“Thank you for writing, the dispute has been forwarded to our legal department.”

So the legal departement decided to apologize. Question, anyone?

I think the words “ungodly” is a little unfair.

I also note the Professor is defending copyright in the photograph and accordingly your comment is not only derogatory, it is based in falsity.

In any event, although open piracy is “communistic”, illegal and well wrong this should not be put onto the perfectly legal method of licensing using the creative commons standard forms. Surely you dont believe someone using thier rights to share works are in some way “ungodly”.

Regards
Alex

PS – Blaming the intern is how I still have a job. I don’t belittle Mr Ross for using that excuse in any way.

Anyway, I echo the skepticism that an “intern did it”. It look like a PR band-aid.

Don’t they have policies about using copyright protected materials? Wouldn’t they explain these sorts of things to an intern, who presumably is there to learn besides being cheap or free labor?

It still looks to me like they thought they could get away with it. Typical corporate BS: “copyright is for us to use against you, not the other way around.”

With the CC-SA the only time anyone gets upset is when a licensee attempts to breach the license by DENYING someone else’s liberty – and an intern probably doesn’t have access to a litigation budget.

With other licenses the licensors can get upset when licensees ENJOY liberties the licensor wanted copyright to continue to deny them.

So, the golden rule is: it’s not ethical to deny someone’s liberty. Ipso facto, with CC-SA the licensor will never be in an unethical situation – only the licensee can be. Whereas, with CC-NC, the licensor can unethically demand that a user of their work is denied the liberty to use it – contrary to the principles of a creative commons.

And is “oh, an intern did that by mistake” a good excuse? Companies should be held responsible for the actions of their employees, and that includes interns.