[WikiEN-l] Exposure of magic on Wikipedia

[Matt R]

--- MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:

> You pay for the secret when you buy a magic effect.
> Revealing it on Wikipedia certainly detracts from the product's commercial
> viability.

Lots of people who sell information will no doubt find Wikipedia detracts from
their commercial viability (Britannica Online?), but that's not our concern.
Our job on Wikipedia is to document topics based on the available reliable
sources. Sorry to sound callous about it, but if that happens to negatively
impact the business of selling secrets, then tough cheese.

> Excessively long plot summaries of films and books can constitute a
> copyright violation because while they're not an exact copy, they damage
> intellectual rights of the copyrighted material. Can't the same apply to
> summarizing a magic trick manual to the point while the text is not a copy
> it still violates the copyright of the text?

Our article on [[copyright]] says:

   `Copyright law covers only the particular form or manner in which ideas or
information have been manifested, the "form of material expression". It is not
designed or intended to cover the actual idea, concepts, facts, styles, or
techniques which may be embodied in or represented by the copyright work.'

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com


	
	
		
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