The IT Skeptic does not condone IP theft
The IT Skeptic has zero tolerance for copyright violation. It is theft, pure and simple. On the other hand we support fair use. Almost all theft online is clearly not fair use.
When the IT Skeptic was made aware that posted links to free ITIL exams were in fact copyright violators, we acted quickly to take them down. It's scum like that who give we MFAs a bad name.
To explain: the IT Skeptic was once accused of being Made For Adsense, on Wikipedia no less. [Not what you thought MFA meant, eh? Still a term of abuse though] While this is perfectly true, the IT Skeptic likes to see himself as a cut above vermin like Mr. ITIL Exams - a more refined form of vermin if you like.
We've campaigned against the eBay thieves. We contacted the copyright holders and complained to eBay, which had zero effect of course. New Zealand has a site called Trademe, which beats eBay by a factor of more than 20 in this country last time I saw the stats. I saw a presentation by the trademe security officer where he demonstrated the company's policy of active pursuit of fraud and theft. This is in stark contrast to eBay who use member privacy as a shield to hide the fact that they don't give a toss who sells what, and have no respect for IP rights.
We notified the copyright holder with regard to this latest violation, and complained to the bastard's web host within hours of finding out. They took it down almost immediately, which is commendable. We'd have complained to the site owner but there was of course no "Contact" link, just lots of mashed-up ITIL stuff and Google ads.
We have zero tolerance for IP violation. Since we are in the IP publication business this can be seen as entirely selfish and it is. The IT Skeptic has many faults but idealism is not one of them.
It is possible to argue that copyright violation is the sincerest form of flattery, but that doesn't change the fact that it is stealing.
Note that this does not mean we recognise some holy sanctity of copyright. Copyright is sometimes used for restraint of trade and legal bullying, which we equally resist. We recognise and assert the concept of fair use.
This means there is sometimes a fine line, but this latest instance was so far across the line all we could see was the vermin's tail.
Made in New Zealand 
