Copyright Notice, Text and Data-Mining Exclusion, Editorial Disclaimers, and Reprint Requests

Last Update: November 9, 2024.

By consuming any content on this blog in any manner, you accept all of the disclaimers, licenses, copyright requirements, and terms and conditions of using the Sourcing Innovation blog and any associated sites, which are subject to change at any time. You also accept that it is your responsibility to keep up to date on the disclaimers, licenses, copyright requirements, and terms and conditions of using the Sourcing Innovation blog and any associated sites and that you are fully liable for any violation of such disclaimers, licenses, copyright requirements, and terms and conditions as well as any usage of any content contained on any site, which, as per the editorial disclaimer, is information of a general nature, that contains subjective opinions, not for commercial use, and is designed for information and entertainment purposes only.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editorial Disclaimer.

This website provides information of a general nature, subjective opinions of the various content contributors, and is designed for informational and entertainment purposes only. The editors of this website (“Editors”), merely by allowing any content, comments, solutions, or other data to be posted by any contributor (“Content”), do not necessarily endorse and specifically disclaim all responsibility for such Content, and are not responsible or liable for any such Content. You acknowledge that the Editors need not pre-screen any Content, but that Editors reserve the right (but not the obligation) in their sole discretion to refuse, edit, move or remove any Content on the website. All Content represents the viewpoints of the contributor only, and is not to be interpreted as a statement of fact, and you acknowledge that any reliance on Content will be at your own risk.

By consuming any content on this website, you acknowledge and accept this is a free resource for personal, non-commercial, use for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only! No warranties, express or implied, are provided on the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information and Sourcing Innovation shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof.


Dynamic Content

Sourcing Innovation is a blog, not a print publication. As such all content it contains can, and will, be updated, as needed or desired, and will most likely be updated if one or more of the following situations described below arise.

Only the most current version of content will be considered Sourcing Innovation content, and that’s why any and all reprints granted or quotes to Sourcing Innovation must contain a URL so a reader can access the full, current version. By consuming any content on this blog, you not only accept that this is a blog of subjective opinions, not for commercial use, that is designed for information and entertainment purposes only, but that any and all content may change at any time and it is up to you to check that any content you may or may not be relying on at your own risk is up to date. While much of the content remains relatively static,

The following is an incomplete list of situations where content may be updated:

  • Sourcing Innovation was provided with incorrect or incomplete information during a demo or briefing, later found out such, and the content created thereon contains inaccuracies at the time of publication as a result
  • Sourcing Innovation was given, or only possessed, incorrect or incomplete information relating to one or more subjects of an opinion piece, later found out such, and the opinion piece is no longer reflective of Sourcing Innovation’s opinions
  • Sourcing Innovation obtains new information that completely changes its opinion on a subject, an the piece needs to be updated to reflect such
  • Sourcing Innovation was given confidential or copyright information it was not allowed to have, that was not identified as such at the time, and the information needs to be redacted
  • Sourcing Innovation finds out that a piece may be being used by commercial entities in a way that unfairly highlights their ability or unfairly detracts from the ability of a competitor; in this case, Sourcing Innovation may choose to reword, provide more context, or remove content from a post to limit misuses, especially since all quotes must be contiguous and accurate to abide by North American “fair use” and “fair dealing” laws (see the FAQ)
  • Sourcing Innovation believes that a piece may be being misinterpreted (based on feedback, comments, or questions raised to the author or SI) and may thus rewrite parts or all of it for clarity
  • Sourcing Innovation believes that readers may be confusing the existence of a reference to one or more entities (such as a type of company, vendor, software) designed to explain a concept being discussed (such as a class of companies, vendors, or software modules) as the target of an article, and not just one example to explain the general category being discussed, and may augment, replace, or remove those references as well as reword the article to make the point clear (e.g. when we discuss S2P suites we are not singling out any specific suite)
  • Sourcing Innovation identifies grammar, phrasing, or even formatting that it believes could be confusing that needs to be enhanced

The following is an incomplete list of situations where content may be deleted:

  • Sourcing Innovation was given content or information that was trade secret or under embargo (without being provided that context when it received the content)
  • Sourcing Innovation was given copyrighted content the provider had no right to give
  • The content or article is based on third party content (such as an editorial, scholarly analysis, or summary thereof) that no longer exists and the article does not make sense without such content
  • The content, due to new information, is deemed to be significantly wrong and not of any informational value
  • The content was a reciprocal piece, and the corresponding piece disappeared from the other site


No Recommendations

While Sourcing Innovation will cover, and provide opinions on, companies, solutions, platforms, and/or products, Sourcing Innovation is NOT making a recommendation for or against any specific company, solution, platform, and/or product! It is merely providing one data point that may be used in your consideration, at your own risk (as there are no warranties, express or implied, on the completeness, accuracy, adequacy, or relevancy on any content on this non-commercial site for personal use) and any recommendations it provides are for situations in which it would consider or not consider adding the company, solution, platform, and/or product to a shortlist for an RFP. (i.e. it would include, or not include, the company, solution, platform, and/or product based on a specific scenario)

License.

