lady express (just to distinguish you from nurse Cherie):

I don't know all copyright rules either and they seem like they're changing all the time with the advent of the internet.

Just a link to Paul's website would have been sufficient anyway to share all his good information here. This didn't even have to become an issue unless someone is TRYING to take credit for work they didn't write.

I think that's the thing. We all have information we've collected. And if it's for personal use we can keep it in any form we like. But the internet is a big ol audience and that audience deserves to know who wrote the material. Even the exception of copying "for educational purposes", that only allows you to COPY it to a certain extent, it does not except anyone from the requirement to give the source. And I don't think the internet is included in the "educational" exception anyway since publications that people pay to receive want to ensure that the information isn't available publically for free by someone that has put it on the internet. Otherwise no one could publish material and charge for it if someone else has shared it publically "for educational purposes" for free. They still need to prevent that so that can earn a living. And the author definitely should get credit for writing it to begin with.

I understand that it sometimes seems unfair not to be able to share information if we can't provide the source. But if you look at the bigger picture, it also seems unfair to be able to share it and claim authorship when someone else put in the work. To me that is the bigger harm. After all, with the internet and good search engines, it's usually quite easy to find a source of material even if we don't have it in our personal materials.

I just think the authors and publishers deserve the recognition and that is the overriding concern here.