Being a City Online Portal, we're always actively searching for and collecting a lot of valuable information from other sources, including newspaper, websites, radio, television, word of mouth etc.....

As a result, it is inevitable to encounter situations where we're said to be copying things from others. On this matter, we must admit some information, data or news are stolen from publicly accessible sources. For this reason, we have prepared this page to clarify our actions and motives.

Nowadays, there are many sources out there serving different markets. And there are also many sources serving the same market, providing similar information. Take our local newspaper 'The Evening Standard' and radio stations for example, from time to time, they're offering the same piece of information (say, there's a celebration at The Square on Monday), in their own ways. This information is publicly accessible, non-for-profit and most importantly, it's meant for everybody. 

On the other hand, some information are not meant to be publicised, you have to pay to read/see it. These information are usually copyrighted and only accessible for authorised readers/viewers.

Therefore, we have categorised information gathered on Palmy.Net into 2 categories:

• Things we will steal:
• Publicly accessible information: 

Anything can be accessed or obtained by public, free of any financial commitment, can be categorised into this section. They are meant to be accessed (by accessed we mean viewed, read, obtained and of the same kind) by anyone, and it's so common and general that you cannot or should not copyright it as your own. For example, Palmerston North Hospital's phone numbers or Palmerston North's population. 
• News and events:

You may argue that we need to buy newspaper. But we believe everybody can easily access the same newspaper in public library, free of charge. The key word here is - TIMING. We do not attempt to compete with newspaper in the timing of delivering one piece of news. Our objective is to gather news that concern our city at the end of the day, or week, so that everyone can read them, refer to them anytime, easily and comfortably. Imagine you have to take the whole week's newspaper in the library to read the same column (say Health), wouldn't it easier if we collect them together?
• Images, sounds etc:

This is more difficult to justify our actions. So here's our explanation: If the obtained images (and others) are not for commercial purposes, we will steal it. For example, a car accident on the newspaper is not serving the same purpose as a naked woman on PlayBoy magazine. 
• Things we won't steal, but will ask for permission:
• Copyrighted materials:

This covers everything legally protected by the copyright law. If you have requested anything to be copyrighted, such as TradeMarks TM, Registered ®, or Copyrighted ©, we will ask for your permission to put it on Palmy.Net if we want to include that here. This does not necessarily mean the copyright statement (like one of ours) on the bottom of every page. Again, it is very difficult for us to decide, so please kindly advise us if we have offended you.
• Confidential materials:

Anything that is classified as confidential and the access is limited to only the authorised persons. For example, if one of our editors is invited to attend a private meeting and the host has already stated clearly that anything in that meeting shouldn't be released, we will not publicise it then.
• Anything else that is not meant for public:

After all we're dealing with people. So even though we have our principles in gathering information, we do however, consider other factors such as ethical and sensitive issues. We will be trying our best to compile a convenient and comfortable City Online Portal without breaking laws or offending anyone. We hope we can get the understanding from you.
• Few things for sure:
• We will give credit where it's due.
• All stolen materials will be accompanied by the name of its owner/organisation, sources referred and/or website hyperlink.
• We will remove all stolen materials upon request from the owner or authorised person, as soon as we possibly can.
• We will apologise both personally (through email) and publicly (on Palmy.Net) for mistakes that we made, and explain why the stolen materials are no longer available from Palmy.Net.
• This page is full of loopholes and will never be complete. We are open for any comments, critiques and suggestions and will change the contents accordingly. Please check back often for more information.
• We reserve the rights to make any changes on this website without notice.

 

Please note that the above statements are purely our decision and are subject to comments, critiques and suggestions. We do hope the offended parties can accept our apology, understand our motives and allow us a chance to remove all offending materials. We do not have the finance to consult a lawyer for detailed yeses and no's, but we think we're maintaining this website on goodwill, and do not mean to offend anyone or steal anything for financial benefits. Please email us your opinion to copycat@palmy.net.nz