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Why was my article deleted?
Posting on most sites (including CP) is a license, not a copyright assignment. So you are giving them and others rights to use it, but they do not come to own it, and hence you do not lose your right to submit your contribution elsewhere. Now, if other editors at CP (or some other site) make edits to your contribution, those edits could put their copyright into it, which could mean you couldn't post it on a site with another license without their permission. If the edits are minor/trivial, this is a non-issue (copyright does not apply to minor changes like spelling corrections). And, if other editors make more major changes, you can reverse their changes to produce a version containing only your text, which you are then free to use wherever you wish.
So, I don't know the details of this particular case (since I am no longer a sysop I can no longer view the deleted contribution, ha)... but in principle, I don't see the problem with copying things you write for another site here, provided you pay careful attention to authorship and licensing issues.
"provided you pay careful attention to authorship and licensing issues."
Precisely the point. We are not copyright lawyers. As I noted, copying the text from CP taints the text. As in, dealing with ensuring that the text is taken properly and in accordance with all laws and contracts and licenses is more difficult than a simple "it's all good".
CPs copyright disclaimer also does not state whether an author is licensing their submissions permanently to CP, or if they are contributing their work as a piece of a collective and assigning copyright rights to the work to whatever entity controls CP. (Andy really is a fail lawyer.)
You don't need to be a copyright lawyer to get a basic understanding of copyright law. There are ample resources on the Internet you could consult.
Confirming all legalities are complied with is simple - just look at the revision history of the page on CP. If the editor here is the only substantial editor to the CP article, or if they have reverted any substantial contributions by other editors in the version here, then legally it is fine. ("Substantial" is a pretty weak standard - obvious spelling or grammar corrections, slight rewordings, single word changes, are fine; anything much more than that won't be; if there is doubt, feel free to err on the side of caution.) Now I haven't actually applied these criteria to Andries contribution, but there is nothing that impractical about doing so.
CP's copyright disclaimer is not the best, yes; but it is not a copyright assignment, it is a license. None of its language suggests assignment - only licensing. For example, "By contributing information to Conservapedia, you irrevocably consent to the display, copying, reuse or editing of your information, edits and entries, with or without attribution." And, even if it said copyright assignment, that is legally impossible, since the terms explicitly state they are made under US law (see clause 3), and US copyright law says assignment is only valid if executed in writing with signatures (see 17 USC 204(a).
Again, you seem to lack an understanding of what "taint" means.
And you can argue all you want about what CP's copyright disclaimer implies, and they can, too... in front of a court. We (The RW Foundation) is not going to sit in court and argue about if blah blah blah that was copied from CP was done legally and in full accordance with US law.
You seem to be of the opinion that copyright law is simpler than it actually is. See to getting that checked.
You Eira obviously have no understanding of copyright law, and no interest in gaining any.
Yes, copyright law contains obscure corner cases where professional legal advice is necessary. But this isn't one of them.
Your assumption that I have no understanding of copyright law is not entirely accurate. I am not a copyright lawyer so it is true that I don't know copyright law in its entirety. I would be surprised if you were the same.
I do however have a reasonable understanding of copyright law. And I have enough legal studies to know that going onto a board and talking about "blah blah blah, this is what the law says" invites people to point out how the law doesn't work exactly as you state.
No matter how simple you think this case is if CP decide to sue us, it's an expensive legal proposition. Particularly since the RWF as a corporation must obtain representation through a lawyer.
We're willing to fight defamation arguments for editors, but we're not going to battle licensing arguments over material copied from CP. Especially when we've already told editors not to do it.
Many people who are not copyright lawyers have a far better understanding of copyright law than you appear to.
Since when is Conservapedia a corporation? I am not aware of any evidence they are incorporated; from the information available to me, it appears they are unincorporated.
CP could decide to sue RWF for fifty thousand random different reasons without any legal justification, why restrict yourself to this one?
Besides, has anyone asked Andy? If you do, and he agrees with my interpretation, then he is estopped from suing you for this. Hey, I might just ask what he thinks next time I am over there.
Correction, in my post where I said "CP is a corporation" I meant "RWF is a corporation".
