Talk:Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den/Archive 2

Copyright issue
This is the editnotice of the Chinese Wikipedia. Therefore, we should remove the text as the passage has not reached the expiration of copyright. --Good afternoon (talk) 06:28, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 当然，您说得对. Unfortunately, that is not going to leave much content behind so we need to figure out how much it is reasonable to quote whilst avoiding copyright problems.  Philg88 ♦talk 08:15, 23 June 2014 (UTC)


 * We've already had plenty of discussion on this before, and consensus is leaning towards inclusion as non-free fair-use, as otherwise this article would be barely educational at all. Keep in mind that we adhere to United States copyright law, which seems to suggest to me that it's perfectly acceptable for us to use the entirety of this copyrighted text to illustrate a purpose, especially since using a smaller portion of it would not be very useful at explaining the same thing. Also, to the original poster, whatever decisions that have been finalized on the Chinese Wikipedia apply to the Chinese Wikipedia only, and do not apply here on the English Wikipedia. If a change is desired, the discussion should take place here, on this project. SUBST-ing a template from the Chinese Wikipedia here doesn't really seem to have a point, from what I see. -- benlisquare T•C•E 12:32, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Hello. FYI, please see ja:Wikipedia:削除依頼/施氏食獅史2回目.


 * Chao is a ROC's citizen, not a PRC's citizen.
 * Copyrights of Taiwan has been protected by TRIPS Agreement.123.221.47.163 (talk) 02:05, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
 * But by both Taiwan and Chinese law the expiration time is 50 years since publication, which was 1930 (according to Chinese page, also Chinese page freely uses the text in same way English wiki did)?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.237.188.146 (talk) 07:48, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Information to inform the copyright discussion
I've been trying to find out some information about the copyright status of the poem. If we are going to resolve this dispute, a vital first step is to find the first publication of the poem. Despite the voluminous discussion on this page & elsewhere, I don't think we have done so yet. A 2015 book review by Wolfgang Behr in the Journal of Chinese Linguistics published the full text of the poem in Chinese characters and two transcriptions. It should be noted that JCL is published by the University of California Press, which published some of Chao's works, so this is not necessarily fair use (though there is no copyright note there, as you might expect). Behr notes an article in the Guangming Daily by Zhang Junling discussing the origins of the poem. The version there is cited to Chao's 《语言问题》 (Language Problems), which was first published in Taipei in 1959 (see under Week 3 texts in that link). Behr says the poem has circulated since the 1930s, and has also mentioned the poem in a 2009 article.

In The Freudian Robot, Lydia H. Liu cites Chao's 1953 paper on 'Meaning in language and how it is acquired' for the English translation, which was read out (including the poem) at the 10th Macy Conference on Cybernetics. The paper was expensively republished in 2016. Liu prints the whole poem (in characters, transcription & English), but her book and the Macy proceedings are both published by University of Chicago Press, which may or may not be significant. It would be interesting to check page X (yes) of Liu's book, which seems to contain copyright permissions, for any reference to the poem's status.

There are some helpful comments in Hsi Hsi and the Rhinoceros, an article by Philip M. Cohen (perhaps but not certainly the chess expert, given the common interest in cerebral games) in the semi-scholarly journal Word Ways. Cohen claims that this poem was previously published in the 1960 Encyclopedia Britannica and the 1964 Collier's Encyclopedia in their articles on 'Chinese'. It would be very interesting if someone could check those encyclopedias to see whether they say that they have permission from the publishers or are claiming it as fair use (and whether the articles were written by Chao himself). However, the Cohen article notes that the poem was removed from later editions of Britannica, and you have to wonder why. We cannot assume it was a copyright issue: the EB author may have felt that it was a hackneyed example and a fresh one would serve her/his purpose better. An article by Taylor & Taylor gives an (English?) publication date of 1960: is this citing EB, a reissue of the Macy proceedings or something else?

