Plagiarizing Wikipedia For Profit

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.

According to law...

[dotancohen]

According to law, they are doing nothing illegal and are even protecting their own legal rights. This is what happens when law dictates human behaviour, instead of morals. Precisely this situation Plato envisioned when he said that good men need no laws to tell them how to behave, and evil men will find ways around the laws.

Re:

[Aladrin]

Yeah, because that works -so- well. Let's see... Completely disregarding what the Bible says (which is the moral guidance for a -lot- of people), there have been plenty of other 'moral' actions that we no longer consider moral, or that a portion of the world, and a portion doesn't... Slavery, the equality of women and men, war, circumcision, -many- aspects of sex... The list goes on and on.

There are those who honestly believe it's okay to just physically take whatever you want. Does that mean it's okay

Re:

[KaoticEvil]

I personally think that "morals" should play no part whatsoever in lawmaking. What one person thinks is "morally correct" I may feel is immoral. Or vice versa.

For example: I am quite sure that my wife and I do things in our bedroom that some bible-thumping religious nazi would find highly immoral. Does that mean they should be illegal? I think not.

Re:

[Floritard]

There are those who honestly believe it's okay to just copy whatever files they want. Does that mean it's okay?

Yes.

Well that settles that then. Thanks for your time.

Re:

[hondo77]

Completely disregarding what the Bible says (which is the moral guidance for a -lot- of people)...

Hey, if disregarding the bible is good enough for the President, it is good enough for the rest of us!

Horseshit.

[dcollins]

So there's no one in jail, then?

Re:How about thinking about a license first

[PhilHibbs]

But if you chose to place your work under, say, the Creative Commons, you've just told the world at large, "here, take it and use it as you wish, I don't want anything in return, I don't forbid anything, have fun with it."

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.

Re:

[Moraelin]

Thanks for the correction.

Though, the way I see it, that doesn't change the point I was making at all. If Wikipedia covered their arses legally, then there is _no_ "morality vs legality" lament to be made about them. Definitely kudos to them, but, anyway, then they _don't_ have a grey area between what's legally expected and what they morally expect. Making the whole GGP lament rather irrelevant too.

I stand by what I've said: the only people who find themselves moaning about morality vs legality, are the on

Puts the FBI in "FBI warning"

[tepples]

My understanding of copyright is that it grants certain rights to the creator, including the ability to seek damages for unauthorized copies -- but this only happens if the creator himself notices the copies and objects; there is no copyright police that will punish you for copying even if turns out that the original author permits it after the fact.

In the United States, copyright infringement that meets specific guidelines is a crime, and the Department of Justice can press charges even for an orphaned work. The defendant can argue that it had a license, or that it is covered under a defense listed in sections 107 through 122 of the copyright statute, but this has to be compelling enough to raise reasonable doubt among members of a jury.

What country were you talking about?

Re:How about thinking about a license first

[ReallyEvilCanine]

But if you chose to place your work under, say, the Creative Commons, you've just told the world at large, "here, take it and use it as you wish, I don't want anything in return, I don't forbid anything, have fun with it." So please have the _decency_ then to not act enraged when someone does just that.

That would be all well and good and I'd be right there with you applying the LART to dotancohen were it not for the minor inconvenience that Wikipedia is not covered by the Creative Commons license but rather by the GFDL: From Wikipedia's Copyright FAQ [wikipedia.org]:

* Can I reuse Wikipedia's content somewhere else?

Wikipedia's textual content is copyrighted, but you may reuse it under the terms of our licensing requirements, summarized below.

Text in Wikipedia, excluding quotations, has been released under the GNU Free Documentation License (or is in the public domain), and can therefore be reused only if you release any derived work under the GFDL. This requires that, among other things, you attribute the authors and allow others to freely copy your work. (This is a summary, see the licence text for the exact details.)

If you are unwilling or unable to use the GFDL for your work, use of Wikipedia content is unauthorized. Small quotations of Wikipedia content, with its source attributed, may be permissible under the "fair use" clause of U.S. copyright law. See Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia for information about the proper citation of articles. No permission is needed to create a hyperlink to Wikipedia or its articles.

Emphasis mine, used to highlight the important bits.

Re:How about thinking about a license first

[Bogtha]

But if you chose to place your work under, say, the Creative Commons, you've just told the world at large, "here, take it and use it as you wish, I don't want anything in return, I don't forbid anything, have fun with it."

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.

