What is the situation when you want to include information which is essentially in the public domain (e.g. a historical list of the Governors- General of NZ) but where all the convenient sources have their own copyright notices? Are they in effect copyrighting the information (which I would consider to be in the public domain) or just their presentation of it?
Happy New Year!
What is the situation when you want to include information which is essentially in the public domain (e.g. a historical list of the Governors- General of NZ) but where all the convenient sources have their own copyright notices? Are they in effect copyrighting the information (which I would consider to be in the public domain) or just their presentation of it?
Facts cannot be copyrighted, only particular presentations can. Even if someone claims copyright on a very basic factual list, you can safely ignore it.
Regards,
Erik
On mar, 2002-12-31 at 13:33, Richard Grevers wrote:
What is the situation when you want to include information which is essentially in the public domain (e.g. a historical list of the Governors- General of NZ) but where all the convenient sources have their own copyright notices? Are they in effect copyrighting the information (which I would consider to be in the public domain) or just their presentation of it?
At least under US copyright law, _knowledge_ is not copyrightable, just creative work and presentation. A simple list of governors-general, like a list of names and telephone numbers in a phone book, is not a substantial creative work. (There is a particular court case on the matter; I don't recall but you can probably find it somewhere from http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights )
I can't speak for New Zealand, but I'd be very surprised if knowledge of historical facts were subject to copyright. Otherwise, you wouldn't be allowed to mention anything that you heard about on the radio or TV news or read about in a newspaper without getting written permission and paying a relicensing fee... ;)
(IANAL)
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
There have been attempts in the recent past to change US copyright law so that things like sports scores and statistics are copyrighted. I know the National Basketball Association tried to claim that nobody could report their results without their permission, but that failed. Zoe Brion Vibber brion@pobox.com wrote:On mar, 2002-12-31 at 13:33, Richard Grevers wrote:
What is the situation when you want to include information which is essentially in the public domain (e.g. a historical list of the Governors- General of NZ) but where all the convenient sources have their own copyright notices? Are they in effect copyrighting the information (which I would consider to be in the public domain) or just their presentation of it?
At least under US copyright law, _knowledge_ is not copyrightable, just creative work and presentation. A simple list of governors-general, like a list of names and telephone numbers in a phone book, is not a substantial creative work. (There is a particular court case on the matter; I don't recall but you can probably find it somewhere from http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights )
I can't speak for New Zealand, but I'd be very surprised if knowledge of historical facts were subject to copyright. Otherwise, you wouldn't be allowed to mention anything that you heard about on the radio or TV news or read about in a newspaper without getting written permission and paying a relicensing fee... ;)
(IANAL)
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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On 31 Dec 2002 13:56:03 -0800, Brion Vibber brion=e+AXbWqSrlAAvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org wrote:
I can't speak for New Zealand, but I'd be very surprised if knowledge of historical facts were subject to copyright. Otherwise, you wouldn't be allowed to mention anything that you heard about on the radio or TV news or read about in a newspaper without getting written permission and paying a relicensing fee... ;)
It certainly shouldn't be a problem in New Zealand. A year or two ago we were heading towards such a relaxed copyright law (academic institutions were to be allowed to copy quite freely) that International textbook publishers were threatening to make their books unavailable in New Zealand. I've never actually heard whether that law change was defeated. Inceidentally (and heading OT), many books published in Britain in the middle of last century carried the rider "for Copyright reasons this edition may not be sold in the US and Canada". Does anyone know thether this was because there were separate territorial publishing deals, or because of lower legal protection in US/Canada?
Richard Grevers wrote:
It certainly shouldn't be a problem in New Zealand. A year or two ago we were heading towards such a relaxed copyright law (academic institutions were to be allowed to copy quite freely) that International textbook publishers were threatening to make their books unavailable in New Zealand. I've never actually heard whether that law change was defeated.
Inceidentally (and heading OT), many books published in Britain in the middle of last century carried the rider "for Copyright reasons this edition may not be sold in the US and Canada". Does anyone know thether this was because there were separate territorial publishing deals, or because of lower legal protection in US/Canada?
A lot of that did have to do with publishing deals. At that time United States copyright law was linked to a requirement that if any more than 10,000 copies of a book were to be distributed in the United States they had to be printed there. To deal with this Penguin set up a printing plant in Baltimore. In North America publishers have often thought of the continent as one big playground, which explains why Canada is often included in these. Canada has tended to give special protection to distribution arrangements that give companies who can't make a living by publishing their own books a chance to prosper from middlemen's commissions. This gets involved in some sensitive issues in Canada. Cultural domination is a consideration for many Canadians. New Zealanders at least have the protection of a significant expanse of sea between themselves and Australia.
Eclecticology
Richard Grevers wrote:
What is the situation when you want to include information which is essentially in the public domain (e.g. a historical list of the Governors- General of NZ) but where all the convenient sources have their own copyright notices? Are they in effect copyrighting the information (which I would consider to be in the public domain) or just their presentation of it?
