Maybe some of you would like to respond to this interesting question, are press releases copyrighted?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:News_release
Christiaan
Christiaan Briggs wrote:
Maybe some of you would like to respond to this interesting question, are press releases copyrighted?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:News_release
Press releases are clearly copyrighted. An argument could be made about this in court, but I have no interest *at all* in making such an argument. On Wikinews and elsewhere, we can make use of a press release as factual information, but it would be absurd for us to just publish them or base stories directly on them, license or no license.
Our journalistic standards should be higher than that of lazy reporters who simply regurgitate whatever a company tells them.
--Jimbo
--- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Our journalistic standards should be higher than that of lazy reporters who simply regurgitate whatever a company tells them.
Exactly. But at the same time *our* press releases should be in the public domain say that lazy reporters can just regurgitate whatever we say. :)
-- mav
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? All your favorites on one personal page � Try My Yahoo! http://my.yahoo.com
On 28 Jan 2005, at 2:39 pm, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
Christiaan Briggs wrote:
Maybe some of you would like to respond to this interesting question, are press releases copyrighted?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:News_release
Press releases are clearly copyrighted.
Judging from all the conflicting information on the net, a lot of it from reputable sources, it seems anything but clear. I've yet to see one person cite a conclusive source in regard to law.
There is the argument that anything published is copyrighted unless stated otherwise, however it is possible that the very word "release" could be construed as such a statement. Who knows? I don't. And nobody I've discussed this with on Wikimedia, so far, seems to know either.
An argument could be made about this in court, but I have no interest *at all* in making such an argument. On Wikinews and elsewhere, we can make use of a press release as factual information, but it would be absurd for us to just publish them or base stories directly on them, license or no license.
Our journalistic standards should be higher than that of lazy reporters who simply regurgitate whatever a company tells them.
If the status of press releases proves to be inconclusive then, yes, it clearly would not be a good idea for Wikimedia to be publishing them. However, if it were proven that press releases were compatible with Wikimedia licences, far from being absurd, I think there's a very good argument for publishing them on Wikisource, so they can be linked to from Wikinews articles. It's worth noting that current Wikisource policy does not preclude press releases from being published (save for probable copyright issues), and reasons to publish them on Wikisource as opposed to simply linking to them externally are the usual suspects, we don't have control over them; they could disappear or be edited.
Over recent years, as a reader of news on the internet, I have found it extremely beneficial to refer to press releases; to make my own judgements; to read exactly what the prime minister said rather than what some other person believes she meant. Historically this ability has been reserved for journalists, one reason being that traditional mediums, such as newspapers, simply do not have the room. We obviously don't have this restriction.
The idea that news readers should be sheltered from press releases by groups of people with superior powers of deduction is elitist (can the masses be allowed to decipher the world for themselves?) and flies in the face of the goals of Wikimedia (to promote and spread knowledge).
One of the fundamental issues of media and propaganda today is the fallacy that there is such a thing as objective news, even that which attempts a NPOV. You may be able to write things with a neutral point of view but the way we frame things is fundamentally woven into our cultures, i.e. one culture's NPOV will be very different to another culture's NPOV. Knowing who is saying what and what their world-view is (or what culture they belong to) is key to getting around this problem, which is what the ability to refer to press releases partially allows one to do.
Wikinews is a news site. It's clearly to the benefit of news readers to be able to refer to relevant press releases, therefore publishing a copy of relevant press releases would be beneficial to Wikinews and its goals. This is far from absurd it seems to me.
Of course this is all beside the point if there are copyright issues. :)
Christiaan
Christiaan Briggs wrote:
Judging from all the conflicting information on the net, a lot of it from reputable sources, it seems anything but clear. I've yet to see one person cite a conclusive source in regard to law.
There is the argument that anything published is copyrighted unless stated otherwise, however it is possible that the very word "release" could be construed as such a statement. Who knows? I don't. And nobody I've discussed this with on Wikimedia, so far, seems to know either.
You have been given a direct clear answer, but you don't seem to like it.
Under the law, "Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangle form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device." http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#what
Someone calling something a "press release" DOES NOT qualify as a license which is compatible with the GNU FDL. I do not know of any court cases arising out of this, and it is easy to understand why there wouldn't be any: companies love it when people just post their PR, and have no reason to sue or complain over it. Even in our case, where we would be modifying heavily, a case would be unlikely to arise, due mostly to our NPOV policy.
If the status of press releases proves to be inconclusive
The status of press releases is *not* inconclusive. It is *conclusive*.
The idea that news readers should be sheltered from press releases by groups of people with superior powers of deduction is elitist (can the masses be allowed to decipher the world for themselves?)
This is a straw man argument. I do not think that "news readers should be sheltered from press releases". On the other hand, of course I am very elitist, so if this was meant to be an argument to persaude me, it fails on those grounds. :-)
Of course this is all beside the point if there are copyright issues. :)
O.k., well, there are.
If you can approach the major press release bureaus and persuade them to release all their work, or some portion of it, under a free license, or if you can secure a direct release from individual companies who would like to do the same, then by all means we can surely publish these on wikisource.
--Jimbo
On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 12:09:12 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Someone calling something a "press release" DOES NOT qualify as a license which is compatible with the GNU FDL. I do not know of any court cases arising out of this, and it is easy to understand why there wouldn't be any: companies love it when people just post their PR, and have no reason to sue or complain over it. Even in our case, where we would be modifying heavily, a case would be unlikely to arise, due mostly to our NPOV policy.
Releasing something as a press release is giving a broad implicit permission to reuse the content. However, this is not the same as PD, legally. All rights are not given up.
However, there's nothing wrong with quoting a press release for relevant portions; that's fair use. For NPOV, of course, we should attribute anyway.
-Matt
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
Christiaan Briggs wrote:
Judging from all the conflicting information on the net, a lot of it from reputable sources, it seems anything but clear. I've yet to see one person cite a conclusive source in regard to law.
There is the argument that anything published is copyrighted unless stated otherwise, however it is possible that the very word "release" could be construed as such a statement. Who knows? I don't. And nobody I've discussed this with on Wikimedia, so far, seems to know either.
You have been given a direct clear answer, but you don't seem to like it.
I've been given many clear answers half of which contradict the other clear answers.
If you can approach the major press release bureaus and persuade them to release all their work, or some portion of it, under a free license, or if you can secure a direct release from individual companies who would like to do the same, then by all means we can surely publish these on wikisource.
Great.
Christiaan
What follows is a duplicate of a message sent to the Admin notice board. Additional comments are in {braces}.
=== [[User:Robert Blair]] === I've finally discovered through his [[User talk:Robert Blair|talk page]] that this user has been editing offline and the installing his edited version over the top of new articles. This has caused no end of problems, since it is indistinguishable from reverts {and frequently does effectively revert. it also overwrites contributions made in the meantime}. I don't think administrative action (blocks etc) are needed, but what is '''urgently''' needed is for an experienced Wikipedian to talk to him about this. Can anyone help? - [[User:Jakew|Jakew]] 01:53, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
If you can approach the major press release bureaus and persuade them to release all their work, or some portion of it, under a free license, or if you can secure a direct release from individual companies who would like to do the same, then by all means we can surely publish these on wikisource.
My reaction as a Wikisource editor would be to ask a contributor to substantiate his right to add the press release. If he fails to do anything about it within a reasonable time, it gets deleted. Only the contributor knows where he found the material, so the burden is on him to establish the copyright status when it's questioned.
As much as I believe that there exist circumstances where we can and should push the boundaries of copyright law, someone's ignorance of copyright law is NOT one of them.
Ec