By posting messages or personal information, uploading files, inputting data, or engaging in any other form of communication with this website (collectively, “Contributions”), you are granting the website and its Editors permission and a royalty-free perpetual license to: use, modify, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, publish, create derivative works from, or transfer the Contributions. The foregoing grants shall include the right to exploit any proprietary rights in such Contributions without compensation to you, including but not limited to rights under copyright, trademark, service mark or patent laws under any relevant jurisdiction.

You also acknowledge that you possess the rights, including the rights to share, any data, files, and content that you provide to this website, either through a comment or through a contribution, and that you accept full responsibility and accountability for such data, files, and content.  This means that should you share any data, files, and content you don’t possess the rights to (which includes the rights to share), the website owners and editors may hold you legally accountable.

Legal Compliance.

The Editors will cooperate fully with any law enforcement officials and/or agencies in the investigation of any person or persons who allegedly violate any law relating to such person’s Contributions.

Promotions.

If you have signed up for one or more mailing lists, or agreed thereto, Editors and/or third parties may, from time to time, send e-mail messages to you or otherwise contact you with solicitations, advertisements, or promotions. Editors make no representation or warranty with respect to the content of any such communications or any goods or services which may be obtained from such third parties, and you agree that neither Editors nor such third party shall have any liability with respect thereto.

Copyright.

All original content that appears on the Sourcing Innovation blog, or companion website, whether or not it was created by the Editors, is either the copyright of Sourcing Innovation or its parent company ToP KaTS Consulting (that owns the Sourcing Innovation Blog, the Sourcing Innovation Website, the Sourcing Innovation Domains, and all works expressly created under the Sourcing Innovation name for commercial use) or the copyright of the original contributor (who has granted Sourcing Innovation and its parent company a royalty-free perpetual license to publish and distribute the content through any media, web property or electronic channel controlled by Sourcing Innovation or its parent company).

Content created by a Sourcing Innovation contributor (who has granted Sourcing Innovation and its parent company a royalty-free perpetual license to publish and distribute the content on any media, web property or electronic channel controlled by Sourcing Innovation and its parent company) remains the copyright of the contributor and may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the express written consent of the contributor.

Content which is the copyright of Sourcing Innovation may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the express written permission of the doctor, the “Editor in Chief”, or an officer of ToP KaTS Consulting, unless the reproduction is a permitted exception, as defined below.

Furthermore, all of the content on this website is made available for non-commercial public consumption only, and may only be consumed if the reader agrees that all content on this site is  information of a general nature, subjective opinions of the various content contributors, and is designed for informational and entertainment purposes only. Content may not be used for any commercial purpose without the expression written consent of the doctor, the “Editor in Chief”, or an officer of ToP KaTS Consulting.

The only exceptions to this rule are the following:

  1. An organization that is a current sponsor is allowed to reproduce
    1. any and all posts authored by the doctor, subject to the restrictions below, in their entirety, or any contiguous part of any and all posts that appear on the Sourcing Innovation blog, which do not reference another vendor or solution, as a quote, for educational and non-profit purposes in any printed or electronic medium controlled by the sponsor as long as a complete reference, which includes the complete perma-link URL to the original post, is included;
    2. any and all posts authored by a contributor or guest author, subject to the restrictions below, in their entirety, that does not reference another vendor or solution, for educational purposes for their employees and clients in any printed or electronic medium controlled by the sponsor and restricted to their employees and clients as long as a complete reference, which includes the complete perma-link URL to the original post, is included.

     

    This right remains in existence for as long as the organization remains a sponsor plus one month (up to a maximum of 12 months) for every month the organization was contiguously sponsoring Sourcing Innovation (the “grace period”). Once sponsorship, and the subsequent grace period, has ended, all rights of reproduction are immediately revoked (and the organization must cease distributing all printed and electronic materials containing full or partial content reproductions) unless a valid agreement granting reproduction rights between the organization and the parent company of Sourcing Innovation is made or the right of reproduction is covered under another exception.