Re:

[DM9290]

"But if you chose to place your work under, say, the Creative Commons, you've just told the world at large, "here, take it and use it as you wish, I don't want anything in return, I don't forbid anything, have fun with it." So please have the _decency_ then to not act enraged when someone does just that. You _had_ all the framework you needed to protect it in any other way, and you chose explicitly not to. People are doing exactly what you officially told them it's ok." "No, the problem isn't with laws vs

Re:

[bcat24]

IANAL, but everything I've ever read about fair use makes it pretty clear that wholesale copying is *not* allowed.

Re:

[Artifakt]

Excellent assessment! I don't know what prompts some people to assume that one of the world's most renowned philosophers doubtless missed any of a number of 'simple', 'obvious' points any 'normal person' would spot in an instant. It seems to happen a lot to Plato, Kant, and Bishop Berkeley.
While we're at it, Plato, of all philosophers, would have held just going as the wind blows as a distinctly bad thing and not neutral.
It was Socrates that first said "The

Copy/Paste needs help

[MollyB]

Perhaps an imaginative programmer out there will develop a "De-Plagiarize" application and port it to all platforms. Paste the text or graph into the box and out pops a perfect paraphrase.
(Profit?)

Re:

[jamesh]

I think its already been done [yodaspeak.co.uk]

Develop a, perhaps an imaginative programmer out there will "De-plagiarize" To all platforms application and port it. Paste the text or graph into the box and out pops a perfect paraphrase. Yes, hmmm.

Does it get any more perfect than that?

Re:

[QMO]

I pasted that thing into google, and 4 links on the first page (including the top link) appeared to be to pages with the Gettysburg Address.

Re:

[geordieboozer]

this is already available by using babelfish to translate to another language and then back again:

"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:

[idontgno]

I'm still waiting for autotranslation to throw in a bit about your hovercraft being full of eels. That would make my day complete.

Re:Copy/Paste needs help

[ScrewMaster]

"Hi! It looks like you're trying to steal someone else's intellectual property! Would you like me to a. attribute it properly for you or b. adjust it so your theft isn't so blatantly obvious?"

Re:Copy/Paste needs help

[David Gerard]

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.

Re:

[Farmer Tim]

I could see semi-randomised text being a problem in it's own waterbuffalo.

summary: The copied text is subject to GNU FDL.

[artifex2004]

Although the author of the linked page says he wrote much of the disputed text and released it into public domain, the license governing Wikipedia is GNU FDL, as can be seen by a link at the bottom of every page. The combined work, because it includes work by others, is covered by that license.

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.

[PhilHibbs]

Not that "interesting" really. Saying that it "must be" under the GFDL isn't the same as saying that it automatically is under the GFDL. They are in violation of copyright, plain and simple, the GFDL doesn't automatically apply to the whole book, that's crazy talk. It's then up to the lawyers or the courts to come up with a suitable violation penalty and a solution going forward.

Re:

[AVee]

Although the author of the linked page says he wrote much of the disputed text and released it into public domain, the license governing Wikipedia is GNU FDL, as can be seen by a link at the bottom of every page. The combined work, because it includes work by others, is covered by that license.

I'm not really into how 'public domain' works in copyright, but surely you can't just claim something is your own writing when it is a public domain written by somebody else? Apart from the morals of it when you know who the author is, it is a flat a lie to claim it's written by you when it's actually written by somebody else. The fact that this someone else doesn't care about getting credits for his work doesn't mean you can take credit for what is not your work.

Why plagiergize when its much better

[crovira]

to NOT sound like everything you write is uncorroborated and unsupported supposition?

When I write on my blogs or for my podcast, I publish the links web pages or to Amazon book purchasing links where I got my information. (If nothing else, it makes me look like I'm well read.)

That way, if there is a problem with the source, I can tell people to stop arguing with me and take the problem up with my source.

If my sources turn out to be wrong, I can apologize for getting misled without having to defend the thoug

O'Reilly did the same thing to me...

[bball99]

- except it was an application included on a CD in David Pogue's Palm PDA book:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/palmpilot/ [oreilly.com]

- my client's simple license clearly stated 'no distribution on media without permission,' but it was included...

- i never busted o'reilly's chops about it, 'cause i met him one time at a Perl conference in Monterey and he was very nice to me...

Copyright isn't the be all and end all

[Skippy_kangaroo]

The Wikipedia link discusses the problem of bringing copyright violation charges. But, even if it is released in the public domain, the problem for the publisher and author is the charge of plagiarism.

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

[od05]

Is it plagiarism if I make up something, post it in Wikipedia, write an academic paper, and cite the reference I previously had made up?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's just silly.

