[WikiEN-l] Re: A Friendly Challenge to Sheldon Rampton

[Sheldon Rampton]

Ed Poor wrote:

>I beg you to donate this passage, which is from your book "Trust Us 
>We're Experts" to Wikipedia, Sheldon. May we have your permission to 
>incorporate it into the [[pseudoscience]] article?

Feel free to use or adapt it as you see fit. However, the Wikipedia 
article already contains most of the ideas in the passage I cited. It 
already mentions Karl Popper, it already talks about 
"falsifiability," and it has quite a bit of other information that is 
actually quite a bit more detailed than the passage I quoted from my 
book.

>For that matter, what are the legal technicalities involved in the 
>case where a published author wants to donate a tiny portion of a 
>copyrighted work, to the public via the GPL? (I'm not saying Sheldon 
>would want to do so in this case: this is brilliant prose, and he's 
>entitled to make money off it; more power to him!)

I'm not an attorney, but U.S. copyright law, as spelled out in 17 USC 
107, says that "fair use of a copyrighted work...for purposes such as 
criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching..., scholarship, or 
research, is not an infringement of copyright." It goes on to specify 
the following criteria to be used in judging whether the use made of 
a work constitutes fair use:

>(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use 
>is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
>(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
>(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to 
>the copyrighted work as a whole; and
>(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of 
>the copyrighted work.

With regard to points (1) and (4), Wikipedia would be on solid ground 
in quoting brief excerpts from a book or other published work of 
significant length. Wikipedia isn't a commercial venture, and a brief 
quotation or adaptation from a book wouldn't hurt sales. Assuming 
attribution is given, it would probably *contribute* to sales. No 
harm, no foul.

I'm not sure what point (2) is intended to address, but I think it 
applies to unauthorized use of confidential documents or trade 
secrets.

On point (3), the "amount and substantiality" of an excerpt is 
subject to varying court interpretations, depending on the nature of 
the work. Quoting a brief poem in its entirety could be a copyright 
violation, but a 1,000-word passage from a book probably isn't.

If you wish to research this further, the following URLs may help:

http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/clasguid.htm
http://www.law.emory.edu/6circuit/nov96/96a0357p.06.html
-- 
--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
--------------------------------