How to Get Easy AC PageViews by Copying and Pasting PR Material

When I saw an article entitled "TOYOTA RETURNS to ITS COMPACT TRUCK ROOTS with the A-BAT CONCEPT VEHICLE" and clicked, the text read to me like straight PR. Indeed, the video included in the package also looked pretty slick for an AC original submission too.

Then I Googled the material and found out it wasn't original to AC at all. The article on Toyota's concept truck is actually a direct copy/paste of Toyota press materials in their entirety -- both the text AND video -- and is being passed off as a unique submission.

What you see for this AC submission is exactly what you see at this PR/Newswire posting.

Huh?

As someone who knows people who have been dinged for writing from press releases too closely and having the work be called "too promotional for publication," it makes no sense why a direct lift from PR materials is accepted.

Are you as upset as I am?

What's going on here?

The material is likely original from the Content Producer -- the CP states in her profile she is affiliated with MultiVu, the PR company that put out the press release that was copy and pasted onto AC.

However, what does this mean??

Is AC party to a PR firm's game in its quest for supposed original content, while rejecting upfront payments for other CPs who highly utilize press releases in their material (per the new News Guidelines)?

Is AC being played and this CP somehow is slipping promotional material onto AC? Other direct copy and pastes from this company include releases about the Hyundai Genesis at the Detroit Auto Show among others. Look at the CP's submissions and there are others beyond the ones that I mentioned that appear to be straight PR. They go back as far as October 2007.

Why are the rules different and this person can get PVs for essentially copy and pasting PR material?