[Taxacom] Botanical Plagiarism

Mon Mar 11 19:21:47 CDT 2013

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree, except that you have shifted topic from legalities to professional ethics. It may be a mistake being made by some to attempt to make laws to force the ethics. But, perhaps a bigger problem are those profit hungry insititutions and delusional control freak type people who are making bloated copyright claims on free use data, banking on it never being tested out in court. The issues involved aren't clear or well defined enough to make into laws. Any attempted legal challenge would fail to reach a definite outcome, and so threaten to bankrupt the challenger unless they pulled out beforehand ...

Stephen

________________________________
From: Richard Pyle <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org>
To: 'Stephen Thorpe' <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>; 'Robin Leech' <releech at telus.net>; 'Mark J. Costello' <markcost at gmail.com>; 'TAXACOM' <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> 
Sent: Tuesday, 12 March 2013 1:00 PM
Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Botanical Plagiarism

Again, here's how I see the difference:

1) Ripping off an entire regional checklist from someone else and
reproducing it verbatim as though it was new original work, is something
that our community should scorn (whatever the legalities of copyright are).

2) Building upon one or many prior regional checklists, citing who in the
past had recorded taxon X from place Y, what evidence they used, adding new
evidence to support (or contradict) the earlier lists, adding thoughtful
analysis, etc. -- is something that we should strongly supported (indeed,
this is exactly how most regional checklists that I've been involved with
have been framed).

The reason our world is so messy in this area is that there is a lot of
ground between these two -- as I alluded to in a previous post.

Aloha,
Rich

> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-
> bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Stephen Thorpe
> Sent: Monday, March 11, 2013 1:30 PM
> To: Robin Leech; 'Mark J. Costello'; 'TAXACOM'
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Botanical Plagiarism
> 
> Robin,
> I suspect that the complexities, if this were ever to be tested in court,
would
> keep the lawyers busy arguing indefinitely! There is no reason, in your
> example, why the given location (X) cannot be a whole country, like New
> Zealand. Then, if what you said were true, the first person to copyright a
list
> of the biota (or even any taxonomic group within the biota) would have
> copyright on the list, and nobody else could do so without gaining
> permission! A further complication is how the list was compiled in the
first
> place. If it was based on unpublished data, then there might be more of a
> claim to copyright, maybe? But if it was just compiled from primary (or
other
> secondary) sources, then copyright would effectively prevent anyone else
> from compiling a similar list from the same sources! This would surely be
> nonsensical? Biodiversity data is effectively encyclopaedic knowledge, and
> surely the same rules apply? There are a thousand encyclopaedias all
telling
> the same facts about history, geography, chemistry, physics, etc., and
> although the precise wording may be subject to copyright, the factual
> content is not ...
> Stephen
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Robin Leech <releech at telus.net>
> To: 'Stephen Thorpe' <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>; 'Mark J. Costello'
> <markcost at gmail.com>; 'TAXACOM' <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, 12 March 2013 12:13 PM
> Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Botanical Plagiarism
> 
> 
> I dunno, Stephen.  If I publish a list of spider names from a given
location (X)
> in a refereed journal, this would constitute my legal publication.  If you
now
> try to publish my list of spider species in another refereed journal,
declaring
> them to be from location (X), I am pretty sure that there would be hell to
> pay.
> 
> Now, if you were take my list, then add it to a larger list, say from
areas (X)
> and (Y) and (Z), and even merge them in some way and make it so that you
> can draw biogeographical conclusions, then if you give me credit for my
> contribution, then yes, you would publish my list without copyright
> problems.
> 
> In fact, doing this sort of thing, merging and drawing conclusions
otherwise
> not seen, is what science is all about, no?
> 
> Robin
> 
> From:Stephen Thorpe [mailto:stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz]
> Sent: March-11-13 3:13 PM
> To: Robin Leech; 'Mark J. Costello'; 'TAXACOM'
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Botanical Plagiarism
> 
> Yes, of course! But subsequent use of the *name* is not subject to
> copyright! In fact, there is no legal requirement to attribute a name to
the
> correct authority, just an ICZN requirement! The issue here is whether
> secondary compilations of species names are subject to copyright, to which
I
> answer "certainly not!" Sites like WoRMS just have to take it on the chin,
if
> someone rips off their "hard work" ...
> 
> Stephen
> 
> From:Robin Leech <releech at telus.net>
> To: 'Stephen Thorpe' <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>; 'Mark J. Costello'
> <markcost at gmail.com>; 'TAXACOM' <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, 12 March 2013 10:00 AM
> Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Botanical Plagiarism
> 
> Does not the description of a new species constitute an individual fact -
> which is copyrighted?
> You cannot pull my name off and substitute it with yours.  I believe the
> original description of
> a new species is automatically copyrighted.
> Robin
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Stephen
> Thorpe
> Sent: March-11-13 1:59 PM
> To: Mark J. Costello; 'TAXACOM'
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Botanical Plagiarism
> 
> 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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