Re:So is it plagiarism

[Dunbal]

If your academic paper cites wikipedia, well, good luck with peer review...

Re:

[Archtech]

Despite all the replies pointing out that Wikipedia's academic standing is relatively low, the question itself is valid, interesting, and of some importance.

I am reminded of the story about the guy who writes a paper for the government which is then classified so that he is no longer entitled to read it. (Always wondered if he is also legally obliged to forget everything he wrote? What if he has an eidetic memory?)

Re:

[benna]

The point is not really Wikipedia's academic standing in particular, but rather that one should not cite any encyclopedia in academic writing.

Re:

[japhmi]

Considering my college considered it to be a violation of academic honesty to submit the same paper to two different classes, I think referencing a Wikipedia article you wrote (regardless of the merit of that particular article or Wikipedia as a whole) would be frowned upon.

Re:

[Bloater]

No, citing Wikipedia in an academic paper, whether your own work or not, is called "a third".

Re:

[David Gerard]

This actually happens way too often in journalism - someone puts a press reference into a Wikipedia article, someone else tracks it down, the reporter then confesses to having obtained the factoid from Wikipedia a few years previously. All die. Oh, the embarrassment!

Re:

[TerranFury]

Do not think for one minute that everything which calls itself academia is actually worthy of the title. Most of it is pure tripe.

True. However, I'm not certain that stigma associated with citing Wikipedia is really much more than an irrational prejudice in many situations. If I am writing the requisite "here are some applications" part of my article, do I the theoretician really need more than an encyclopedia's-article worth of information? The fact is, if I cite another academic paper in another field to prove "It can be applied!!!," I'll really just be grabbing a few tidbits from their abstract. That's really no better, and p

Re:

[benna]

Or to peer review, for that matter.

"There's no such thing as plagiarism..."

[DreamingDaemon]

As the incredibly-talented sci-fi writer Bob Unherdof said to his struggling burger-flipper friend George Lucas in 1975....

Slashdot tags

[EvanED]

This article is tagged "thief". I thought it was standard /. wisdom that copyright infringement isn't theft?

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

[Sirch]

I thought it was standard /. wisdom that copyright infringement isn't theft?

Only when it's Joe Public doing the infringement. When Bob Corporate infringes, Slashdot's bile rises...

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.

Re:Slashdot tags

[mgblst]

I think the double standard arises because it is ok to copy something, but to do it for profit is wrong. That seems a more reasonable standard than the one that you propose.

Two differences...

[SanityInAnarchy]

First, when Joe Public infringes, he generally does so for himself. When Bob Corporate does, it's for the world at large.

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."

Re:

[olddotter]

Only when it's Joe Public doing the infringement. When Bob Corporate infringes, Slashdot's bile rises...

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:

[TheLink]

1) Not everyone on Slashdot agrees on everything.
2) I don't think it takes that much to make a tag appear.
3) It might be a "meta" statement.

Re:Slashdot tags

[pipatron]

The thing is that they did copy the text and said "this is mine, I created this", thus you stole the attribution. This does not happen when you send an mp3 to a friend.

Re:

[noidentity]

Identity theft is another example. It's not the material itself that's stolen, it's the status in the social sphere.

Re:

[Kjella]

Which is fraud, not theft. You know, different crimes but both illegal? If you don't care about that distinction, why should you care about the distinction between copyright infringement and theft?

Re:

[Bogtha]

you stole the attribution

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:

[Floritard]

plagiarism

Literary theft. Plagiarism occurs when a writer duplicates another writer's language or ideas and then calls the work his or her own. Copyright laws protect writers' words as their legal property. To avoid the charge of plagiarism, writers take care to credit those from whom they borrow and quote.

"plagiarism." The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. 13 Nov. 2007. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/plagiarism>.

Re:Slashdot tags

[DarkOx]

You are totally correct in that plagiarism is the correct word and that it is the word we should be using to talk about the issue. To the point being made by other posters however plagiarism is a more serious matter then copyright infringement IMHO. With copyright infringement some control over the content is lost to the owner/author. With plagiarism not only is some of the control lost to the author but also the credit for the work.

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.

Re:

[Bogtha]

To the point being made by other posters however plagiarism is a more serious matter then copyright infringement IMHO.

If you want to address that point, then with all due respect, please reply to the people saying it. I haven't even remotely touched on the issue of the relative seriousness of these actions. An argument against misleading rhetoric is an entirely different thing to judging the ethical implications of these actions, and I'm thoroughly sick of people attempting to tie the two together.

