[Taxacom] Intellectual rights

[Richard Pyle]

Websites are definitely not considered as "published" in the sense of the ICZN Code.  There are formal rules established in the 2012 Amendment to the Code associated with electronic publication.  However, this discussion concerns taxonomy, not nomenclature, so what the Code regards as a publication is not very relevant.  The reality is that the whole concept of "Publish" is in flux right now (has been for a couple decades; and likely will be for a couple more). The advent of the internet has actually shifted the definition back towards its more original meaning: "to make public".  

Aloha,
Rich

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of
> John Grehan
> Sent: Sunday, December 13, 2015 2:00 AM
> To: Dr Brian Taylor
> Cc: taxacom
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Intellectual rights
> 
> That's an interesting question about websites being a formal publication or not. I
> would not have thought so, but I will be interested to see what those on this list
> acquainted with the code have to say (its probably been gone over in past
> discussions, in which case I have lost track of that). I manage a web site for a
> taxonomic group and have never assumed it is a publication of the form that
> would require recognition for any taxonomic changes I might make on that web
> site, and if I wanted to be sure of recognition I would not put it on my website
> (as in the case of a proposed synonymy that is in the pipeline in a journal
> publication, but not on the website until the journal article is published). But
> publication or not it does seem less than straightforward that in your case the
> authors should read and cite an article referring to your proposed taxonomic
> change that they later make, raising the question of whether or not they actually
> read the article they cite.
> 
> John Grehan
> 
> On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 5:09 AM, Dr Brian Taylor <
> dr.brian.taylor at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> 
> > Hello all,
> >
> > I wonder if any of you have any suggestions as to how to deal with a
> > publication on Zookeys where the authors claim to have separated a
> > previously well known ³species² into being a new junior synonym of two
> > other species.  I ask this because, after examining fresh specimens, I
> > posted that synonymization on my two websites, both archived by the
> > British Library Web Archive, in 2009. The main website has been
> > on-line in an evolving form since 1998.  The Zookeys authors make no
> > reference of any sort to my works.
> > They and other researchers from the organisation in question, headed
> > by the subject editor for the present instance, have published a
> > number of papers in Zootaxa and Zookeys over the past seven years or
> > so but not once have they listed my sites as a source of information.
> > Many others have.  In 2011, an author who the Zookeys writers do cite,
> > wrote of my finding of the synonymy and had my website among his
> references.
> >
> > In the BZN Discussion on Electronic Publication, March 2009, I
> > previsaged this situation by posing the questions ³What constitutes a
> > publication? Who is a publisher?². I note that UK copyright law the
> > content of a website is automatically protected and does not have to
> > be registered as there is no register.
> >
> > Thanks in anticipation of your responses.
> >
> > Brian Taylor
> >
> > www.antsofafrica.org
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