  2. Any contiguous part of any and all posts that appear on the Sourcing Innovation blog, subject to the restrictions below, which do not reference another vendor or solution, as a quote, for educational and non-profit purposes in any printed or electronic medium controlled by the sponsor as long as a complete reference, which includes the complete perma-link URL to the original post, is included.

Any client of the parent company that owns the Sourcing Innovation domain that is in good standing is allowed to reproduce any contiguous part of any and all posts authored by the doctor, subject to the restrictions below, that relate specifically to that client or that client’s products (but do not include a mention to another vendor or solution), in their entirety, as a quote, for educational and non-profit purposes in any printed or electronic medium as long as a complete reference, which includes the complete perma-link URL to the original post, is included. This right remains in existence until the client is no longer in good standing or six months have passed since the last day of service. “In good standing” has its usual interpretation and means that there are no overdue invoices for services or expenses (which are not in a valid dispute process, should such a valid dispute process be allowed under presiding law or the services contract) and no legal proceedings are taking place between the parties.

Anyone is allowed to use any content that appears on the Sourcing Innovation site in any way that does not violate scholarly or other types of “fair-dealing”, as defined by Canadian Copyright Law. (For example, if your intent is to use the material in a classroom in an accredited and registered non-profit educational institution, you can, more-or-less, use anything you want, with few restrictions, provided the method of copying and distribution for classroom use does not make the material publicly available in a manner that would infringe copyright. This means print-outs and distribution over a secure Virtual Private Network that limits access to you and your students would be fine, but posting the material on the University’s public access website would not. As another example, if your intent is to use the content in advertisements with the express intent of achieving commercial gain therefrom, then, unless you fall under exception 1 or exception 2, you may not be able to quote a full a paragraph and have it “fair-dealing” [depending on what percentage of content the paragraph represents]. Quotes are always okay, but quotes that exceed more than a certain percentage of content are in the “grey area” when the material is being used for commercial gain.)

These restrictions apply to all of the exceptions above and below:

  • the posts requested/being used are at least 30 days old
  • the copyright is fully controlled by Sourcing Innovation
    (which generally includes all posts authored by the doctor and excludes posts authored by contributors)
  • no fee of any kind will be charged for the reprints, reposts, or redistribution (and you provide an assurance that this will never happen)
  • the posts will never be used with the intent of commercial gain
  • the posts do not contain any reference to a vendor or solution, with the only exception being actual “fair-dealing” use for scholarly use
  • the posts are (re)distributed in whole or in contiguous, unaltered, part
  • full credit for authorship is attributed to the original author
  • a permalink to the original post is included

If you are unsure whether or not you have the right to reproduce, in whole or contiguous part, any content on Sourcing Innovation that you would like to use, please e-mail the Editor in Chief using the contact information in the FAQ.

Furthermore, no part of this web site may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.

This statement is made in accordance with Article 4(3) of the Digital Single Market Directive 2019/790. ToP KaTS Consulting, who owns the Sourcing Innovation domain and all content hosted on the domain, expressly reserves all content on this domain from the text and data mining exception.

Reprints, Reposts, and Other Forms of Distribution

Content from the Sourcing Innovation site may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the express written permission of the doctor, the “Editor in Chief”, or the original contributor, unless the reproduction is a permitted exception. However, since the doctor believes that content should be freed for fair use (see Free Content for Fair Use), the doctor is always willing to consider requests to reprint, repost, and re-distribute original content from the Sourcing Innovation blog (to which Sourcing Innovation controls the copyright), provided that the request to re-distribute content acknowledges that any re-distributed content must include a permalink to the source article as well as author information.

If you or your organization wishes to reprint, repost, or re-distribute any content on Sourcing Innovation, contact the doctor using the contact information in the FAQ and specify the following:

  • the post or posts that you are requesting to reprint or repost,
  • your name and contact information (company, e-mail, and telephone number),
  • the method in which you plan to reprint/republish the posts, and
  • the audience you intend to reach.

The Editor-in-Chief will consider your request and will attempt to give you a response within five business days. The response will indicate whether or not you may reproduce the content, as well as any conditions on the reproductions and any fees and royalties that must be paid to license the content for the purposes of reproduction.