Re:

[DerekLyons]

Why play word games instead of using the proper word for things?

It's quite amusing that you can say that with a straight face... Because you are the one playing word games, not the OP. Thievery and piracy have been accepted terms for this behavior for centuries. It's only in the last few years that advocates of IP reform have attempted to change what the acts are called.

Re:

[Kupek]

From dictionary.com:

steal /stil/, verb, stole, stolen, stealing, noun
-verb (used with object)
1. to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, esp. secretly or by force: A pickpocket stole his watch.
2. to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment.

The grandparent's usage of the word "stole" is correct. You're actually trying to narrow the definition.

Re:

[bzipitidoo]

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

Re:

[Nazlfrag]

Theft is a misnomer, plagiarism is more descriptive, but hey theft will do. Sure you can quote sections of text with proper attribution under fair use, but 2 verbatim pages would probably be considered theft (IANAL etc). The guy that wrote most of it put his work in the public domain for anyone to use however they see fit, but the other contributors haven't and still own the copyright to their works. The copy on Wikipedia is covered by the GFDL and one of the conditions is derivative works must also be cove

Re:

[Sparr0]

Since you brought up tags... How do weird tags (not that "thief" is especially weird) happen? Some random guy adds a "somelongrandomstringofwords" tag. How does that tag get onto the tag list that I see on the front page? I would expect it needs to be tagged that way by a bunch of people before it shows up, but how would those other people know to use that exact same long random string of words?

Wikipedia: victim and perpetrator

[harmonica]

There are (or were) at least two articles in Wikipedia that are my texts (from my site) with slight variations on sentences. So whoever visits those Wikipedia articles (or did so in the past) and then my pages must come to the conclusion that I stole the stuff from Wikipedia without giving credit. I can't even prove that because I don't have a public version history, and archive.org is spotty when it comes to my site.

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:

[Pedrito]

Actually, you can notify Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] of copyright violations. They're usually pretty good about following up. As for how to know which came first, one way is with The Wayback Machine [archive.org].

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.

Re:

[harmonica]

Actually, you can notify Wikipedia of copyright violations. They're usually pretty good about following up.

I know, but it wasn't a 1:1 copy and I didn't want to bitch. I also didn't care that much, and I have received a lot from Wikipedia. In the end, with my (grandparent) posting I wanted to point out that cause and effect aren't always as clear as they seem to be, I used my personal experience only as a case in point, not to complain.

As for how to know which came first, one way is with The Wayback Machine

Re:

[japhmi]

I know, but it wasn't a 1:1 copy and I didn't want to bitch. I also didn't care that much, and I have received a lot from Wikipedia.

Just go and edit the article(s) in question with a reference back to your page.

The solution

[niceone]

John Wiley and Sons could just edit the wikipedia article to be different. Problem solved.

Wikipedia's Official Reaction...

[CheeseburgerBrown]

...was unfortunately deleted by an overzealous editor who argued that the issue did not meet notability criteria.

they are known scumbags

[Kuj0317]

Wiley made my EE intro to circuits book. 1) there were many mistakes, on 3rd edition run. 2) you had to purchase the answer manual seperately. Ordering it got you a cheap, useless book and a registration card for their online system to actually get the answers. The site made it difficult to save the answers, and the registration expired after 1 year. Yeah, scumbags.

Wikiplagarism

[PhearoX]

I would submit that Wikipedia contains more plagarism than any one textual work ever created.

So someone copied Wikipedia?

Meh.

That's what Wiley claim...

[argent]

... but they seem to have lost their "clean hands" advantage here.

Fair use?

[east coast]

Does anyone have a link to the full text of the book so we can judge for ourselves?

This isn't the publisher's fault

[stranger_to_himself]

Wiley are not responsible for copyright infringement in the stuff the publish. They can't possibly be expected to check all of the work submitted by every author against every other known source. They do ask authors to sign a warranty that the work that is submitted for publication is not somebody else's intellectual property. So if the authors did this, and signed it off as their own, then it's the authors fault.

stethoscope

[pikine]

If we have a stethoscope for the minds of various characters involved at different time, it could be like this:

• Unpaid college intern who worked on that book uncredited, "Shit, I spent too much time playing Bejeweled and IM with friends, and I have this essay to finish by 4pm. Maybe I'll take a little peek at what Wikipedia has to say about this."
• George Orwel, "Well done, my lowly minion intern. Looks like a fine essay to me. I'll incorporate it into my book."
• John Wiley and Sons, "Well done, my lowly minion author. Looks like a fine book to us. We will publish it."

