...and they're all about...Gastropods!

GrahamBould (T-C-L-K-R-D) decided to copypasta a buncha articles about Gastropods in New Zealand. He uses and writes many, many, many articles.

This problem was first pointed out in February, 2008 This editor has been around since March 2006 and already they've found yet another source of copyright violations.

How many other disasters are lurking in WP's millions of articles?

In the meantime, Durova asks a pertinent question :



Apparently, he was for a time, but has been unblocked to...help fix the problems? He's been blithely editing away...

Here's the subpage at the Gastropod project for cleaning this stuff up.

So much for safe places in WP to edit....

Interesting comment I saw, as one editor worked to reprimand the copyright violator...



Rewording, I thought, if done with the intention of passing off another's work as "new" and "your own", is no defense against charges of plagiarism and (in turn) copyright violation. Others seem to agree with me.

Anyway, I am working on my new book, Moody Richard. What do you think of the opening passage??



How am I doing?

Greg

Looks like he came to the realization:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=277999151

I think it is useful to compare copyright issues, which Wikipedia does seem to take seriously and is responsive (even anticipatory) to outside concerns with defamation issues. Amazing what the belief whether a corporation is "immune" or not will have on behavior.

What gets on my tits is that a massive and long-standing copyright problem like this is met with quiet understanding and gentle admonishments to the guilty editor so as to persuade him to help clear up the mess. Yet tell an administrator he can stick his civility warning up his arse results in an immediate three-day block, no questions asked. Since when has civility been more important than morality, to say nothing of legality?

But a least a MCA take-down notice will always get immediate attention.

My working theory is that WP is a free content factory whose worker bees take materials under copyright, chew thems up and then spit them back out in a form that is modified enough so that the ideas (which cannot be copyright) are now released under a "free license".

When somebody doesn't chew enough and material from the original source is still present, the nice admins are there to say "chew harder next time".

When you say bad things to the nice admins, you're keeping them from find more things to chew and spit out. So, you have to be neutralized, for the good of the hive. Bees do the same thing when other insects enter the hive.

So, this poor sap needs to be helped understand how he can legally steal ideas from copyright sources, so it can't be traced. They're glad that he's doing the work though...

Of course, Wikipedia will never be sued for copyright infringement. Just like nobody ever dared sue mp3.com for copyright infringement...Just keep chewing!

It seems like an honest, good-faith error rather than an intentional attempt to infringe copyright; the person who did it said that the original site explicitly said that re-publishing their info on noncommercial sites with credit was OK, and the Wikipedia policies that say that such permission is not sufficient are rather arcane and hard for non-insiders to understand. Since Wikipedia is not commercial, such use probably is not illegal as long as some reference to the original site exists in the history or references section of the article, but Wikipedia chooses to be stricter to avoid copyright problems when their content is reused elsewhere, including commercially.

Note some have disingenuously used this as a working definition of "original research/synthesis".

Actually, that's the second case that was discovered The majority of the problem was directly lifted from the print book cited above. In any case, this guy was warned about this way back in February of 2008. How come nobody said anything further then?

My guess is that, because of the knee jerk reaction against copyrights in general, that nobody really thought much about it.

The only surprise is that it's become an issue now. This, to me, indicates a profound change in attitude towards copyright in general (ie they're finally getting that WMF/editors--probably editors, anyway---could be sued to Hell and back for this kind of thing).

What I don't see being discussed is dealing with the issue of scraper sites which are now hosting the copyright material, thinking (mistakenly) that the material that they're hosting is GFDL.

Could Wikipedia/Wikipedia editors be sued by scrapers for "false representation" if TSHTF?

I wonder...

What gave you the idea that wikipedia is not commercial? Haven't you noticed that new "Create a book" tab, for instance> Do you think those books are going to be given away free?


Synthesis is the policy I have the greatest trouble understanding. Well, after "civility", obviously.

"Chew harder" is a very good description of how Wikipedia generates content from copyrighted material. Still, I don't think WMF is likely to run seriously afoul in any copyright dispute. They stand anxiously ready to do whatever is needed to make these disputes go away. They are willing to be responsible where they have to and be irresponsible where they can.

Hahaha, you might notice that WP-scraper/mirror sites which give a damn about complying with the GFDL (or even saying where the content came from) are few and far between.

The .org domain suffix?

Which means what in your opinion? Anyone can register a .org suffix. Even done it myself. Just hand over your money and you can have one as well.

Yeah, but any fixing he's done has been at a snail's pace.