Copyright issues on CZ: need for rapid action

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

The future commercial viability of a semi-legal activity which rides rough-shod over the copyrights of authors, is not of major concern to CZ, in my view. But I do not speak for the Editorial Council, so they must decide.

[Stephen Ewen]

And we are not talking about using those materials, are we?

[a.a.s.]

• Sorry for one off-topic statement, I might pretend that it's a background but in fact I was paid by Google to defend their position ;-) Effectively, Google snippets are properly attributed citations. Google's position as outlined by Derek and Steve is perfectly/easily defensible, legally and morally, and IMHO any author might be interested to be covered by a similar service. This does not compare to --shocking BTW-- practices described by Martin.
• More to the point.
  I have much milder personal experience with copyright violations, but I agree that at some places there is not much courtesy but rather on-going commercial vandalism. It does not follow that CZ should join these practices and be one more place with no courtesy on grounds that Google is bad, which is doubtful in itself.
  
• Yet more to the point. What G does with public domain works is extremely useful for general public and for the CZ project in particular.  For me there is no question whether provider of these  pictures should be credited, the only question is how it should be done. I still maintain that footnotes is a fair solution, IMHO looking good (in use, see note 2 or 21 in [[Poland]]).
  

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Thank you Alexander, It is, of course, a fundamental right for everyone [even Google] to retain a good defense lawyer 

There is some support for your footnote idea, and I am including it as a possible solution in exploratory discussions.

[Jitse Niesen]

You have one policy applied in a standardized fashion, and it should not contain a "List of entities not to attribute in articles because we don't like them".

That is not at all what I was proposing. I guess I wasn't very clear, so let me try again.

It is proposed that libre photographs should be accompanied by a line in the caption acknowledging the photographer. The idea behind this is that even though we have no legal obligation to do so and it inconveniences our readers (who are not interested in this information, with perhaps a few exceptions), the photographer went through a lot of effort to make the picture and hence should be rewarded. I'm not arguing that.

However, in this case all that has been done to make the image available is to scan a book. My point is that this is very little effort and thus there is less reason to acknowledge the entity responsible for the scanning. Therefore, when all that has been done is to scan a book, the interest of the reader should prevail and no acknowledgement should be included (a footnote is far less obtrusive and acceptable to me).

It has nothing to do with whether we like or do not like Google Books. The same principle would apply to the library of Göttingen, who have also scanned many books.

[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 . . .

This is what I found on the Citizendium-L list:

"This may be a bit of a long shot - but is there anyone in the house who is an open source/open content licensing *expert* and who is willing to do a little (fun) editorial/organizational work on behalf of the project? Or do you know of someone who might be willing to join us briefly to serve as a neutral "guest editor"? If so, please contact me!" - Larry (Sanger)

Hardly seems like a "decision" to me. It is a request for assistance, which is good.

The issue of sharing a copyright with CZ Foundation (CF) was first brought up, to the best of my knowledge, by Sanger in the following forum posting from last February:

"We might ask people to share their copyright with the Citizendium Foundation, so that it is CF that then licenses entire articles. The idea that each person "licenses his own edits" and that these are all then collectively jumbled together when someone else reuses a work produces all sorts of conceptual incoherences. I was never convinced that this made any sense for Wikipedia, and I have similar doubts for CZ." - Larry Sanger

In response, I posted a note under the thread "Joint copyright" in which I drew a firm distinction between a copyright transfer and a shared copyright (joint copyright). I explained what joint copyright was and outlined some of the potential problems with joint copyright. I included some references at the end of the posting.

I never said I was opposed to a joint copyright solution, merely pointed out some of the problems which must be dealt with.

It was very disappointing to me that no one addressed the question of possible solutions to the problems which I raised (not to mention that one poster didn't even recognize that there were any serious problems). I don't think I posted to the Legal forum since.

I will be posting another note on the subject of joint copyright sometime early next week. It will be posted on its own thread as this one seems to contain two subjects which is somewhat confusing. Hell, I've never even heard of this guy Google you're all talking about!

Jim Perry

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Jitse: if I understand you correctly, your idea is to acknowledge authorship [even where the image is PD] below the image, but the provision of the scan should be notated less visibly. Although this will work for photos, I am not sure about historical materials. Look at the article Poland, where all this trouble started  , and what should we do with map authorship? The maps are from authored books, which are quite long to put under the image, and arguably the university library which makes those particular map scans available is rather important for our access to these images.

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Jim: if you are an expert on these copyright issues, please offer that expertise to CZ [by emailing Larry]. I for one am in agreement with much of what you have said, but it is no use complaining. We need positive action!

[JFPerry]

Jim: if you are an expert on these copyright issues, please offer that expertise to CZ [by emailing Larry]. I for one am in agreement with much of what you have said, but it is no use complaining. We need positive action!

And you shall have positive action! Maybe you're right though and I should contact Sanger. Either way, it will be several days.

[RJensen]

Who's Afraid of Google? that's the cover story of the Economist today at
http://economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9725272

It says Google's fast rise to power is "enough to evoke concerns—both paranoid and justified. The list of constituencies that hate or fear Google grows by the week."

[Stephen Ewen]

It also says:

Google's book-search product, for instance, arguably helps rather than hurts publishers and authors by rescuing books from obscurity and encouraging readers to buy copyrighted works.

But alright, you win.  I propose we create an extensive list, "Entities We Don't Like".  Google gets first mention.  From there, we should add all money-loving companies, especially those who exploit the environment, export American jobs to China, rely on weak labor laws, are anti-union, don't provide retirement and health benefits, etc.  Banks should be added--now there's some shady hucksters for you.  How come we have to pay three times the price of a house because of their interest?  And how about their credit card practices?  In fact, truth be told, capitalists and big corporations with their over-paid CEOs and general exploitation of the poor, especially in the Global South--these all should be added to the list.  And America--what about its foreign policy?  It's probably been criminal in cases in Latin America (see Bitter Fruit); so, we should add all entities of the U.S. government to this list.  While we're at it, France--those lazy socialists in semi-disguise!--same goes for them.  Micro$oft--monopolists, and thieves, they are!--should definitely hit the list, too.  I am sure there are others, but these, at least, should start the list.

  

[Jitse Niesen]

Jitse: if I understand you correctly, your idea is to acknowledge authorship [even where the image is PD] below the image, but the provision of the scan should be notated less visibly. [...]

No, that's not quite my position. How to acknowledge authorship is a more difficult issue which I haven't thought through properly, so I don't really have an opinion on it.

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Well, we are not going to discriminate on those grounds, Steve I think the main point of Richard and others is that Google looks whiter than white, and even if it started out like that this is clearly not the future.

After some consultations with CZ editors about PD image atribution, I can tell you that there is a wide range of opinion and no consensus. In a few days, I shall propose a compromise in a draft resolution which can be debated here. Please be patient while I deal with other pressing issues.

[Stephen Ewen]

I am requesting that you list out, in bullet point, each factor considered that went into the making of the draft.  I know you are doing a lot already, and this is very much appreciated, but this will actually save labor, certainly debate time, in the long-run.

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

I am not clear what you mean by factors, but the proposal will have to be a compromise based on the sample I took of active CZ editors and their responses to various questions and options. It is clear that the proposal will not go through the Editorial Council easily, whatever its content, and the guiding factor will have to be workable compromise. It will not be my own preferred solution, I can tell you that!