A year later...

• Ydorb, "What the heck? They copied my Wikipedia article!"
• Slashdot, "What the heck? They copied someone's Wikipedia article!"
• John Wiley and Sons to George Orwel, "What the heck, you copied someone's Wikipedia article?"
• George Orwel, "Shit, I got sabotaged by one of my lowly minions. How can I ever admit this."
• John Wiley and Sons, "Shit, we got sabotaged by one of my authors. How can we ever admit this?"
• Meanwhile, the unpaid intern who work uncredited has returned to school, still addicted to Bejeweled, and still submitting Wikipedia articles for his homework assignment.

slashdot mentality

[uberjoe]

But. . .how can you have profit with out ??? ?

This is even worse than normal infringement

[aneeshm]

This is far worse than normal infringement, because when I infringe copyright, I'm honest about it, and so are millions of others. We know what we're doing, and we don't try to cover it up. We give credit to the creator.

These entities, on the other hand (the example in the FA, the plagiarism of the Wiki by The Times of India, and many others) are worse - they do not even acknowledge the source. They do not give the creator due credit. Not only do they infringe copyright and break the law, they also try t

Re:How are they going to claim...

[malkavian]

Because GDFL allows copying only if you allow the work to be freely copyable, and release the work it is included in under the GDFL.
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).

Re:

[ta bu shi da yu]

Bingo, got it in one.

However, the prize for most shameless copyright infringement goes to The Times Of India [wikipedia.org].

Re:

[missing000]

Ahem. It's called "Research".

/begin oblig Tom Lehrer lyric/
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:

[Chapter80]

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).

That's all fine and good. But the owner of the copyright is a collection of anonymous donors. Is some guy named 63.233.10.12 and some other guy named PediaMan2435 going to sue Wiley to assert their copyrights? Sure, they license their work to the Wikipedia Foundation (or whateve

Re:How are they going to claim...

[Tango42]

You are correct. The Wikimedia (with an 'm') Foundation does not have any legal rights to the content of Wikipedia other than what the GDFL gives everyone. If anyone is to be sued over copyright violations of text in Wikipedia, it needs to be by at least one of the editors of the article in question (not including editors that have just corrected spellings, added cleanup tags, etc).

Re:

[Tango42]

Sorry, I should have said "successfully sue". Sure, anyone can file a lawsuit on anyone else, but you're not going to be awarded damages for copyright violation if you don't own the copyrights (well... if you get a good lawyer and a bad judge, anything is possible, but I'll ignore miscarriages of justice for the sake of argument).

Re:

[sumdumass]

Actually, that is a carry over from Roman law or the concepts within it. You could actually sue a ladder for breaking while you were working and standing on it. Then after the ladder was found at fault, you could go after the person who made it.

Things have changed somewhat over the years but most all concepts of law suits extend from that era in one way or another. Because there are some people in the US that seems to have been able to master it doesn't mean it isn't unique to just the US. It is prevalent i

Re:How are they going to claim...

[allcar]

Is anyone else reminded of Hitchhikers?

It is interesting to note that a later and wilier editor sent the book backwards in time through a temporal warp and then successfully sued the breakfast cereal company for infringement of the same laws.

Re:

[snoyberg]

Doh! I justed used up all my mod points! That was BRILLIANT

Re:How are they going to claim...

[PhilHibbs]

No, licences do not automatically apply, the *PL and CC* licences are not viral. If I copy your work and disregard the licence, then I have violated your copyright, and you can take me to court. If you released it under a particular licence, then that is pretty much irrelevant to me - if I didn't follow the licence, then I have simply violated your copyright. This author may well have asked a researcher or even a member of his family to come up with a couple of paragraphs about that incident and they copied Wikipedia, it would be unreasonable for the author's entire book to become freely available under the LGPL due to his carelessness in not checking the actions of a third party. A judge might come up with a reasonable compromise, such as ruling that the modified version of the text as appears in the book must be licenced under the LGPL and made available on the publisher's web site for download, and that future printings must credit the Wikipedia article as the source on which the text is based.

Re:How are they going to claim...

[__aayurq3262]

No, licences do not automatically apply, the *PL and CC* licences are not viral. If I copy your work and disregard the licence, then I have violated your copyright, and you can take me to court. If you released it under a particular licence, then that is pretty much irrelevant to me - if I didn't follow the licence, then I have simply violated your copyright.