I basically agree with what Erik and Brion have said. An original presentation would be copyrightable, but the usual chronological or alphabetical lists can hardly be considered original, nor could something like putting a GG's dates to the left of the name instead of to the right. It is customary and much easier to make a blanket copyright statement about a site, which means that it's copyright to whatever extent it's copyrightable. The user might as well be the one to try figuring out what is and isn't copyright. Sometimes the only thing that is copyrightable is the general appearance of the site, which you probably don't want to use anyway.
Eclecticology
I agree with all the other comments. We don't have to worry about this very much. If there is a sentence of introduction, like "Here is a stupendous and fancy list of the Governors-General of New Zealand, which we present to you with our most artistic flair" then that *sentence* could be copyrightable, so we shouldn't use those exact words.
But the list itself is just facts, and we're on solid ground using those.
For some types of information, a cite is a courtesy and the professional thing to do. But for simple lists of historical facts, even that is completely unnecessary. We can get the data from multiple sources and, ultimately, we should check the data against multiple sources. No one owns such.
Richard Grevers wrote:
What is the situation when you want to include information which is essentially in the public domain (e.g. a historical list of the Governors- General of NZ) but where all the convenient sources have their own copyright notices? Are they in effect copyrighting the information (which I would consider to be in the public domain) or just their presentation of it?
Happy New Year!
-- Richard Grevers _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
I was looking for supplementary material regarding the [[Quetzal]] article, and ended up with a copyright question.
An organization maintains a web-cam in front of a hummingbird feeder in Costa Rica. Most of the time there are no visitors to the feeder. On one occasion I find a great specimen has come to feed, and I save the picture. Although the owner of the web-cam maintains an archive, I have made a point not to use an archived picture.
The question: Does the owner of the web cam have any copyright claim on the picture that I have downloaded? I suspect not, because he made no creative effort to shoot that particular picture. I would be interested in other opinions.
Eclecticology
The question: Does the owner of the web cam have any copyright claim on the picture that I have downloaded? I suspect not, because he made no creative effort to shoot that particular picture. I would be interested in other opinions.
Before we look at this interesting question -- is the picture actually of sufficient quality for Wikipedia? Webcams I've seen so far tended to be blurry and low-res, but maybe that has changed.
Regards,
Erik
How about just including a link to the webcam page from the article? Zoe Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:> The question: Does the owner of the web cam have any copyright claim on
the picture that I have downloaded? I suspect not, because he made no creative effort to shoot that particular picture. I would be interested in other opinions.
Before we look at this interesting question -- is the picture actually of sufficient quality for Wikipedia? Webcams I've seen so far tended to be blurry and low-res, but maybe that has changed.
Regards,
Erik _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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Erik Moeller wrote:
The question: Does the owner of the web cam have any copyright claim on the picture that I have downloaded? I suspect not, because he made no creative effort to shoot that particular picture. I would be interested in other opinions.
Before we look at this interesting question -- is the picture actually of sufficient quality for Wikipedia? Webcams I've seen so far tended to be blurry and low-res, but maybe that has changed.
For the purposes of this question we have to assume that the quality is acceptable. If it's not worth putting up, then the copyright question doesn't matter anyway. Generally I find the quality of the pictures to be mixed. Some are adequate to illustrate articles about nature or volcanoes.
Eclecticology
Ray Saintonge wrote:
I was looking for supplementary material regarding the [[Quetzal]] article, and ended up with a copyright question.
An organization maintains a web-cam in front of a hummingbird feeder in Costa Rica. Most of the time there are no visitors to the feeder. On one occasion I find a great specimen has come to feed, and I save the picture. Although the owner of the web-cam maintains an archive, I have made a point not to use an archived picture. The question: Does the owner of the web cam have any copyright claim on the picture that I have downloaded? I suspect not, because he made no creative effort to shoot that particular picture. I would be interested in other opinions.
I think it all depends on how we envisage a webcam. Is it: 1) a constant stream of images, like a film, which is being broadcast in realtime? or 2) a remote camera which is always switched on?
If it's 1) then it's all copyright. The same way that time-speeded film in natural history programmes is all copyright, even though they just set the camera up and left it running for days without touching it. If it's 2) then copying a picture from it is just like borrowing a strager's camera to take a picture.
I think we need a lawyer on this one! It might well be uncharted territory.
It's an interesting academic question, but it seems likely that we could get them to release that particular image under GNU FDL.
Ray Saintonge wrote:
I was looking for supplementary material regarding the [[Quetzal]] article, and ended up with a copyright question.
An organization maintains a web-cam in front of a hummingbird feeder in Costa Rica. Most of the time there are no visitors to the feeder. On one occasion I find a great specimen has come to feed, and I save the picture. Although the owner of the web-cam maintains an archive, I have made a point not to use an archived picture.
The question: Does the owner of the web cam have any copyright claim on the picture that I have downloaded? I suspect not, because he made no creative effort to shoot that particular picture. I would be interested in other opinions.
Eclecticology
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