FOX News commits copyright infringement

That's right. On June 28, Fox News reported that Nancy Benoit's death was published on Wikipedia's website 13 hours before the police discovered that she and her son had been murdered. On its website, fox advertised the report as an "exclusive". The report did not, however, originate with Fox News.

Wikinews broke the story at 9:06 UTC (4:06 EST) including all the core facts of the Fox News report. Fox News not only published the story as an "exclusive" after Wikinews broke it, but lifted passages almost verbatim from the Wikinews story without correct attribution

See the publish time and date

The following passages can be found in the Fox report:
According to a Wikipedia.org report published after FOXNews.com made inquiries, the edit was reversed just under one hour later with the comment: "Need a reliable source. Saying that his wife died is a pretty big statement, you need to back it up with something."

(...)

Further investigation, according to Wikipedia.com, shows that one hour after the first edit reversion, another anonymous edit by 125.63.148.173 using unwiredAustralia.com.au, a wireless Internet service provider, was made adding about the aforementioned personal issues: "which according to several pro wrestling websites is attributed to the passing of Benoit's wife, Nancy." That edit was reverted less than 20 minutes later, with the following comment: "Saying 'several pro wrestling websites' is still not reliable information." The second edit was made by a computer in Australia from a wireless network, according to Wikipedia.org.



These passages are copied almost verbatim from the Wikinews story, which said:
An anonymous edit from IP address 69.120.111.23 using the Internet service provider Optimum Online was made at 04:01 UTC on Chris Benoit's Wikipedia article. On a paragraph about an earlier fight: "However, Chris Benoit was replaced ... due to personal issues,...", the anonymous editor added " stemming from the death of his wife Nancy." The edit was reversed just under one hour later with the comment: "Need a reliable source. Saying that his wife died is a pretty big statement, you need to back it up with something." Then just one hour later after the first edit reversion, another anonymous edit by 125.63.148.173 using unwiredAustralia.com.au, a wireless Internet service provider, was made adding about the aforementioned personal issues: "which according to several pro wrestling websites is attributed to the passing of Benoit's wife, Nancy." That edit was reverted just under 20 minutes later, with the comment: "Saying 'several pro wrestling websites' is still not reliable information." (...) The second edit was made by a computer in Australia from a wireless network.

While Fox News attributed the passages to "Wikipedia.org" and "Wikipedia.com", Wikinews is in fact a separate website dedicated to news reporting by "citizen journalists". Like Wikipedia, Wikinews is operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.

FOX News was called several times by as many as six different Wikinews contributers and administrators also called, but FOX News has yet to respond to phone messages and e-mails, and to this day, still claim the story as an "exclusive" and still has not attributed Wikinews as being the source of their information.

I also was one of the user who called, but I was just given the run around even though I talked to a live voice, a woman, for at least 30 seconds. I had called just two minutes prior and left a message with their "comment desk." When the woman answered, she just transferred my call right back to the comments desk.

I posted this here, because the story we wrote on Wikinews about this will not be published due to issues it has with the NPOV policy on our site.

I want everyone to know how FOX News operates and how they steal the material from hard working and in almost every case, non-professional journalists. They stole the material and called it their own. And now I hope this posting will show you, the reader, just what a major corporation does just because they have money. They believe the law does not apply to them.

Their slogan should now read "We steal our reports, and you decide."

So here you go. Here is the real truth.