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New Policy for SBT Articles

NDNation received a letter 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.

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. 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 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.