Copyright issues on CZ: need for rapid action

[RJensen]

Steve Ewen is wrong to say that I removed attributions from images.  All the image pages involved in the dispute were set in final form by Steve Ewen, and I agreed with him on that.  All the article pages linked to the image page that has the full details. Ewen That is all the libraries or google ever asked for, but Ewen want to go much further, and mention google repeatedly on the article page, for reasons he has not explained. That is unnecessary, misleading to users (who will be puzzled about how they should cite images), and in violation of the editor's policies--it is a Ewen policy never approved or even discussed by anyone else but him. He lacks the authority to make decisions about articles, which are made by editors (he is not an editor but I am):
"Editors may, in areas of their expertise, establish policies regarding what the article should cover (and what should be covered elsewhere), the general structure or narrative arc of the article, the specific wording of definitions (or constraints thereupon), and other such general policies. In this function, editors are to take the lead in acting as planners or conceptualizers of the article.
....When an editor has expressed a decision on an article's discussion page, that decision must be followed by authors, even if it is under appeal.  When an editor has made a certain edit, and has specifically requested that some limited portion of text should not be changed (or that it must not be changed in certain limited ways), then authors should respect the request."  There is an appeal process that Ewen did not use.  I note also that the rules say " Constables should be called when the dispute does not turn on a content question. For example:  An author is straightforwardly ignoring decisions made by an editor." I did call the constables--and Ewen answered and intervened in his own case by blocking me!

[Stephen Ewen]

Very obviously that is not at all, not even nearly, the whole picture, but I will be a gentleman.

Rather than simply trying to inflame and skirt the issue, while additionally falsely stating that I have never addressed the issue, one thing you might do is answer the specific case I raised earlier of why this PloS article http://tinyurl.com/32z57j would attribute their public domain images within their articles, in an even much more conspicuous way than what you were removing from articles and are saying should never enter in.

[Morten Juhl-Johansen Zölde-Fejér]

Google requests that usage of its books.google.com resources be non-commercial (we qualify)

At least currently. If Citizendium is to make extensive use of this material, we must attach a -NonCommercial to a potential CC license.
I don't see the problem in this discussion with attributing the author and possibly publisher - and that it was made available by Google.

[a.a.s.]

I have no big problem either. Personal and procedural issues put aside, a discussion arose around the way we display credits, something to be decided. I'd propose yet another solution to consider -- using footnotes.

[Larry Sanger]

I'm not going to edit the above discussion; I just want to remind everyone that we are bound here, as on the wiki itself, by CZ:Professionalism, which forbids among other things: "Disrespectful characterization of others' work on talk pages or other open forums. Note, mere criticism of a position or a forceful reply does not necessarily qualify as disrespectful; objectionable language has an implication of personal criticism, or can be reasonably taken to have such an implication."

In a heated discussion, most general characterizations of what others have said are unnecessary and often out of line.  The solution is simply to reply to the substance of the claims.

[JFPerry]

On point one, it just ain't gonna happen as a hasty decision.  It's going to happen carefully and, hopefully, with substantial professional input from people outside the project (note the latest Citizendium-L posting).  Larry has said hopefully by fall but certainly by end-of-year.  This is a permanent decision and really ought be treated as such, don't you think?

I for one cannot even begin to respond to your query concerning "permanence" based on the latest Citizendium-L posting because I have not seen it since I do not subscribe to Citizendium-L list. I did see a prior posting (Aug 22) requesting assistance from an "open source" license expert, but the CZ-L archives stop at Aug 26 so if the posting to which you refer was later then that . . .

[Stephen Ewen]

That's the post, James. Note that there are many people who subscribe to CZ-L that are not actually on the wiki, I am told.

[RJensen]

Steve Ewen asked me "why this PloS article http://tinyurl.com/32z57j would attribute their public domain images within their articles,". I looked into it, The journal has an elaborate set of editorial policies but does NOT have any policy on attributions, so the author of the article did whatever he wanted. ~~~~

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

The journal has an elaborate set of editorial policies but does NOT have any policy on attributions, so the author of the article did whatever he wanted

I also looked carefully at the journal. I made the following observations:

(1) There is no written policy on attribution of images
(2) There is a clear editorial pattern of putting VERY long descriptions under images, regardless of attribution issues
(3) The detailed attributions for PD images tend to confer prestige or legitimacy on the article in question.

I had thought about this when editing the Butler article, with an attribution to the Louvre Museum. It occurred to me that this was an enhancement to the article, even if it was only a courtesy. I am inclined to say that I doubt that I would think the same if it had been "Courtesy of Google Book"

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

A further comment on Google Book. I just looked for their rules and requests etc, and found this FAQ:

I found a book in Google Book Search that was scanned through one of your library partners, and I hold the copyright for it. What should I do?

If you're already a Google Books partner, just tell us which book - we'll add the book to your account so you can start seeing detailed reporting on the number of visits to that book and "Buy this Book" clicks. You'll also have the option of including contextually targeted ads on these pages and earning ad revenue, as well as seeing reports on ad clicks. You'll also be able to include your logo on the page along with a link back to your website.

