The Chicago Tribune, like almost any other site, WANTS links back to their page. This generates inbound traffic, and, arguably more important, link relevance which helps boost rankings with search engines like Google.

Originally Posted by Babaloo

Articles with credits have been posted since i've been here
If it's against the rules...the rules have been broken for a while
I think it's also proper to give a link to the original article.

We cannot read every post and check every article's source copyright information. That's up to the poster. I'll try to make this more clear in our announcement.

Originally Posted by raquelle261

Right. Fuss over. Original post has been amended.

Again, thanks for bringing this article to the forum's attention!