I don't think the AHD has some crystal ball to divine the definitions of words. How are you not saying that a dictionary has no place being developed in a wiki-way?
Personally, I sometimes write a new definition if I have a spark of inspiration, otherwise I modify the definitions that make sense to me from Wordnet (I avoid Webster 1913 like the plague generally). When I finish writing, I often will read dictionary.com's definitions to make sure I got it right. Information isn't under copyright, expressions of information are. I mean George Harrison got sued successfully for having a song that followed a similar chord pattern as another (the book /Copyrights and Copywrongs/ is excellent). Fair use ain't what people think it is. And somehow I don't see the scope of fair use ever extending, quite the opposite.
If it is possible to copy definitions in a fair-use manner, IANAL and probably YANAL and we'd need to have someone write down what is precisely OK to copy. Personally, I think we shouldn't even get close. Whatever the case we would want to discourage newcomers from copying from dictionaries, since I imagine it isn't obvious how to do it.
"Copyright infringement would depend on a pattern of behaviour." What do you consider copyright infringement? We should discourage the wholesale copying of the AHD into Wiktionary shouldn't we? Thats what I had in mind. Ex. http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=...
While Ec thinks the current copyright statement its outright wrong, I just think the current copyright statement is a bit confusing and could be simplified.
On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 00:04:06 -0800, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Ian Monroe wrote:
Now that Wiktionary 1.4 is settling in, thought I would bring up an issue thats been on the en:Beer parlor for a while, which may benefit from some ideas from other wikt's. Plus it would take a sysop, {{sofixit}} isn't an option ;)
Here it is:
Its fairly common that we find copyright infringing articles. I hypothesize this is not someone trying to poison Wiktionary, but is due to ignorance. If you are like me, you've read it once and then forget that it says the following at the buttom of every edit page:
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource. DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION!
Really I think this assumes the reader understands copyright as well as understands what folks in the Free Software movement consider to be 'free'. I mean, dictionary.com is free as in beer, but it isn't 'similar free' which is kind of expecting a bit from Joe User. The paragraph previous to that already gets the legal crap over with by stating you are releasing under the GFDL, I don't think we need to cover every case. It should talk to the anonymous junior high student who sees noctilucent doesn't have a definition. I'm not claiming to be a great wordsmith, but here is a try:
All definitions must be written by yourself or borrowed from a public domain resource. Do not use content from copyrighted resources such as dictionary.com.
I think dictionary.com is the biggest culprit, so naming it specifically will be helpful. Also its a good example of what a copyrighted resource is. We could also throw on something nice to it, like 'we want to know what you think' or 'we apperciate your input'. I'm not sure how to put it. Just to be nice and to reiterate the 'your'.
There wasn't any further discussion of it, though Eclecticology stated his belief in their being legal gray area around copyrights on dictionaries.
Any ideas?
I really don't think that the problem is as bad as Ian makes out. The copying of any single definition from another dictionary may just as easily be fair use. Though when the definition is copied from another source that source needs to be referenced. Copyright infringement would depend on a pattern of behaviour. Writing one's own brand new definitions is not as sound a practice as Ian suggests. If one is to do that it should properly be accompanied by evidence of identified quotations that illustrate the use of the word in just that way.
We've already had the argument about protologisms as original work, but so too are definitions that take a word into areas where it has never been used before. Writing one's own definitions is not as easy as it seems.
A significant statement in the GFDL license is "You accept the license if you copy, modify or distribute the work in a way requiring permission under copyright law." Fair use does not require these permissions.
Ec