[WikiEN-l] Copyright question

Anthony wikilegal at inbox.org
Thu Apr 12 11:22:10 UTC 2007


On 4/12/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 11 Apr 2007 17:44:16 -0600, Bryan Derksen
> <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> >That's an uncivil and overly categorical way of saying your opinion differs.
>
> You say.  Me, I feel that this has been a complete waste of
> everybody's time.

I hope that it's been at least somewhat educational.  What happens
with this list itself is rather irrelevant, but if at least some
people have grown in their understanding of copyright and fair use
then the discussion hasn't been a waste of time.

> The ironic thing is that if the show considered it significant and put
> it on their website, the copyright violation would e unambiguous, so
> the only reason the argument exists at all is because the show
> considers it too trivial to post on their site.

I don't see how that's ironic, I don't agree with you that the
copyright violation would then become unambiguous, and I don't think
it's necessarily true that the reason the list isn't on their site is
because they consider it trivial.

And even if the list *was* on the site, which it apparently isn't,
that wouldn't change the argument at all, because the list on
Wikipedia was not copied from the (nonexistant) list on the site.

But the fact of the matter is *there is no list* being published by
the TV show producers, so to say that the list has been copied in its
entirety is entirely unfounded.  In order for something to be copied
in its entirety it has to exist in the first place.  Wikipedians did
not copy a list.  They copied elements from an entire series of shows
and described a work which appeared on that show (the cool wall).

Wikipedia has an article on [[The Cool Wall]].  You may consider this
work too trivial to have an encyclopedia article about, but the fact
is Wikipedians have decided to have it.  Claiming that a description
of the wall is a copyright violation seems to me to be a bad way of
appealing that decision.

Anthony



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