Copyright 2004, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc. FIRST PERSON/OPINION By John Ulrich Reports from the AMA Superbike weekend at Road America posted on MotorcycleUSA.com included cut-and-pasted and slightly-altered copyrighted material posted earlier on Roadracingworld.com and on superbikeplanet.com. A MotorcycleUSA.com post headlined “AMA SB: RA Notes – Update II 6/6/2004 by Herod Lowery,” included copyrighted material posted on Roadracingworld.com on June 3 and on June 5, written by Associate Editor David Swarts. It also included material posted earlier on superbikeplanet.com, written by Evan Williams. Contacted by phone, Herod Lowery denied lifting any material from Roadracingworld.com and said “I didn’t do it. If it’s in there, I don’t know how it got there.” Lowery called back a short time later and said that he had copied the material for use as notes, that he planned to talk to the people quoted himself, and that he had sent the material to MotorcycleUSA by mistake. But the lifted material had minor revisions that make it hard for Roadracingworld.com to believe it was anything but a blatant example of plagiarism. Reached by phone, MotorcycleUSA.com’s Don Becklin said the offending post would be removed from the site immediately. Lowery, who has done some freelance work for Roadracing World in the past, will not be doing any work for Roadracing World in the future. Besides his freelance work for Roadracing World and MotorcycleUSA.com, Lowery is the AP correspondent for MotoGP. For an example of the lifted material, compare a 6/5/04 post on Roadracingworld.com headlined “F-USA Champ Greenwood Replaces Pistoni On Corona Suzuki At Road America,” which started out “Reigning Formula USA Sportbike Champion Scott Greenwood is riding in place of Christian Pistoni on the Corona Extra Suzuki team in this weekend’s AMA event at Road America. ‘I heard Tim (Saunders) was looking for a rider,’ Greenwood told Roadracingworld.com. ‘I called him up Tuesday (June 1), on the way back from (the Formula USA races at) Summit Point. He called me back Wednesday at work. We worked out a few sponsor conflicts. All the people I talked to said it would’t be a problem. Tim said if I showed up I would have a bike to ride, and here I am.'” The 6/6/2004 post on MotorcycleUSA.com read “Reigning Formula USA Sportbike Champion Scott Greenwood is riding in place of Christian Pistoni on the Corona Extra Suzuki team this weekend. ‘I called them Tuesday on the way home from Summit Point,’ said Greenwood. ‘They called me back Wednesday and we worked out a few sponsor conflicts. All the people I talked to said it wouldn’t be a problem. They said if I showed up I would have a bike to ride, and here I am.'” Other material lifted from Roadracingworld.com and included in Lowery’s report concerned Harley-Davidson seeking to enter the Chinese market, as well as Pascal Picotte replacing injured Tez Stewart, with quotes from Picotte and team owner James Casmay. Reached by phone, Casmay said, “I don’t recall talking to the guy. Word for word, that’s kind of ridiculous. It’s most likely that I didn’t.” Asked if he had spoken to Herod Lowery at Road America, Greenwood said, “I only remember two people coming over and talking about the whole thing to me, David Swarts and Henny Ray Abrams of Cycle News.”