To move from data to analysis, if the Chinese text was published by a by a US national in Taipei in 1959, then it seems that the work would be protected for the life of the late Professor Chao plus fifty years (2032). If the poem was circulating from the 1930s, but was not published until 1959, then I suppose it is possible that might constitute abandonment, but I couldn't find an acceptable free source on the Copyright law of the Republic of China.

Obviously we apply our policies, not those of our rivals, but it would be very interesting to find that the EB and Collier's lawyers considered the poem suitable for fair use in the 1960s. If two major US encyclopedias have already published the poem as fair use, at a time when (a) Mr Chao was alive and living in the US and (b) the US had diplomatic relations with the Republic of China and was therefore presumably offering full protection to works published there, then I think that it would be consistent with our policies to include it in our article.

If anyone has access to these sources, please do take the investigation further! There's definitely more useful information in the Zhang article, but I need to reformat it to read it easily. Matt's talk 12:19, 14 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Before the 1959 book, the text was also published on Guangming Daily in August 1957.
 * Anyway, at least in Chinese language media, no one take this issue seriously. These are all mainstream media articles that cover the full text. Esiymbro (talk) 13:14, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Middle Chinese Pronunciation
d͡ʑiᴇk̚  ɕiɪt̚   ɕɨ   d͡ʒɨX   ɕiᴇ   d͡ʑiᴇX   d͡ʑiɪH   ʃˠiɪ   d͡ʑiᴇiH   ʑɨk̚   d͡ʒɨX   ʃˠiɪ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.236.213.102 (talk) 03:11, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

How frozen are external links vis-a-vis this "oh noes, copyright... maybe" silliness?
So I surprised myself again by seeing how ... silly we can be about observing copyright to the point of strangulation. This article is the best illustration WP has of lawyering to no good end.

As an instance of how disconnected the arguments and debates have been from reality, if people are so **** sure when he wrote and 'published' this material, why isn't that mentioned - with refs - in the article?

So... since we can't possibly risk the wrath of his wife (oh, she's dead?) or his descendants (oh, he didn't have any?) or his publishers (oh, we don't know who they could have been?), or the concerned masses (oh, there aren't any?), ...

Can we at least point out that the poem/lesson/example/nonsense exists elsewhere on the web, and perhaps give a couple external links? Or is it such a terrible violation of a thing's copyright to mention the thing actually still exists in readable form? Shenme (talk) 08:04, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It has already become meaningless when a bunch of copyright zealots decided that using the so-called "poem" (it's not, obviously) violates someone's right. Now this article's basically the same as introducing that "buffalo" sentence without actually mentioning it. Anyway, if they really cared, they could do something with that page as well, as that sentence is also written by somebody.
 * Readers who want to know something about this topic can simply avoid this mess. The original text is not that hard to find, after all. Esiymbro (talk) 09:11, 18 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I think the main reason you can't have the poem on Wikipedia is because the poem is the intellectual property of someone else (No matter if we know who or not). As Wikipedia's articles are public domain this would be the literary equivalent of Pirate Bay. A commercial encyclopedia would be able to purchase the rights and publish the poem in their books. But as long as the poem itself haven't been declared public domain it can't be published on Wikipedia.


 * As for the links. It's not up to Wikipedia to decide which inofficial (and maybe even illegal) versions of the poem to link to. If people want to read the poem they can just google it themself.


 * Compare this to, for example, The Beatles. I can't find a single external link to any of their songs, neither can I find any of the lyrics inside the article. --Christoffre (talk) 02:31, 19 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Hello Chistoffre, I'd like to inform you that the sentence "I can't find a single external link to any of their songs, neither can I find any of the lyrics inside the article" might be a poem somebody wrote 50 years ago. You need to prove that it's not copywritten before you can write it here. Thank you. 24.123.141.218 (talk) 14:17, 20 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Hello 24.123.141.218. My sentence does not reasonable have a high enough threshold of originality. However, it is reasonable to assume that The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den does. Please refrain from nonconstructive comments on the Talk page, Wikipedia is not a forum. --Christoffre (talk) 14:44, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not so sure that the opinion of an IP editor who is not clear on the distinction between copywriting and copyrighting needs to be taken all that seriously, anyway. TJRC (talk) 20:26, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: https://books.google.it/books?id=YWWYBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA2. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and, if allowed under fair use, may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, providing it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore, such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:34, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: this concerns the addition of an English translation copied directly from a book published by Springer in 2015. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:34, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Copyright (Again)
deleted my comment on his talk page and commanded I move it here, so move it I do.

