On mar, 2002-12-31 at 13:33, Richard Grevers wrote: 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)

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:

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(a)pobox.com> wrote:On mar, 2002-12-31 at 13:33, Richard Grevers wrote: 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) _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now

How about just including a link to the webcam page from the article? Zoe Erik Moeller <erik_moeller(a)gmx.de> wrote:> The question: Does the owner of the web cam have any copyright claim on 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(a)wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now

Ray Saintonge wrote: 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.

Zoe wrote: Birds don't stay at the feeder very long. Ec

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: