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I work at a rural hospital in the US that is currently dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic. I work in IT, and am keeping up the intranet for internal staff. For reference, I have been asked to post a document that came from an outside source. Management has altered this document, and it is copyrighted from the original source. It looks like parts were removed, and a header was added, and I am not sure what else has been changed. I have been given the email that states (from email) "Please feel to share with hospitals." This document is a guide to deal with COVID-19. I believe I will be on the hook if it gets found out that we 1) edited said document and 2) are using said document that has been altered.I believe this because I am the one posting it, even if I keep this email stating someone else altered the document, and I was told to do so. Am I correct in thinking this?

**Edit ** the document was altered by our administration to fit our hospital

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  • Independent of copyright, I would NOT send out a document about Covid-19 that has been modified by some someone. You don't have any idea what idiotic changes someone might have made.
    – gnasher729
    Commented Apr 8, 2020 at 15:54
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    This is a question to ask your hospital's legal counsel, if anyone - not websites. It's not going to look good if you catch heat for your decision, and your justification is "but this is what anonymous people on some random website said to do!". And in general, this site is not for getting legal advice on specific situations. Commented Apr 8, 2020 at 17:53
  • That said, even if it's not legal, I can only imagine the bad PR the original source would face if they were to sue a hospital, or a hospital employee, for copyright infringement over sharing pandemic response information. Commented Apr 8, 2020 at 17:54
  • @NateEldredge Depends on the changes made.
    – gnasher729
    Commented Apr 9, 2020 at 17:24

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