[Foundation-l] copyright issues

[Ryan Kaldari]

Can you guys please take this discussion off-list? Thanks.

Ryan Kaldari

On 8/17/11 9:55 AM, Wjhonson wrote:
> Robin there are no laws (in the US) about plagiarism, that's what I'm saying.
> None.  Zero.  They don't exist.
> Why? Because plagiarism does not de facto create any injury.
> Wikipedia and the foundation operate under U.S. law so that's what is germane to this list, not what some other country including other Berne signatories do or don't do.
>
> The U.S. does not recognize moral rights in the way that Germany or France do, but rather claims under this umbrella are tried under defamation or unfair competition laws.
>
> However some editors throw "plagiarism" around and shout "illegal illegal", because they are trying to make some sheded point more concrete.
> It's not concrete in the U.S., you have to show what specific sort of actual injury occurred.
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robin McCain<robin at slmr.com>
> To: Wjhonson<wjhonson at aol.com>
> Cc: foundation-l<foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Wed, Aug 17, 2011 9:44 am
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] copyright issues
>
>
> On 8/17/2011 9:20 AM, Wjhonson wrote:
> For plagiarism to "cause injury" you have to specify the type of injury in your suit.
> And then the case is not about laws about plagiarism per se, of which there are none, but laws about the type of injury you are claiming.
>
> For example unfair trade as in "I made all these designs and posted them to my website, company X stole my work by creating the actual products without the need to do any design work".  That sort of thing.  But that's not a law about plagiarism.
>
>
> Wow! you opened a can of worms...  I'm sure at least one of my lawyer friends who specialize in intellectual property could respond in great detail about this.
>
> According to the Berne Convention authors have moral rights as well as legal rights.
>
> We aren't talking about student work here, but the real world where a lot of money at stake. It doesn't even matter if the issue is laughed out of court - you have still spent many thousands of dollars just getting to that day. (this is why companies often settle rather than go to court)
>
> I can assure you that no reputable publisher or distributor would knowingly accept work that has been extensively plagiarized on the basis that there is potential for a lawsuit of some sort unless they had deep pockets and were knowingly doing this as a marketing strategy.
>
> All I'm trying to say here is that plagiarism often accompanies copyright infringement, and that there can be a very fine line between the two. In real world terms - you don't want to go there.
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