[WikiEN-l] Correspondence relating to the copyright status of an image

[Nathaniel Krause]

Below is the response I received from the proprietor of 
http://4dw.net/royalark after I e-mailed him to ask for copyright 
information on a picture that appeared on his website. The image in question 
  (http://www.4dw.net/royalark/Arabia/hijaz-Ali.gif) is a photograph of 
[[Ali bin Hussein]], who died in 1935, and thus I thought there was a good 
chance the image might be in the public domain by now, especially since it 
might well have been taken in the Middle East before the currently-existing 
states there were even established.

From:	"Christopher J Buyers"
To:	"Nathaniel Krause"
CC:	jwales@
Subject:	Re: hijaz-Ali.gif
Date:	Tue, 12 Jul 2005 18:31:56 +0100

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

I realise that it has now become standard practice for people like yourself 
who post supposedly "original" articles on wikipedia to copy their materials 
from my website at the Royal Ark, but please note:

You certainly may not use any materials from my website, without my 
permission under any circumstances whatever.

Copyright infringement is property theft and intellectual rape. Are you a 
thief and rapist? Read on...

The text and images on the website are copyrighted and protected by United 
States and international copyright conventions.  Reproduction of ideas, 
interpretations, words and graphics in any print or electronic form, except 
for small portions for quotations and reviews, without the written 
permission of the webmaster, is prohibited.   These rules are not the 
exclusive concern of academics and the publishing industry; they are 
universal ethics.
While a few graphics on the website might be clipart in the public domain, 
it is safest to assume that they are not.  Users should go to clipart 
archives to borrow such graphics.

Permission to reproduce major portions of text on other websites is normally 
denied since this website is a living document and constantly subject to 
updating and correction.  Authors and webmasters do not want uncontrolled 
and uncorrected versions of their texts floating around the internet.  
Linking to a text is the most acceptable option since it relieves the linker 
of responsibility for the changing content of the master copy of the 
document.

If you do not understand copyright and intellectual property law, apply a 
simple rule of courtesy:  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. 
  If you can conceive of the hours, weeks, and years of research, skill and 
education that can go into developing an idea, a text, an index, or a 
graphic, you would doubtless not like to have somebody steal that work from 
you and claim it as their own.  Copyright infringement is plagiarism.

    Plagiarism. n. the wrongful appropriation or purloining , and 
publication as one's own, of the ideas, or the _expression of the ideas 
(literary, artistic, musical, mechanical, etc.) of another. [Oxford English 
Dictionary]

    Plagiarise.  vt., vi., to take and use as one's own the thoughts, 
writings, or inventions of another.  [Oxford English Dictionary]      Due to 
the ease of theft on the internet, international copyright laws are being 
tightened.  The penalties for copyright infringement can be severe. For a 
better understanding of copyright and related ethical issues, you may wish 
to explore these links:

        Copyright Issues, by Cyndi Howells
        10 Myths About Copyright Explained, by Brad Templeton
        Intellectual Property Law
        U.S. Copyright and Genealogy, by Michael Goad.
        Restoring Ethics to Genealogy, by Barbara A. Brown.
        The Copyright Wizard
        Plagiarism, by Sharon Stoerger.

A final note of warning: Beware of web sites whose "copyright notice" 
consists principally of a disclaimer to the effect that infringement on 
their part is unintentional, and that they will consider negotiating with 
challengers. They are, in effect, putting you on notice that they are 
thieves, and consider themselves innocent until caught. Such lapses in 
ethics call into question the reliability of any other information presented 
on such web sites.

Perhaps you would be kind enough to advise fellow copyists on Wikipedia of 
these facts.

Thank you

Christopher Buyers

----

From:	"Nathaniel Krause"
To:	"Christopher J Buyers"
Subject:	Re: hijaz-Ali.gif
Date:	 Wed, 13 Jul 2005 08:19:13 -0700 (PDT)

Mr. Buyers,

Well, thanks for getting back to me. Needless to say,
I was not very pleased with your response, in no small
part because you don't seem to have answered my
question very clearly. You say, "You certainly may not
use any materials from my website, without my
permission under any circumstances whatever," but this
is meaningless unless you actually own the copyright
on the picture in question. Do you? If you don't, who,
if anyone, does? That is what I was inquiring about in
my first e-mail.

Furthermore, if I wanted to steal materials from your
website in defiance of intellectual property laws, why
would I send you an e-mail telling you about it? It
was only because I have no desire to infringe on your
copyright that I contacted you in the first place.

You say, "If you can conceive of the hours, weeks, and
years of research, skill and education that can go
into developing an idea, a text, an index, or a
graphic, you would doubtless not like to have somebody
steal that work from you and claim it as their own."
What are you referring to here? Did you take this
picture of Sharif Ali bin Hussein, who died in 1935,
yourself? What are the countless hours that you spent
developing it? I do want to be clear that I am not
asking to use any text from your website, which I have
already linked to from the article.

The simple rule you suggest, "Do unto others as you
would have them do unto you", is somewhat ironic,
because, in my case, and in the case of other
Wikipedia authors, we make the text we write and
photographs we take freely available to everyone.

You ask, "Perhaps you would be kind enough to advise
fellow copyists on Wikipedia of these facts", and I'm
happy to do so, although any Wikipedia editor who
knows what he's doing already knows it. I'm not sure
why this is our standard practice [here I made a typo;
I meant to say "why you think this is our standard
practice". Let's hope that didn't exacerbate the
problem. -NYK]. We sometimes have problems with
supposedly fair-use images, because fair use law is so
complicated, but we never use fair-use text, or anything
other than GFDL text, under any circumstances. In fact,
if you tell me which article is copied from Royal Ark,
I'll try to fix the problem myself.

Cheers,

Nat Krause

----

From:	"Christopher J Buyers"
To:	"Nathaniel Krause"
Subject:	Re: hijaz-Ali.gif
Date:	Wed, 13 Jul 2005 16:38:59 +0100

Piss-off.

You and your kind are nothing more than a bunch of thieves and plagiarisers. 
I am in no mood to help you or co-operate with you one bit. I shall of 
course, ensure the registration of your name for future reference by others.

Thankfully, I see that the activities of the wikipedia website has not 
escaped the notice of others who are in a position to take the appropriate 
steps in the near future.

----
----

I'm sending this to the list, first, because I wanted to keep my word and 
remind my fellow Wikipedians not to blatantly violate somebody's copyright. 
Second, because I wanted to warn you that Mr. Buyers' second e-mail appears 
to let the cat out of the bag regarding the shadowy conspiracy that may be 
plotting against Wikipedia as even as you read this. Sadly, we have not 
escaped their notice. In case you see somebody coming toward you, especially 
in the near future, who looks like he may be in a position to take 
appropriate steps, be extra careful.

Thirdly, I'm genuinely not sure how to proceed on this matter. This website 
guy has still not really said whether or not he claims to own the copyright 
to this image, or to have licensed it from somebody who does. He just warns 
me not to use it without elaboration. Considering his attitude, I'm not sure 
I'd really believe him if he did claim to own it. On the other hand, I'm not 
comfortable just assuming that it's public domain -- even if it doesn't 
belong to Christopher J Buyers, there might be somebody else out there who 
still has rights to it. [[Wikipedia:Fair use]] seems to imply that I should 
tag it {{fairold}} and go ahead and use it, and it certainly appears to 
count as "Unique historical images which we cannot reproduce by other 
means". However, since this website guy is already upset with us, I thought 
it would advisable to exercise additional scrutiny and get more opinions.

Thanks,

Nat Krause (the eponymous user)