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Plagiarizing Wikipedia For Profit
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Nov 13, 2007 05:46 AM
from the ip-is-on-the-other-foot dept.
from the ip-is-on-the-other-foot dept.
An anonymous reader sends word of a dustup involving the publisher John Wiley and Sons and Wikipedia. Two pages from a Wiley book, Black Gold: The New Frontier in Oil for Investors, consist of a verbatim copy from the English Wikipedia article on the Khobar Towers bombing. This is the publisher that touched off a fair use brouhaha earlier this year when they threatened to sue a blogger who had reproduced a chart and a table (fully attributed) from one of their journals.
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Your Rights Online: Fair Use In Scientific Blogging 103 comments
GrumpySimon writes "Recently, the well-read science blog Retrospectacle posted an article on a scientific paper that concluded that alcohol augments the antioxidant properties of fruit. The blog post reproduced a chart and a table from the original article and everything was fully attributed. When the publisher John Wiley & Sons found out, they threatened legal action unless the chart and table were removed. Understandably, this whole mess has stirred up quite a storm of protest. Many people see Retrospectacle's action as plainly falling under fair use. There is a call for a boycott of Wiley and Wiley's journals."
Submission: Book copies Wikipedia; Publisher aggressive on IP. by Anonymous Coward
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According to law... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There are those who honestly believe it's okay to just physically take whatever you want. Does that mean it's okay
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yes.
Well that settles that then. Thanks for your time.
Re:How about thinking about a license first (Score:5, Informative)
They neither wanted nor did that, the Wikipedia text is under the GFDL which requires attribution of source. The WP author mentioned released his contribution to the public domain, but the wider Wikipedia community has the right to be outraged that this writer a) plagiarised Wikipedia and b) didn't credit the authors of the text that he plagiarised. He claimed the words as his own, which is unlawful in many copyright jurisdictions regardless of any licence that the original author may have used. If the publisher sells that book in Finland, then they could find themselves in hot water. And I don't mean a nice invigorating sauna.
Parent
Re:How about thinking about a license first (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:How about thinking about a license first (Score:5, Informative)
In addition to what Phil has pointed out in another reply, it's worth pointing out that there are many different Creative Commons licenses, and they vary in what they permit. Some of them do not permit commercial use, some of them require attribution, some of them are more permissive.
Please, if you are going to make claims about what something does and doesn't permit, at the very least you should be vaguely familiar with it yourself. Creative Commons is a brand name for a bunch of different licenses, not a license itself.
Parent
Copy/Paste needs help (Score:3, Funny)
(Profit?)
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Does it get any more perfect than that?
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"Possibly imaginative programmer will outside there begin "de -.Plagiatorstvuet" application and holds it to all platforms. You will stick text or diagram into the box and outside flap the perfect paraphrase (profit?)"
Re:Copy/Paste needs help (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Copy/Paste needs help (Score:4, Interesting)
There is actually a bot on Wikipedia that runs Google checks on all new articles and marks any text it finds elsewhere for speedy zapping. This turns up more than a few false positives, but mostly huge amounts of copyright violations that then get quickly zapped.
Wikipedia remains the only "Web 2.0" project that proactively gives a damn about copyright.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
summary: The copied text is subject to GNU FDL. (Score:5, Informative)
If Wiley published this text without citing the FDL, they're in violation of it. Seems pretty clear. Further, the license says that if the work is modified, the resulting document must also be released in FDL, according to section 4. This is where it gets interesting.
Re:summary: The copied text is subject to GNU FDL. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Copyright isn't the be all and end all (Score:5, Interesting)
Many high-profile authors have been brought down by charges of plagiarism. They have not been sued for copyright violations but they have suffered significant consequences nonetheless. See, for example, the recent case of Kaavya Viswanathan [nytimes.com]. As such, I would think that the copyright violation angle can be pretty much ignored. It's distracting and weak. The plagiarism charge, however, could have significant consequences.
So is it plagiarism (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:So is it plagiarism (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
"There's no such thing as plagiarism..." (Score:3, Funny)
Slashdot tags (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, are we sure that the text is from Wikipedia, and not both from a third source? It's probably unlikely, but "they copied from Wikipedia" is far from the only explanation.
Re:Slashdot tags (Score:5, Insightful)
While that's a gross generalization of what I perceive to be a double-standard, I can see some kind of justification behind it - Joe Public generally doesn't make money off it, whereas Bob Corporate infringes for profit.
Parent
Re:Slashdot tags (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Two differences... (Score:4, Insightful)
Second, Bob Corporate usually gets away with it. If Joe Public is caught, he faces heavy, personal penalties. Bob Corporate can simply have Bob Corporate Inc cover the damage, assuming that they're caught at all and that they lose in court.
Finally, we take great delight in finding a similar double-standard in Bob Corporate. This company, for instance, went after someone else for a fairly sizable quote (with attribution), and we now find them stealing wholesale (with no attribution). This seems almost second nature to most corporations -- in fact, I forget where it was, but I seem to remember reading someone psychoanalyzing a corporation (as if it were a human) and finding that it's insane.
Which comes back to "A person is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it."
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
While that's a gross generalization of what I perceive to be a double-standard, I can see some kind of justification behind it - Joe Public generally doesn't make money off it, whereas Bob Corporate infringes for profit.
Especially when Bob corporate earlier sued a member of Joe Public for the same actions. "May he who is with out sin cast the first stone."
