Aside from just legal matters there's also just the matters of ethics and responsibility. Of course, corporations aren't bastions of these principles, but playing within the lines in at least some fashion stands to put less strain on individual lines of contact and establishes good precedent on future-such goals. If some group were to be found to be incredibly lax with legal ramifications out of a perception that they didn't matter, that group is much less likely to be able to work through the proper channels in the times it does matter. That damage or not to perceptions in some ways could do more lethal damage to a historical effort than, say, legal red tape.

- Matt G.