Editor Log: January 2001 (log)

January 17

After discussion with ifeeldizzy, I removed the three component nodes of the copyrighted work of fiction (and Hugo Award and Nebula Award winner) Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. ifeeldizzy is attempting to secure permission to node the work, and will renode it if able to do so. Note that ifeeldizzy has been extremely cooperative, and as far as I know there are no hard feelings on either side.

Normally this sort of discussion takes place between myself and the noder. I chose to disclose this particular editorial action of mine for two reasons.

1. This was started by another noder's complaint to me about the noding of a copyrighted work. Some of the fallout from this discussion can be seen in Editor Log: January 13, 2001. Having noders "tattle" on each other is a matter of significant contention, both within the "gods" group and beyond it.
2. ifeeldizzy asked about my writeup in the node Dead Sea Scrolls. It's not good work on my part. As I recall I had wanted to link to Dead Sea Scrolls from another writeup, but it did not exist. I really knew little about them. Normally in such cases I'll research the topic from a few sources, synthesize, and add a node. In this case I was in a hurry. I clearly took the text from a single website, rewrote it rather thinly, and posted it. Bad Lord Brawl.
   
   ifeeldizzy suggests that, in the same spirit as my removal of the subsections of Flowers for Algernon, that this writeup should be killed as well. In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm currently inclined not to remove it. I feel that there are a couple of key differences:
   1. The source was not a copyright work of fiction, but a web page from which I extracted a portion. (credit is given in the node. Note that I added my credit recently, and had failed to do so originally.)
   2. I had attempted to rewrite the text. In this case, I did a poor job.
   It had been dem bones' contention at one point that information was not copyright, only the expression of same. When I node what I don't know I act as I described above. I feel that this is valid, and I normally try for three sources. I may or may not credit them, depending on how much I extract. (Again, in this case I slipped up by failing to credit the source.)

Perhaps I have erred by removing the subsections of Flowers for Algernon. Certainly dem bones feels that we need remove copyright information if, and only if, the author complains. Myself, I feel that full works of fiction should not appear without the author's permission. I'd be interested in the views of the E2 community.

Certainly I erred with a sloppy treatment of Dead Sea Scrolls. It is likely that in my writeups (over 1000) there may be similar failures. I invite feedback on this issue as well ... am I being unfair in favouring my own clearly-unoriginal writeup while removing ifeeldizzy's?

heyoka commented that our "don't ask, don't tell" was worrying for several reasons:

1. "It's a flagrant abuse of international law." (As dem bones has commented, E2's non-profit status blurs the line somewhat.)
2. "People here are also writing original work. How can there be any trust in the ownership and protection of their rights, when e2 as an org is happy to take material from other protected sources?"
3. "I think it confuses noders (many of who have a very thin understanding of copyright law in the first place)."

January 25

I discovered a number of older nodes which were verbatim copies of the wonderful column "Amateur Scientist" from Scientific American. While it's wonderful writing and great information, it's also not the noder's work -- unless the noder is Shawn Carlson of SA - which I strongly doubt.

Somewhat regretfully I am tracking these down and killing them.

Before I kill such a writeup, I inject the following text:

The information in this writeup is taken entirely verbatim from the Scientific American article "xxxx" in the MMMM YYYY issue. See http://www.sciam.com/.....html
This writeup was removed by Lord Brawl as a copy/paste violation, Jan 26, 2001.