If you violated the copyright, then you are liable for damages. The measure of damages is calculated based on a variety of factors, one of which is what the author charges for the copied work in the marketplace. That "charge" or fee is usually the *minimum* liability for infringing the author's rights. In this case, the author's "charge" is a license to copy the rest of the work under the LGPL/CC. That charge is highly relevant to the measure of damages suffered by the author.

it would be unreasonable for the [infringing] author's entire book to become freely available under the LGPL due to his carelessness in not checking the actions of a third party.

You may think it's unreasonable, but others might not. The infringing author had an obligation to supervise third party created works and not to infringe. I place a high value on the rights granted to the public under LGPL and CC licenses and comparatively much less value on private copyright rights to prevent the public from copying.

Re:

[PhilHibbs]

I place a high value on the rights granted to the public under LGPL and CC licenses and comparatively much less value on private copyright rights to prevent the public from copying.

I agree with that, and it's very well put. Getting that philosophy to be more widely understood and accepted is a challenge.

Re:

[utopianfiat]

Lack of diligence is not an excuse for plagiarism. I don't know what university you've attended, but at mine, if you copy a source verbatim and do not cite it, you'll fail the paper. Likewise, if you copy a source verbatim in the "real world", you get sued. It is most fucking reasonable for the author to be sued for his carelessness.

Anyway, this is also relevant: (GFDL section 2)

You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the c

Re:

[PhilHibbs]

Lack of diligence is not an excuse for plagiarism. I don't know what university you've attended, but at mine, if you copy a source verbatim and do not cite it, you'll fail the paper. Likewise, if you copy a source verbatim in the "real world", you get sued. It is most fucking reasonable for the author to be sued for his carelessness.

Of course, I never said it wasn't reasonable to sue the "author", but ruling that his entire book must be retrospectively GFDL licenced would be unreasonable in my (non-Lawyer)

Re:

[Hatta]

No, licences do not automatically apply, the *PL and CC* licences are not viral. If I copy your work and disregard the licence, then I have violated your copyright, and you can take me to court. If you released it under a particular licence, then that is pretty much irrelevant to me - if I didn't follow the licence, then I have simply violated your copyright.

How is that different than the GPL?

That wasn't the question

[p3d0]

How do they claim damages?

Re:

[shark72]

"How do they claim damages?"

Remember -- in copyright law there are compensatory, and then there are statutory. We know by now that record companies need not prove lost sales or economic harm; they ask for (and get) statutory damages. Writers of prose also have this option.

Re:How are they going to claim...

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

This is an interesting aspect of free license law that hasn't really been delved into yet.

You're so right! Noone on the wider internet or even slashdot has ever considered this!

Re:How are they going to claim...

[someone1234]

Copyright doesn't require proof of damages, but damages could be calculated from the sold copies of the book.

Re:

[biocute]

but damages could be calculated from the sold copies of the book.

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:

[Bacon Bits]

No, the first thing that happens is continued distribution of the infringed work must cease.

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:

[verloren]

Think bigger, think RIAA big - calculate damages based on how many copies of the book *could* have been sold. Until I found out about this dishonesty I was set to buy a dozen copies at least, as was everyone I've ever met.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

interesting aspect of...license law that hasn't really been delved into yet

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...

[MickLinux]

I know you are asking how Wikipedia will claim losses -- but I could as easily turn it around to the publisher.

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.

Re:

[It'sYerMam]

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.

How does a license affect a work which does not use the license, or anything licensed under the same?

Re:

[Stewie241]

*even if they remove the offending pages from future copies*, since the entire book is now contaminated.

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.

[CarpetShark]

How are they going to claim...losses, when they give away their work?

They're not giving ANYTHING away. They're licensing a copy of their product to you, under certain conditions.

Re:

[hey!]

By claiming that they wouldn't have licensed the content for this particular use except for a reasonable royalty. That opens the doors for punitive damages too.

To my mind the lost sales claims are the most dubious anyway. It's better to claim that the economic benefit enjoyed by the infringer rightly belongs to you.

Re:

[georgewilliamherbert]

who's to say the author of the wikipedia entry didn't actually copy his or her own work in to the wikipedia verbatim?

The issue is being pursued by Wikipedia user "Ydorb", who wrote the original material in question into Wikipedia. He appears not to be George Orwel, the book's author, based on him commenting that he thinks that the book stole his material.

People do contribute stuff they've written elsewhere to Wikipedia. They rarely if ever then attack themselves for copyright violation for having done so.