Posted 1 July 2011 - 7:00pm by Fleet Admiral David “Seal” Wonderly (President) (David Wonderly)
Edict #23
Well where does one start with this?
The other night, TJ Morgan violated the TOS and committed copyright infringement with information from www.star-fleet.com. This was done by placing our copyrighted information on a third party ?free use? site. During a conversation I had with Mr. Morgan, I told him that I needed to review and approve any and all content on a third party site before it was brought into the light. He pasted me a link to the site and before hearing anything back he posted it to the club in command.
So, this leaves us with Mr. Morgan endangering the legality of our organization. This was done after he was told on more then one occasion by more then one person that we do not post content off site. Mr. Morgan has decided that he wanted to ignore the rules in place and do what he wanted to do in this situation.
This is not the first time Mr. Morgan has been in trouble by ignoring the rules and regulations within STF. On 14 April, 2011 I temporally demoted Mr. Morgan to Commander for breaking rules. When he was reinstated to the rank of Captain I told him that this was his last warning.
Normally, I would ban someone for a period of time for a TOS violation and for breaking the rules. However, with Mr. Morgan this has already been done. Hemenway #62 (http://www.star-fleet.com/prez/edicts/hemenway/#e62) talks about this. In here he was (among other things) banned for 30 days for: ?For making unauthorized contact with the potential of creating legal trouble for the club,? And here we are again, talking about the legal implications of Mr. Morgans actions.
Mr. Morgan has been punished and warned about his actions and ignoring the rules. Mr. Morgan has stated that he feels he was doing what was best for the club. I want to be very clear on this point. Violating copyright law, violating the TOS of our site, violating the TOS of a 3rd party site, and ignoring clearly stated rules is not ?In the best interest of STF? and it never will be.
Because of this pattern that has been established and because he has been warned, banned and demoted in the past I feel that there is only one last course of action for this.
TJ Morgan, you are hereby permanently banned from STF. This includes the club and internet chat services.
David Wonderly
STF President
Edict #23a
Okay, stemming from a few conversations, I would like to add the following explanation to Wonderly #23.
Explanation of the TOS violations and Copyright infringement:
When TJ Morgan asked me to use our images in a wiki for a proof of concept, I had no issues with this. Proof of concepts are something that I know well and they are what they say they are. However, in allowing him to do this on a third party site at no time did I authorize the breach of the TOS (Terms of Service) with copyrighted material. There are ways to build and put together a wiki without changing the copyright on the information or material. The TOS for the free wiki site that Mr. Morgan used explained that the information placed there would be ?free use?. This doesn’t fall in line with the copyright of the STF material as explained in our own TOS.
I want to make it clear that there are ways to build and use a third party proof of concept wiki without changing the copyright of the material posted there. Now, while this may not sound like a big deal to some I would like to clearly state what this means in ?real world? terms. This effectively means that Mr. Morgan stole intellectual material from STF and gave it away. This would be the same if he had broken into any of our houses and stole something to give away. In the process he violated legal sections of our TOS and violated the legal sections of the third parties TOS.
Now, when I authorized the use on our material in a proof of concept, I also requested that Mr. Morgan allow me to review and authorize it prior to posting it on the STF boards. The reason I requested this was to ensure that everything was legal and it was not mis-representing STF or our material. Had Mr. Morgan followed this request I would have caught this infraction on the spot, yelled at him for not following rules and violating terms of service, demanded he remove the information and would have moved on from there. It would have minimized the exposure and it probably would not have come to this.
There are a couple of lessons in here. Please read the terms of service of websites and anything else. They tell you what is allowed and not allowed in the way of information, what can and cannot be placed on sites like this. When I ask for conditions to something, there is always a reason. Even if you don’t understand why I would, there is always a reason. This incident further explains why I request that third party links gets passed through me before posted on the boards and why we don’t host our information off-site.
Explanation as to why Mr. Morgan was permanently banned instead of temporally banned:
There are several reasons why I made Mr. Morgans ban a permanent ban.
This is not the first time Mr. Morgan has legally mis-represented STF. During the Hemenway administration there was a situation where Mr. Morgan was temporally banned from STF. This was the first banning from STF.
During the past couple of years Mr. Morgan has shown that he believes that if he doesn’t agree with rules then he feels that they don’t need to be followed. He has been banned from command, admonished and temporally demoted to Commander for these actions. It has become a pattern that has been getting more and more bold as time as gone on.
When it was brought to light that this information needed to be removed (Both in command and in an email), Mr. Morgan did apologize. However, he also said that it was for the best of the club and he would continue to do what was best for the club. When someone does these things and justifies them as ?okay? and ?for the best of the club? they are more adept to do them again. Mr. Morgan has already said that he feels it was okay and justified and he would do what was best for the club. Based on these statements and a pattern that bas been established and growing for the past several years I felt that to allow Mr. Morgan back into the club would provide another legal risk to the club.
I hope this clears the situation up and if you want more explanations you are free to email me or catch me in IRC to talk about it.
I am sorry this happened. TJ Morgan was a brilliant role player. His ship was a wonderful example of how a ship should be run. However, being a great RPer does not make you above the rules. I have tried to work with him because of his excellent role playing ability. STF has truly lost a talented player and for this, I am sorry. But, in the end, rules are rules and a liability is a liability.
David Wonderly
STF President