What this means is that Google is scanning books without the permission of copyright owners, and then claiming some rights for themselves for having stolen the material! Previously, I had thought that at least they had the agreement of the publishers and copyright holders of the books which are displayed. Now, I realize that they simply scan books and wait for the legal owner to protest... Forget public domain, they clearly do as they like!

[Derek Harkness]

Google books isn't really much difference in concept to google's web or image searches. Both of these involve Google making a complete copy of copyrighted web pages and images. Google defence is that they are simply facilitating search within the book/website and not actually letting people read the whole book. They also claim that they are promoting the book by making searchers aware of it's existence, linking to where they can buy the book and what libraries stock a copy. Whither you accept google's defences is another matter.

[Robert_W_King]

A further comment on Google Book. I just looked for their rules and requests etc, and found this FAQ:

I found a book in Google Book Search that was scanned through one of your library partners, and I hold the copyright for it. What should I do?

If you're already a Google Books partner, just tell us which book - we'll add the book to your account so you can start seeing detailed reporting on the number of visits to that book and "Buy this Book" clicks. You'll also have the option of including contextually targeted ads on these pages and earning ad revenue, as well as seeing reports on ad clicks. You'll also be able to include your logo on the page along with a link back to your website.

What this means is that Google is scanning books without the permission of copyright owners, and then claiming some rights for themselves for having stolen the material! Previously, I had thought that at least they had the agreement of the publishers and copyright holders of the books which are displayed. Now, I realize that they simply scan books and wait for the legal owner to protest... Forget public domain, they clearly do as they like!

That is totally shocking actually.  I had no idea.

[Stephen Ewen]

Woah, hold on, let's get the full facts from http://books.google.com/intl/en/googlebooks/about.html

What can I view?
Each book includes an 'About this book' page with basic bibliographic data like title, author, publication date, length and subject. For some books you may also see additional information like key terms and phrases, references to the book from scholarly publications or other books, chapter titles and a list of related books. For every book, you'll see links directing you to bookstores where you can buy the book and libraries where you can borrow it.

Full view: If we've determined that a book is out of copyright, or the publisher or rightsholder has given us permission, you'll be able to page through the entire book from start to finish, as many times as you like. If the book is in the public domain, you'll also be able download, save and print a PDF version to read at your own pace.

Limited preview: If a publisher or author has joined our Partner Program, you'll be able to see a few full pages from the book as a preview. You can conduct multiple searches within the book, or browse through the available pages (there's a limit to the amount of the book you can view online).

Snippet view: Clicking on the book result, you'll be taken to the 'About this book' page. If you choose to search within the book, for each search term we'll display up to three snippets of text from the book, showing your search term in context. You can enter additional searches to help you decide whether you've found the right book. As always in Book Search, you'll see links to places where you can buy or borrow the book.

In summary:

--"three snippets of text from the book" if the publisher has not said "okay"

--a "few full pages from the book as a preview" if the publisher has said "okay"

--entire texts of works in the public domain

Note that in the first two cases they make no request of the user of the material and claim no copyright.  Nor in the latter case are they claiming copyright, but are rather making a simple courtesy request.

So, yes they are scanning whole books (the Univ of Michigan and Stanford Univ have made their entire collections available to Google).  But the most one sees at a time is "three snippets".  So that fact has to balance and temper one's response to the fact of a copyrighted book completely scanned without permission.

Me?  I would not do this if I were Google.  It would be opt-in only.

 

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Stephen, you gloss over the fact that Google has no legal right to do some of those things. Furthermore, as an author I can tell you that publishers do **** all to protect my rights, whether or not I have assigned copyright to them. So, if Google has done deals with publishers and libraries: so what? Where is my copyright protection?

By the way, just to put all of this debate in context, I recently found two articles by me, on which I have sole copyright but they are available free on the internet, being sold by an online library of a major [Ivy League] US university. They also had some journal articles by me, but I doubt that they had asked permission from the publisher.

What to conclude? There is not much courtesy going on, more like commercial vandalism. If Google wants some recognition, we shall consider it, but it is NOT in the same class as the provision of books in a library. The Editorial Council will have to decide to what degree CZ will go beyond its legal requirements in source attribution, and this is what I am working on now.

[Stephen Ewen]

Like I said, I think it is not good that Google does this with copyrighted works, except by an opt-in mechanism.  However, you're confounding issues, bleeding one act they take into a another.  They should be looked at severally. 

I'm going to expend time and money to access the book, Poland, digitize every image in the book myself, and upload them to CZ.  Since I will be incurring expense and spending time to release these in digitized form on Citizendium as a service to the world, I am going to request that all re-users of the material attribute Citizendium as the provider, "Courtesy of Citizendium".  No?  I can't?  Okay, then, I won't incur the expense to access, make, and upload them in the first place.  But if I can, but later see people using the images they obtained through my efforts without attributing, "Courtesy of Citizendium", I will certainly have less incentive to continue the service I have done.

Now substitute some names in the above.  It 100% should not matter what the name is.  I trust you see my underlying point.