Re:Slashdot tags (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's as disingenuous as when record companies claim that you "steal" potential profits. This is not theft. Nothing is being taken away from the original author's possession. There is a perfectly accurate word for what has happened here, it is "plagiarism". Why play word games instead of using the proper word for things?
Re:Slashdot tags (Score:5, Insightful)
In both the academic and artistic circles this is much more damaging than copyright infringement. Once you have created a work of academic or artistic value and its recognized by others as one of those things, it really becomes your personal credibility in the field. If your an artist, it gets you hired to perform, or patronized, if your an academic it gets you a job in industry, a teaching position, funding to more similar work, etc.
If someone plagiarizes your work then they may get these things instead of you and worse yet possible get you accused or suspected of plagiarism. I think its clear the original author is hurt much more by plagiarism then mere copyright infringement, which if people are bothering to infringe on your copyrights probably does more for your general credibility then anything else could and may actually benefit you in a variety, although certainly not all circumstances. If anyone wants to compare this to the RIAA crying about mp3z its would have to be like you uploading the latest top 40 song and then claiming you and your buddies performed it in the garage the other day.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Copyright infringement != theft. But this is about plagiarism, and that is theft.
There's a world of difference between copying some Beatles song versus you claiming to be the author of a "new" song that is actually a Beatles song. (Yet other issues are raised by unintentional plagiarism such as Harrison's "My Sweet Lord".) The difference is even more pronounced for out-of-copyright material such as a Beethoven work. Copy that all you like, but don't try to claim you wrote it, and sue everyone to colle
Wikipedia: victim and perpetrator (Score:5, Informative)
In this case (Wiley book) the articles were there way before the book, so the case seems to be clear, but in general, I recommend to keep an open mind about who copied where.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I had some stuff copied off of a web page and made into a wikipedia article. I reported it as soon as I became aware of it and within a few days, the page was replaced. I don't know if they're always that responsive. It probably depends on who monitors the pages in question.
The solution (Score:5, Funny)
Wikipedia's Official Reaction... (Score:4, Funny)
Wikiplagarism (Score:4, Insightful)
So someone copied Wikipedia?
Meh.
stethoscope (Score:3, Funny)
If we have a stethoscope for the minds of various characters involved at different time, it could be like this:
A year later...
Re:How are they going to claim... (Score:5, Informative)
If this is the case, then the whole book that this text is in becomes freely copyable, as long as it's source is attributed. If the publisher chooses not to conform to this license, then it becomes in breach of copyright (as the works on Wikipedia are covered by copyright law, they're simply globally available on a license backed up by copyright law).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
However, the prize for most shameless copyright infringement goes to The Times Of India [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Plagiarize, [aol.com]
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize...
Only be sure always to call it please, "research".
Re:How are they going to claim... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:How are they going to claim... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:How are they going to claim... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:How are they going to claim... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:How are they going to claim... (Score:5, Funny)
You're so right! Noone on the wider internet or even slashdot has ever considered this!
Parent
Re:How are they going to claim... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Well, if I could steal someone's work and create something to sell, I wouldn't mind paying for the royalties AFTER the sales, if any. Afterall, I can still rightfully claim my part of work like organizing the content, publishing, marketing etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Also keep in mind the penalties for copyright violation. A single instance can be a penalty fine of several thousand dollars in the US. If you run a red light, there's a flat fine simply for punitive reasons. Same thing with copyright violations.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Ehhh...no?
Wiley published their content under a completely different license that the original authors had not agreed to. Getting the agreement of said original authors to publish their work is commonly done by paying them for that privilege. No money changed hands.
Or put differently...courts deal all day with putting a monetary value on things that cannot be mathematically calculated (for example: loss of life, loss of amenity, loss
Re:How are they going to claim... (Score:5, Interesting)
How will the publisher claim losses, when (by the GNU FDL) they are now going to have to give away their work?
Quite simply, the answer is that the publisher won't have to give away their work. Rather, the work of the publisher is specifically in making a text available in the form of a book, along with referencable ISBN. They *will* at this point have to include a GNU FDL with the book, *even if they remove the offending pages from future copies*, since the entire book is now contaminated.
But honestly, the amount of photocopying and such that will happen is not going to significantly increase.
In the end, the fair price that a publisher can charge is defined by the utility that the publisher adds. Aside from that, the price that a publisher can *get* is more defined by the current accepted fair price for other books than for this book. So if a FDL goes in the book, then the reader will just look at it, say "oh, nice." And go on.
Now, how can Wikipedia claim damages? There are more damages possible than cash value. There are damages to the reputation of the actual authors, damages to frequency of customer visits, and these do have an inherent value to which a lawyer will assign a cash value. Yes, it will be slightly arbitrary. But, on the other hand I think that a jury will find that the value of damages is (1) relatively large, and (2) at least proportional to the increased value recieved by John Wiley Publishing and the author. Typically, when theft occurs value is destroyed (they steal my car, but bust up the key mechanism). Therefore, you might expect damages to total 1.5-3 times the expected sales of the book, scaled down by the proportion of pages that were plagiarized. So for a 120-pg book, 2 pages copied, damages could total 1/40 to 1/20 of total expected sales.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This is untrue. First, because the license doesn't automatically become FDL, it becomes a license violation which should be dealt with through law. Second, because there is nothing that states that once something is released using FDL it always has to be released in that license. The author is free to release his portion of the work using any license he/she chooses, in the same way that software publis
Not giving awayl licensing. (Score:4, Informative)
They're not giving ANYTHING away. They're licensing a copy of their product to you, under certain conditions.
Parent