Note that, as covered in Free Content for Fair Use, if the intent is to reproduce the works for the sole purpose of education, the doctor will consider granting a royalty-free license to reproduce and distribute any content to which Sourcing Innovation owns the copyright. Please note the following two exceptions:

The first exception is if you are a provider asking for content that refers to a competitor. This will automatically be denied as SI does not encourage or enable negative or provider specific marketing. (This should be obvious from the fact that in the 200+ vendor deep dives on SI and the 150+ vendor deep dives [co]-authored on SM, the doctor has never outright said anything negative about the vendor in those deep-dive posts. He’s pointed out weaknesses, but beyond that, it’s up for the reader to do their own research and draw their own conclusions.) Furthermore, while SI’s deep vendor solution coverage posts are fact-driven, the opinion posts on some providers, which ask tough questions and include interpretations with the knowledge provided, are that — opinion! An opinion is not fact and not the full story, which is usually available by searching the archives and reading everything on the provider and the relevant subject matter. The reality is, it’s just too easy for something to be taken out of context, and that is not the goal of this educationally focused blog. (After all, every situation is different, and even if SI wouldn’t typically recommend that vendor, consultancy, and/or solution, it doesn’t mean it’s not right for you. You have more information on your situation than we have!)

The second exception is if you want a paid public or joint label piece that falls on public label or joint label writing services. See those sections of the FAQ for more information.

Alleged Copyright Infringement

From time to time, posts on the Sourcing Innovation blog will quote material from third party sources. Although the editors always make a good faith effort to insure such use is in accordance with the rules of “fair-dealing”, as defined by Canadian Copyright Law, and always insure that any quoted material they are aware of is referenced with a link (as long as the link remains valid, see Sourcing Innovation’s Link Policy) to the original source included whenever possible, the editors are only human and it is always possible something could slip by them. If you believe that this has happened and that there is content on the Sourcing Innovation site that violates your copyright, please contact the Editor-in-Chief, the doctor, using the contact information in the FAQ, and he will assist you in investigating and resolving the matter.


Social Media Policy

All authors who contribute to Sourcing Innovation are permitted to use their content on social media, provided that anything published that references and/or includes material that appeared on Sourcing Innovation contains a link to the article, comment, etc. on Sourcing Innovation and accurately conveys the content of that article, comment, etc.  Inaccurate or misleading summaries are not permitted.

Sourcing Innovation reserves the right to request the removal of any posts, articles, or other references to Sourcing Innovation articles, comments, or other content that does not accurately reflect Sourcing Innovation content and you acknowledge that if you reuse any content from Sourcing Innovation in a way that is inaccurate or misleading, even if it does not violate copyright law, that you are liable for any harm caused by doing so.

Sourcing Innovation does, and even encourages, posting on social media platforms like LinkedIn where discussions can be had on relevant subject matter, but may remove content from time to time (on LinkedIn and other social media platforms) if it is informed of content misuse, feels that content may be misused or misconstrued due to the post word/character limits (and the fact that some articles on Sourcing Innovation are many times the post word/character limit), and definitely if it feels that a social post that references a product or solution (especially in an opinion-based manner) may be used by a competitor to negatively attack the product or solution being discussed (in direct violation of Sourcing Innovation policies).

For example, as pointed out above in these disclaimers and in the amended Free Content for Fair Use article, beyond an identification of potential solution weaknesses, which may or may not be relevant for a particular organization, as a general rule, Sourcing Innovation does not publish negative content on deep vendor solution dive articles (and there are 200 vendors covered on Sourcing Innovation and 150 on Spend Matters where the doctor contributed that prove this point). And while it may harshly criticize marketing, [product] direction, or decisions made by a vendor, services provider, or analyst firm, as per the disclaimer above, these are opinions and not facts, and definitely not factual statements on the product/solution/platform/service strengths and weaknesses (which would be found in a deep solution dive), and Sourcing Innovation does not want these opinions misconstrued as facts.

Moreover, Sourcing Innovation does not want, and will not permit, a vendor to use any vendor or solution content, in whole or in part, relating to a competitor (product or solution) on Sourcing Innovation (be they solution deep dives or opinion pieces) in any of their commercial efforts. While the vendor’s personnel are as free as anyone else to consume the content on this blog and related Sourcing Innovation sites, and personally share links to this blog and related Sourcing Innovation Sites — subject to the disclaimers, licenses, copyright, and terms and conditions herein — and then learn from the content and possibly even apply the lessons learned to improve their competitive positioning, Sourcing Innovation does not condone negative sales and marketing efforts against vendors by vendors and will not enable it in any way.  (Vendors should win on their own strengths!  If they are the best vendor, they should easily be able to craft a pitch that convinces the potential client of that!)