Yes, CP could sue the RWF for fifty thousand random different reasons without any legal justification. And we would defend any frivolous lawsuit. It is however bad form to invite frivolous lawsuits.
RE: Estoppel, I believe you're misunderstanding how estoppel works, but I'm not comfortable enough to make a confident argument about that, so meh.
Is it inviting a frivolous lawsuit? Why not just reach out to CP and find out their view on this, rather than just assuming based on no actual evidence?
In law, have I finally found something Ms. Pedant isn't able to be pedantic about????
Yes, it's inviting a frivolous lawsuit.
It's also not other editors jobs to do the leg work to ensure that the edits of another editor are legal.
And it's not that you've found something that I am not able to be pedantic about, but rather something that I don't want to exert the effort into because it's entirely off-topic.
If you want to have a discussion about estoppel, feel free to start a new topic on my talk page, and we can discuss it at length there.
No evidence provided for assertion.
It's not that much work.
I didn't think it were necessary to point out that copying text from another person's wiki invites a frivolous lawsuit.
If it's not much work, then the original editor could have done it before hand.
Jesus fuck. Just use the WP version like I said at 12:19 on May 17 so we can avoid even having to talk to Andy Schlafly. The CP license is a legal calamity because it purports to permit Andy Schlafy to unilaterally decide he's going to ask for material to be taken down for "self defense." He's sent a small handful of DMCA takedown requests over the years and while this isn't an instance of use that would favor him much, I don't understand how this discussion got so long. We use CC by SA 3.0 just like WP. With limited exceptions, it requires all material here to be CC by SA compatible. The same licensing scheme means we can use anything from any other CC by SA project and vice versa as long as the terms of the license are followed. CPs license isn't consistent with CC by SA at least because it purports to permit this capricious determination of "self defense" as a justification for demanding the removal of ostensibly licensed material. Thus, unless he agrees to relicense the material under CC by SA, permission is irrelevant since some other CC by SA project wouldn't necessarily be entitled to reuse the material under the CC by SA license. CC by SA isn't revokable under any circumstances like "self defense." It also more clearly maintains the full extent of the original author's copyright in licensed material. Not so clear Schlafly's shit stain of a license does that nor is it any more clear that an assignment wouldn't have some legal effect. Whether or not US copyright law requires copyright assignments to be in writing, every state and every other country has its own copyright regime and it's not worth wasting time discussing whether Andy's shitty license is an assignment under some other jurisdiction's law or not. I'm not prepared to accept CPs choice of law provision at face value without doing sone legal research. And I'm not going to do that research because this is fucking boring and I've got better things to do like make money and chase sweet sweet tail. So there's yet another layer of legal research made unnecessary by sloth and the elegant CC by SA licensing scheme. In closing, each of you should be out getting drunk and prowling for ass instead of wasting your time in this discussion. Short answer: don't reuse material submitted to CP except for strong cases of fair use for commentary or parody. Just go get the WP version that's compatible with our license.
You know, it's funny people making such a fuss about someone copying text they themselves wrote from CP, when Capturebot is filling this site up with image snapshots of it. It is fair use, but there are limits to fair use, and one of them is the extent of the copying. The extent of the copying by Capturebot is enormous, which calls the fair use status of it into question.
If Andy was going to sue or DCMA this site, why would he bother about Andries' article where he would be on very shaky legal grounds in doing so? Why wouldn't he just go after everything Capturebot has uploaded, he would be on much firmer legal ground there?
Yet I don't see all this fussing about the real legal problems of Capturebot, just the imagined legal problems of Andries' article.
Don't change the subject, not that I'm at all happy about having to talk with you. This has very little to do with copyright, to the extent CP even has copyright in any material on that site. I have no idea and as I said i don't care.
We can't use material submitted to CP because it's incompatible with our licensing scheme.
Go outside.
"This has very little to do with copyright".... "it's incompatible with our licensing scheme".
Don't you understand, that all licensing schemes are based on copyright ???!!!
Some licensing schemes are based around patents.
Seriously, just let this go...
God you're fucking thick. I'm finished talking with you now that I see you didn't actually read my posts but still want to endlessly yammer on. Go read the several posts I've already made here. They address your urgent JAQing off.