APMG accredited ITIL examination institute Peoplecert copying intellectual property?

[Updated 22/10/10 with more news, see end of this post]
[...and 23/10 with even more silliness from Peoplecert]
[...and so it goes on. Peoplecert seem totally incapable of understanding how copyright law operates.. how do they get to be an EI?]
[update 27/10: finally the content properly honours the original source, but it leaves us with two questions - see end of this post]

Not long ago the IT Skeptic told you about the appointment of the ninth ITIL Examination Institute (EI), Peoplecert, of Greece. Is this related to the ITSM-ITIL-PeopleCert website busily ripping off everyone else's web content without permission and using the trademarked ITIL swirl logo as their twitter picture? I hope an EI would have more respect for intellectual property. of course it can't be them because they are accredited by APMG and APMG audit their EIs so closely. Can it?

In that original post about the appointment of Peoplecert I said

I'm left to wonder whether... manageability (and hence protection of the value of ITIL certification, whatever is left) wouldn't be better served by an expansion of the existing Institutes rather than an increasing number of independent bodies and systems to be policed. Especially as ITIL extends its tendrils into some of the murkier corners of the world.

I first heard about the ITIL_ITSM_PEOPLECERT site from a tweet by vagrasala. The site is registered to
ECDL Hellas SA
ECDL ECDL
Korai 3
Athens, Attika 10564
GREECE

who happen to own Peoplecert, the APMG accredited EI.
[Amusingly the ITIL_ITSM_PEOPLECERT site asserts copyright over the copied content, owned by a Peoplecert site that i can't reach from new Zealand due to DNS failure. It's the same site linked to from the APMG EI webpage entry for Peoplecert]

It is a roll of honour the sites Peoplecert have copied (some of them several times):
ITSM Watch
Network World
Tech Republic
SYS-CON
HP's ITSM blog
Servicesphere
Hank Marquis
Vagrasala
ITSM Professor
Infosys
ITIL News
ITIL Training UK and Global Knowledge (I bet they'll be complaining to their EIs!)

Of course the reason I'm so mad about it is because they appear to have overlooked copying the IT Skeptic.

Peoplecert seem unaware that copying the entire content (and graphics) of somebody else's article is not OK just because you put a link to it at the bottom (which they don't always do either). Even if they acknowledged the copyright - which they don't - it STILL wouldn't be OK [to reproduce an entire article] without permission. If there is a copyright statement on the original - which there was on some - then without permission it's theft. If there wasn't, then it is unethical and lazy.

in fact there doesn't appear to be a shred of original content on the entire site. talk about value-add (not to mention a clear lack of in-house ITIL thought leadership).

And as an accredited EI I suppose they are allowed to use the Swirl as their twitter picture. We'll see.

What a shame to see an accredited ITIL Examination institute trampling all over the intellectual property of others.

[Update next day:

Somebody please educate the accreditors of the ITIL training industry on how copyright works. After this post went out yesterday, suddenlly all the ripped-off sites appear on the "blogroll". As if that makes it alright.

Yesterday's blogroll:

Today's blogroll:
]

[23/10: one more day and one more mis-step:

Now Peoplecert have specifically named the sites they are copying, while still copying the entire article and still not acknowledging the copyright (which they are violating unless they have prior permission of ITSMWatch, Network World, HP etc, which I doubt)

As I said in a comment below,
Perhaps it would be better described as an "other-people's-work in progress". You've jump started alright, by jumping on the backs of others.

Given the heavy letters that TSO send out to anyone who encroaches on your intellectual-property-based business monopoly, it is a bit rich when you leverage everyone else's hard work to build a commercial site that has so far contributed precisely nothing to the ITIL community.

This is either legal or moral copyright infringement. EIs have to do better than this if the community is going to tolerate your stranglehold on ITIL intellectual property. Your only honourable course of action is to take down any content you don't have permission to use, and to properly attribute that which you do have permission for.

Or - now here's a radical concept - perhaps you could make some intellectual effort to write about the other article, quoting portions of it appropriately to show you have something original to say and actually know something about ITSM]

[23/10 again. Now the Peoplecert blogsite says

Posts in ITIL-ITSM-PEOPLECERT blog are made according to original post owner's copyright and intellectual property directives. If you think there is a violation or an infringement please contact abuse@itil-itsm-peoplecert.com, so that post is either corrected or removed, copyright notice is added and industry trademarks respected.

For pity's sake people! This isn't difficult. if somebody asserts copyright on their material, YOU MAY NOT COPY IT ALL, only a proportion limited by "reasonable use". It doesn't matter if you say who you nicked it from. And it is not up to them to complain if they want you to stop. YOU CAN'T DO IT.

And even if they don't assert copyright, basic web etiquette says you don't copy it all. You quote some, you make comment, you link to the rest.

How dense can you be? People don't post content for your convenience and for you to take the credit. They post because they want people to read it on their site. It is all about traffic and kudos. Courtesy says you should encourage their traffic not steal it.

Hint: mindless mashups diminish your web cred.]

[27/10/10: One by one the copied posts are being replaced by the first third of the post followed by a link to the original - but not all of them! Peopelcert seem to have a policy of only fixing it if the owner complains.

No value add. Nothing original to say. No indication of any knowledge of ITSM at all, let alone thought leadership. Not even an opinion on the original post. Just a mashup of the first bit. But at least the principle of fair use is being broadly followed and the original source acknowledged.

This leaves me with two questions in mind, to which I have no evidence or answer:

1) if APMG "work closely with our accredited organizations to ensure that services are delivered consistently, professionally, competitively and to a constantly high standard" clearly they didn't work closely enough with Peoplecert. I raised the issue initially of whether APMG could cope with an ever-increasing number of EIs to govern and whether they should be accrediting EIs in "murkier" parts of the world. Does this blatant abuse of intellectual property by an accredited EI point to APMG's inability to cope with the burgeoning ITIL industry?

2) Given Peoplecert's contempt of other people's intellectual property, I wonder where their courseware comes from?]