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New Policy for SBT Articles

In case you missed it on Rock's House, NDNation received a nastygram from the South Bend Tribune's law firm complaining about "illegal copying of copyrighted material". If we don't do something about it, they say, they will "seriously consider taking whatever legal action against [us] is necessary to stop such illegal conduct".

Obviously, we're disappointed. We instituted the links-only policy with SBT material last year, and as far as we knew, it was going great. We told you folks not to copy their text, and deleted it whenever we saw someone had goofed up, which is all we reasonably can be expected to do. We continued to put their links in our headlines (except for Jeff Carroll, of course), and sent them a lot of online traffic.

Apparently, none of these efforts by a website that doesn't make any money for its volunteer operators was good enough for a multi-million-dollar news organization like the Trib.

We'd hate to think they were rattling our chains because of the criticisms we've made about various members of their staff. We're sure we could find evidence they're being just as diligent monitoring all the other ND sites for similar "infractions". To do otherwise would, of course, be incredibly petty, and we're sure they're above that.

But obviously, we need to take stronger steps. So going forward, here's how it's going to be.

We will no longer include any South Bend Tribune articles on our site, whether it be via link or otherwise. If you choose to keep reading them online, that's your decision to make, but we cannot in good conscience continue to direct our readership there. You can mention whether or not you read a good article there, but you cannot link to it and you cannot copy any of its content. We'd prefer you not even mention it, but we're willing to let the market drive in this case.

We realize we're throwing some babies out with this bathwater, notably Jason Kelly and Tom Noie. Both are very good writers and, whether criticizing or praising Notre Dame, do so with intellectual honesty. But the decisions made by their employer has left us no choice. Perhaps in the future, if they're employed by a more reasonable organization, we can bring you their links once again.

If this policy ever gets reversed, we'll let you know, but somehow we doubt it.