On 5/18/07, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On May 18, 2007, at 3:01 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
So wait.. We screwed up by blocking the user (and his four socks) who was claiming to be Trey Parker (of south park) and who was claiming to release southpark episodes under the GFDL?
Do try to be helpful, Greg. If you can't see the difference between someone showing up out of the blue and making an obviously impossible claim (does Parker even hold the copyright to South Park episodes?) and a long-time, trusted editor making a perfectly believable claim, don't bother getting into the discussion.
Except, ... now having actually having seen Sean's claim (Thanks to Andrew Gray for posting it) I must say that the only people who would call it "perfectly believable" are people who haven't actually seen it, or are completely unqualified to touch anything related to copyright anywhere.
What Sean actually claims is this:
"While the copyright to the actual cover image is held by Dodd, Mead & Company, Dr. Barrett created this particular artistically distressed cover, and I inherited his copyright to it and scanned this image of it."
You can't magically erase someone elses copyright interest in a piece of art by screwing it up. It's a derived work at best. You don't hold the copyright on the cover, so you can't release it. Go follow the procedure for Non-free content, provide a fair use rationale, and move on with life. There is absolutely no need for the drama here.
Looking at the discussion, it seems that everyone has been as polite as possible ... in so far as is possible without accepting Sean's aggressively inserted but obviously incorrect argument.
Phil, would you please stop pontificating about matters which you do not understand and which you are not willing to undertake the most cursory investigation into? Thanks.