[Taxacom] Botanical Plagiarism

[Stephen Thorpe]

Mark Costello wrote: 
 
>I understand that while individual facts cannot be copyrighted, original compilations can (e.g. a species list within some context).<
 
I'm not so sure! Certainly not in a global context, nor in a regional (country or provincial) context. Maybe for some particular private reserve or something? Going back to the global or country context, you cannot copyright the fauna or flora (in the sense of a species list thereof)! Suppose the country of "Costelloland" only has one species, Markus biodiversitatis ... a described species. Suppose I make a website on the biota of Costelloland. Can I copyright that? I think not! The issue isn't just that there is only a single species. It is rather that I can get the information straight from primary sources (in this case the original description of the species). Nobody can tell if I got the name from the original description or from the secondary website ...
 
Stephen

From: Mark J. Costello <markcost at gmail.com>
To: 'TAXACOM' <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> 
Sent: Monday, 11 March 2013 10:28 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Botanical Plagiarism

I understand that while individual facts cannot be copyrighted, original
compilations can (e.g. a species list within some context). However, images
are not really facts and each one can be copyrighted (as they usually are). 

Attribution is good practice but only required if the CC or other
'permission' required it. I think this is why it is important to ascertain
and keep copyright so the holder can then formally complain about a breach
of the licence of use.

We had a World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) database downloaded and
published as a book, for sale on Amazon. As owner of the IP and copyright of
the WoRMS content, our society formally complained to the publisher who
removed it from their publication list in 2 weeks without further comment.
One of our colleagues wrote a book review on Amazon pointing out the source
of the book and that its content, now updated, was available for free
online. I am not sure if we would have had such good grounds to complain if
the author had actually attributed the source of the content because
arguably the re-organisation of the facts would have been a new creation. 

The only thing WoRMS asks users to do is cite the source (e.g. web page,
database as a whole) and the citation is at the foot of every page. Still
many scientists do not do so :)

Best wishes
Mark 

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Arthur Chapman
Sent: Friday, 8 March 2013 9:43 a.m.
To: TAXACOM
Subject: [Taxacom] Botanical Plagiarism

The following blog by Mark Watson about some botanical books that have 
been appearing recently - all derived from internet sources without 
attribution.may be of interest

http://stories.rbge.org.uk/archives/1321

Arthur D. Chapman
Ballan, Australia
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(2) a Google search specified as:  site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here

Celebrating 26 years of Taxacom in 2013.