[WikiEN-l] [lstruwe at hotmail.com: Wikipedia serious copyright infringement...

[Ray Saintonge]

daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

>I looked at the original site. While some of the material was clearly copied, 
>and it seems obvious that the site mentioned was used as a source, other 
>material there was reworked and we added various wikipedia characteristics, 
>including a taxbox, which did not appear in the original article. I therefore 
>restored the article, and removed the material that was copied directly.
>
>In general, we are getting an increasing number of complaints about copyright 
>violation. While we should always be on guard against this, we should not let 
>this tear down material that was created. Information per se cannot be 
>copyrighted. Our taxoboxes and other, similar features are uniquely Wikipedian. In 
>this case, some of the material was salvagable. It would be a pity to remove 
>that. 
>
I agree that it's important to avoid overreacting  when there is a 
copyright complaint.  I can see where our author should not be faulted 
too much.  The wording of the copyright notice alone would not prevent 
us from copying without asking permission. We are not using it for 
commercial purposes.  The problem is that we cannot guarantee that a 
downstream user will be aware of this.

> All information on this web site is copyrighted and cannot be used for 
> any commercial purposes without prior permission.  Educational, 
> research, and not-for-profit use is allowed, if you cite the source 
> (as Gentian Research Network, or when applicable, individual copyright 
> holders). Look at the bottom of each page for copyright information.

Adenolisianthus was first described in1895.  The official description is 
in the public domain, but I don't know how much the description varies 
from the official one.  Even with a more modern taxom I would wonder 
about the copyrightability of such a description.

Ec