[Foundation-l] (no subject)

[Gregory Kohs]

David Gerard said:

++++++++++++++

2009/8/13 David Goodman <dgoodmanny at gmail.com>:

> I would be exceedingly uncomfortable with us organizing a negative
> campaign against any publisher not actually violating our copyright.
> .  A factual campaign, providing information is another matter. It
> would be entirely appropriate for individuals, even in a somewhat
> coordinated way, to add a review, just pointing out that it is
> entirely a copy of a Wikipedia article, and available free in  an
> updated version from our website--and in updated form.


"The contents of this book are reprinted from Wikipedia. Thanks to Dr
--- for making Wikipedia content available commercially in printed
form, in full observance of copyright requirements. We do this to
spread knowledge, after all!"


- d.

+++++++++++++++

And David Gerard also says:

===============
2009/8/14 Renata St <renatawiki at gmail.com>:

>> As long as the books give sufficient indication that they are from
>> Wikipedia, ...

> Inside the book -- yes, plenty of indication about copying. But nothing to
> warn you before you buy. People are buying these books tricked into thinking
> it's an original content.


Yuh. Point it out in reviews etc.


- d.
===============

To me, this smacks of an utter disregard for the intent and spirit of
the free license.   It's the same sort of flippant administrative
attitude that (nearly) allowed Guy "JzG" Chapman to grossly plagiarize
my original, freely-licensed work, delete mine from the edit history,
then prance about claiming that the work was his own, written "ab
initio".  That made me want to vomit, and now I feel like vomiting
again.

Sorry to resurrect a thread like this, but I only became aware of the
phenomenon recently.

To give an example of how such a book is marketed on Amazon:

>>>>>>>
History of Buddhism (Paperback)

by Frederic P. Miller (Editor), Agnes F. Vandome (Editor), John
McBrewster (Editor)
>>>>>>>

These people are not Wikipedia editors.  Is it appropriate and/or
legal under the terms of the GFDL or the CC-by-SA for a
freely-licensed work to be "claimed" with a preposition such as "by",
which by any interpretation of the English language in this usage,
would connote authorship?  Personally, I don't think it is appropriate
(thus that nauseous feeling I mentioned earlier).  But, I'm not a
highly-paid lawyer, so maybe I just don't know better.  I've been in
situations before where I know I am ethically correct, but helpless in
the light of the law.

It strikes me that this is something that Creative Commons or other
organizations with Godwin-like attorneys should be aggressively
pursuing, but we didn't hear from any of them in the original thread,
did we?  Mike, could you illuminate this conversation with your
professional opinion?

Greg