FIRST PERSON/OPINION: This morning we learned that a for-profit website selling sportbike and motorcycle road racing parts and products has been stealing original, copyrighted editorial material from roadracingworld.com and reposting it on the news section of their website. A quick investigation revealed that 27 of the 72 headlines posted in the news section of the commercial website in question were in fact written by Roadracingworld.com staffers, posted on Roadracingworld.com and taken without permission. When contacted by Roadracingworld.com Associate Editor David Swarts at 8:10 a.m. California Time Tuesday morning, site “reporter” Patti Smith denied any theft had occurred. “I see news on websites,” said Smith, “then I go to the sources issuing them to get the press release.” “If this were true,” said Swarts, “Then you, like us, would have hard copies of these press releases with these headlines on them, right?” Smith then asked to be directed to an example of her theft. Swarts pointed to several headlines stolen directly from Roadracingworld.com Monday, to which she replied, “But there’s no statement of copyright or to not republish things from your site.” Smith was then asked to scroll to the bottom of any Roadracingworld.com web page, where there is a copyright notice. Swarts then asked Smith to remove all stolen material immediately. “No, I don’t have to,” said Smith. Roadracingworld.com subsequently asked the person Smith described as being the owner of the website in question, Ben Sallis, to take down all of Roadracingworld.com’s copyrighted original editorial material, which he failed to do. He will now have the opportunity to spend money defending Ms. Smith’s “right” to steal our original, copyrighted material.