[WikiEN-l] Evil Copyvio Lists

[DF]

Whenever I try to deal with unusual copyright
questions myself, I seem to get variously ignored,
harassed, challenged with nonsense legal theories, and
ad hominem'ed to death.  So, I have decided that I am
just not going to do it any more.  The whole
experience is simply way too unpleasant for the
limited amount of good I am able to accomplish.

Hence someone else is going to have to do it.

I have created a list of evil lists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dragons_flight/Evil_looking_lists

These ~35 lists appear to be creative works copied
from the likes of VH1, Rolling Stone, and Time
Magazine.  Under US case law a list whose membership
is determined by editorial opinion (rather than facts,
statisics or polling) is subject to copyright
protection, and simply copying such a list into
Wikipedia will generally constitute a copyright
infringment.  Most of the lists I have highlighted are
of the "Best of" variety, and appear to consist solely
of the editor's judgment about who the best are.  (I
have tried to exclude lists which were based on votes
or polling, as such are not subject to copyright
protection, but it is possible that some lists based
on polling slipped through without my noticing.)

Such lists should be deleted or abbreviated to a
length and purpose consistent with fair use.

As per my initial comments, I don't intend to pursue
this matter further.  I'm hoping that my list of evil
will be looking quite red some time in the future, but
I am not optimistic that it will happen.

-DF

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