Are press releases copyrighted? I’m sure they may be legally, but on the other hand I’ve never noticed a copyright notice on them, and they get published in a sense. I can certainly understand why the standards of a publication would not allow them to be copied, but plagiarism?
Wow! Thanks ever so much! That brings my lifetime total to ummm … (whips out calculator), let’s see now, (goes to scratch paper) carry the two, (double-checks math) yep! Fifty fluffy-wuffy points! 
Glad to hear it was nothing too serious. (but don’t quote me on that 
)
Just as a point of information…whenever they’ve done layoffs around here, we’ve known they were coming. We are told “we are going in to cost cutting mode, there will be staff reductions, we will let you know more as we know.” And then the six weeks of waiting begins - will it hit my department bad? Last time they offered early retirement and told us that the depth of the cutting was really going to depend on how many people took them up on the early retirement offers. We’ve never been ambused, and in some cases, its been the opposite, we’ve been told far too early before enough decisions have been made to keep the rumor mill from spining out of control and to put a damper on productivity for six weeks.
I wish we’d had cake at this meeting. Cake always makes meetings better. Maybe there should be a rule that the person who calls the meeting has to supply baked goods.
Punoqllads, adopted and Voyager: My understanding was that press releases aren’t copyrighted, so using them is fair game. In my field I wouldn’t print them verbatim – I have to rewrite the information for a specific audience – but I’ve used press releases as sources many times. If I understand the VP correctly, they’re now off limits (I disagree with his opinion that any use of secondary sources is plagiarism, but as I stated upthread, I’m just a peon).
I’m more concerned with the VP’s statement that I’m responsible if an outside contributor plagiarizes an article, even if that contributor has signed a copyright release stating that he/she is the author. One of my regular contributors is barely coherent on a good day.* He tries to get around this by quoting large sections of old court decisions and “forgetting” to attribute the statements (I caught one just last week when I noticed that the defendant’s name changed in mid-article). If he “borrows” from copyrighted sources and I don’t catch it, I’m out of a job. The VP told one group yesterday that he will do everything in his power to prevent an editor from getting another job if he/she is caught plagiarizing. Presumably that includes his expanded definition of the term.
- I’ve wanted to get rid of this guy for months, but my (nasty) boss won’t let me. Have I mentioned that she’s evil?
Just so you know, Rhubarb, fluffy-wuffy points aren’t redeemable in the continental U.S. But I believe they can be exchanged for bonus pretzels. 
I’ll have to check with my brother on that (he takes credit for inventing both).
Take comfort that none was furnished.-it would probably have been some of the tepid vanilla white cake that they furnish at weddings!
It sounds like you work for a bunch of goofs, so the tepid vanilla white cake would also have been day-old cake that the bride didn’t pick up.
hh