Talk:English Council of State

Lord President of the Council of State
I am concerned that the list in this section may be copyright material. --PBS (talk) 08:45, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I cited where the information came from and based on what I know of copyright laws concerning information, if as long as someone cites where one received his or her information it would be alright. However if I'm wrong, I will take it down as quickly as possible. Fuelsaver (talk) 15:11, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
 * If it were ordinary text it would have to be quoted, but with a list don't know, so I have asked at Wikipedia_talk:Copyright problems. --PBS (talk) 16:39, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

←Hi. Lists are copyrighted to the extent that they represent human creativity (not human labor). Thus, a comprehensive bibliography is not copyrightable, but a list of "Notable works" is, since the notability of the works is subjective. Copyright may also exist in the presentation of information, even if the information is not creative. A creative chart may be subject to copyright, though the information in it would be free for use.

This list kind of straddles the line, in my opinion. A comprehensive list of presidents of the Council of State in chronological order is not copyrightable, but this list replicates the structure, including annotations such as "Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, baronet [from 1661 baron Ashley of Wimborne St. Giles, from 1672 earl of Shaftesbury, baron Cooper of Pawlett]". It also includes what seems to be an incomplete fragment of "Members of the Council known to serve as president" from 19 May 1659 - 25 Oct 1659. Copyright problems in creative presentation can be remedied by removing the admittedly minimal creativity of longer notes, keeping the list to simple names or putting that information into your own language. The fact that the source list switches from a straightforward chronological list to an alphabetical (perhaps fragmentary) list in one point adds an additional challenge, as it is also a creative choice on the part of that list's compilers. I don't believe that you can comfortably reproduce that. You might instead gather the names into a sentence (a table might help clarify this) introduced something like, "According to www.archontology.org...." --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:48, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you PBS and Moonriddengirl for respectively finding out and resolving the copyright issue.Fuelsaver (talk) 23:18, 16 November 2009 (UTC)