Below is the response I received from the proprietor of http://4dw.net/royalark after I e-mailed him to ask for copyright information on a picture that appeared on his website. The image in question (http://www.4dw.net/royalark/Arabia/hijaz-Ali.gif) is a photograph of [[Ali bin Hussein]], who died in 1935, and thus I thought there was a good chance the image might be in the public domain by now, especially since it might well have been taken in the Middle East before the currently-existing states there were even established. From: "Christopher J Buyers" To: "Nathaniel Krause" CC: jwales@ Subject: Re: hijaz-Ali.gif Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 18:31:56 +0100 WITHOUT PREJUDICE I realise that it has now become standard practice for people like yourself who post supposedly "original" articles on wikipedia to copy their materials from my website at the Royal Ark, but please note: You certainly may not use any materials from my website, without my permission under any circumstances whatever. Copyright infringement is property theft and intellectual rape. Are you a thief and rapist? Read on... The text and images on the website are copyrighted and protected by United States and international copyright conventions. Reproduction of ideas, interpretations, words and graphics in any print or electronic form, except for small portions for quotations and reviews, without the written permission of the webmaster, is prohibited. These rules are not the exclusive concern of academics and the publishing industry; they are universal ethics. While a few graphics on the website might be clipart in the public domain, it is safest to assume that they are not. Users should go to clipart archives to borrow such graphics. Permission to reproduce major portions of text on other websites is normally denied since this website is a living document and constantly subject to updating and correction. Authors and webmasters do not want uncontrolled and uncorrected versions of their texts floating around the internet. Linking to a text is the most acceptable option since it relieves the linker of responsibility for the changing content of the master copy of the document. If you do not understand copyright and intellectual property law, apply a simple rule of courtesy: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you can conceive of the hours, weeks, and years of research, skill and education that can go into developing an idea, a text, an index, or a graphic, you would doubtless not like to have somebody steal that work from you and claim it as their own. Copyright infringement is plagiarism. Plagiarism. n. the wrongful appropriation or purloining , and publication as one's own, of the ideas, or the _expression of the ideas (literary, artistic, musical, mechanical, etc.) of another. [Oxford English Dictionary] Plagiarise. vt., vi., to take and use as one's own the thoughts, writings, or inventions of another. [Oxford English Dictionary] Due to the ease of theft on the internet, international copyright laws are being tightened. The penalties for copyright infringement can be severe. For a better understanding of copyright and related ethical issues, you may wish to explore these links: Copyright Issues, by Cyndi Howells 10 Myths About Copyright Explained, by Brad Templeton Intellectual Property Law U.S. Copyright and Genealogy, by Michael Goad. Restoring Ethics to Genealogy, by Barbara A. Brown. The Copyright Wizard Plagiarism, by Sharon Stoerger. A final note of warning: Beware of web sites whose "copyright notice" consists principally of a disclaimer to the effect that infringement on their part is unintentional, and that they will consider negotiating with challengers. They are, in effect, putting you on notice that they are thieves, and consider themselves innocent until caught. Such lapses in ethics call into question the reliability of any other information presented on such web sites. Perhaps you would be kind enough to advise fellow copyists on Wikipedia of these facts. Thank you Christopher Buyers ---- From: "Nathaniel Krause" To: "Christopher J Buyers" Subject: Re: hijaz-Ali.gif Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2005 08:19:13 -0700 (PDT) Mr. Buyers, Well, thanks for getting back to me. Needless to say, I was not very pleased with your response, in no small part because you don't seem to have answered my question very clearly. You say, "You certainly may not use any materials from my website, without my permission under any circumstances whatever," but this is meaningless unless you actually own the copyright on the picture in question. Do you? If you don't, who, if anyone, does? That is what I was inquiring about in my first e-mail. Furthermore, if I wanted to steal materials from your website in defiance of intellectual property laws, why would I send you an e-mail telling you about it? It was only because I have no desire to infringe on your copyright that I contacted you in the first place. You say, "If you can conceive of the hours, weeks, and years of research, skill and education that can go into developing an idea, a text, an index, or a graphic, you would doubtless not like to have somebody steal that work from you and claim it as their own." What are you referring to here? Did you take this picture of Sharif Ali bin Hussein, who died in 1935, yourself? What are the countless hours that you spent developing it? I do want to be clear that I am not asking to use any text from your website, which I have already linked to from the article. The simple rule you suggest, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", is somewhat ironic, because, in my case, and in the case of other Wikipedia authors, we make the text we write and photographs we take freely available to everyone. You ask, "Perhaps you would be kind enough to advise fellow copyists on Wikipedia of these facts", and I'm happy to do so, although any Wikipedia editor who knows what he's doing already knows it. I'm not sure why this is our standard practice [here I made a typo; I meant to say "why you think this is our standard practice". Let's hope that didn't exacerbate the problem. -NYK]. We sometimes have problems with supposedly fair-use images, because fair use law is so complicated, but we never use fair-use text, or anything other than GFDL text, under any circumstances. In fact, if you tell me which article is copied from Royal Ark, I'll try to fix the problem myself. Cheers, Nat Krause ---- From: "Christopher J Buyers" To: "Nathaniel Krause" Subject: Re: hijaz-Ali.gif Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2005 16:38:59 +0100 Piss-off. You and your kind are nothing more than a bunch of thieves and plagiarisers. I am in no mood to help you or co-operate with you one bit. I shall of course, ensure the registration of your name for future reference by others. Thankfully, I see that the activities of the wikipedia website has not escaped the notice of others who are in a position to take the appropriate steps in the near future. ---- ---- I'm sending this to the list, first, because I wanted to keep my word and remind my fellow Wikipedians not to blatantly violate somebody's copyright. Second, because I wanted to warn you that Mr. Buyers' second e-mail appears to let the cat out of the bag regarding the shadowy conspiracy that may be plotting against Wikipedia as even as you read this. Sadly, we have not escaped their notice. In case you see somebody coming toward you, especially in the near future, who looks like he may be in a position to take appropriate steps, be extra careful. Thirdly, I'm genuinely not sure how to proceed on this matter. This website guy has still not really said whether or not he claims to own the copyright to this image, or to have licensed it from somebody who does. He just warns me not to use it without elaboration. Considering his attitude, I'm not sure I'd really believe him if he did claim to own it. On the other hand, I'm not comfortable just assuming that it's public domain -- even if it doesn't belong to Christopher J Buyers, there might be somebody else out there who still has rights to it. [[Wikipedia:Fair use]] seems to imply that I should tag it {{fairold}} and go ahead and use it, and it certainly appears to count as "Unique historical images which we cannot reproduce by other means". However, since this website guy is already upset with us, I thought it would advisable to exercise additional scrutiny and get more opinions. Thanks, Nat Krause (the eponymous user)