CowboySauce's arguments [which are suspiciously troll-like] have one major flaw: the reason people are so irate is exactly because Mr. Beall writes questions *FOR A LIVING*; he is profiting from "stealing and defiling" questions written by people who are getting neither compensation nor credit for their efforts. Moreover, lifting questions verbatim from existing sources is not "writing questions," it is a violation of copyright. The arguments against the practice are both legal and moral, and I think the true "crime" is that businesses like Questions Unlimited can attract so many teams while still offering questions of such dubious provenance, yet colleges and universities--which are doing their own part by writing their own questions for HS and college tournaments--have a much more difficult time drumming up business. Furthermore, you cannot say that inveighing aginst plagiarism is a sign of "taking competitions too seriously." Any TD whose tournament has almost been derailed by plagiarized questions can probably attest to the kinds of mischief that result when people don't play by the rules. And, basically, that's what this whole tirade comes down to: the complaints are against an individual who does not want to play by "the rule" that question writers should write their own questions, and not lift them wholesale from other freely-available sources. --AEI
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