[WikiEN-l] NPG copyright irony

[Carcharoth]

On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 11:17 PM, Scott MacDonald
<doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:

> The joke is now on me as people actually want to pull the TFA because of a
> perception that I violated the NPG's copyright. To say I'm pissed off it to
> put it mildly.

Did your username change confuse matters? From what I can see, it did.
I'm glad Woody tracked down the edit where most of the text was
written. The ironic thing is, that if subsequent edits change the
current wording of the lead, the only places the full form of the
disputed text may exist will be in the old page versions and on the
NPG website. I'm sure the following cycle has taken place many times:

1) Wikipedia editor C writes text XYZ in Wikipedia article F
2) Other website (E) copies text XYZ without attribution
3) Wikipedia editor D rewrites the Wikipedia text in the form ABC

[This can happen either due to a desire to rewrite the text in a
better form, or due to a desire to avoid what they wrongly think is a
copyvio, either way, the result can be utter confusion]

4) No-one realises that the XYZ text on Website E is now a copy of
something in the page history of article F.

What should happen here and what implications does it have for
copyright situations? Can you claim copyright on a piece of text
buried deep in page history, many months or years ago, that has since
been extensively rewritten? Does the amount of time it was visible and
published in the Wikipedia article matter (this can range from seconds
to years)? Can website E legitimately claim copyright on the text if
they are the only ones publishing it and the Wikipedia article
currently says something different?

I think I know the answers to these questions, but am not sure, so
want to see what others think.

Carcharoth