<<Having worked as a writer and editor for many years, my understanding of
copyright is that I might be in trouble if I purloined a large amount of
material, without credit, and passed it off as my own.>>
I've worked as a writer and editor for many years myself, and I'm afraid
your understanding of copyright is incorrect. You "purloined it", and it
was illegal. It doesn't matter who, if anyone, you credited it to.
<<Another test is whether or not what I quote and attribute would benefit
the original copyright holder or not>>
There is no "test" - copyright says you may not copy, in any form, the
piece under copyright, without express permission. It's that simple. And
that includes copying it to distribute, even to a mailing list like
Fibernet. Attributing it to Reuters is not sufficient, and your financial
benefit is not an issue. Nor is your giving them "free publicity."
You can copy for fair use, which is your own personal use - this does no
include distributing to your friends.
You could excerpt salient bits of the Reuters article (which would
constitute fair use), and then post an address for people to check, if they
wanted to read the entire article.
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