I'm baffled here – has someone actually tried to claim that Chao's poem is copyrighted? That's preposterous. I've glanced through the recent discussions and I find it mind-boggling that there would be any copyright issue here. Chao circulated the poem from at least the 1930s, which surely constituted publication under the 1909 Act for American purposes (see Nimmer § 4.03 if you don't believe me). In any event, it appears without copyright notice in numerous American books pre-1964. What exactly is the problem here? In any event, to my knowledge Chao never even attempted to assert copyright over the poem, and it's inconceivable that his estate would try to do so now.  White Whirlwind  咨   01:11, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I'll see your Nimmer § 4.03 and raise you 17 U.S.C. § 104A. If it lost copyright due to lack of notice, is there some reason you believe its copyright was not restored under that section? That's exactly what that part of the Copyright Act was designed to do. TJRC (talk) 02:46, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * ah yes, that's the statutory provision on restoration that was at issue in Golan, I remember an IP friend telling me about it. I'm saying: it's got to be PD in China because it was never registered (as far as anyone can tell) when Chao published it in the '30s, and § 104A wouldn't apply because the creator had to be a national of a treaty party. What am I missing?  White Whirlwind  咨   07:18, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * What do you base the PD status in China on? You're saying China has a registration requirement?
 * I personally think there's a good chance this is PD in the United States, but it's sufficiently muddy that without any clear and definitive finding, we should err it on the side of caution and leave it out. TJRC (talk) 16:42, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Chao first started circulating (I say enough for "publication") in the 1930s in China. It was not a Berne Convention party (for sixty more years) and the 1928 Chinese copyright law required registration.   White Whirlwind  咨   23:40, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * 104A does not require that the country be a Berne adherent at the time of first publication. TJRC (talk) 03:03, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * True. But doesn't it fail restored work (C) (i.e. § 104A(h)(6)(C))?  White Whirlwind  咨   05:28, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't see how. You're saying it's in the public domain in the United States due to lack of proper notice, and the § 104A(h)(6)(C) you point to specifically lists (in (i)) that as one of the bases for restoration: "is in the public domain in the United States due to... noncompliance with formalities imposed at any time by United States copyright law, including... lack of proper notice..." TJRC (talk) 23:18, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

How many characters?
I counted 91 "shi" in the poem as given here. The article say "92", the first external link says "93" while containing 74 only. The second link has 104:

"Shi2 shi4 shi1shi4 Shi1 shi4 shi4 shi1, shi4 shi2 shi2 shi1. Shi4 shi2shi2 shi4 shi4 shi4 shi1. Shi2 shi2, shi4 shi4 shi4, shi4 shi2 shi* shi1 shi4 shi4. Shi4 shi2, shi4 shi4 shi4 shi2 shi1, shi3 shi2 shi2 shi3 shi4, shi3 shi4 shi2 shi1 shi4shi4. Shi4 shi2 shi4 shi2 shi1 shi1 shi4 shi2 shi4. Shi2 shi4 shi1, shi3 shi4 shi4 shi3 shi2 shi4. Shi2 shi4 shi4. Shi4 shi3 shi4 shi2 shi4 shi2 shi1 shi1. Shi2 shi2, shi3 shi4 shi4 shi2 shi* shi1 shi1 shi2 shi2 shi* shi2 shi1 shi1. Shi4 shi2, shi4 shi3 shi4 shi4 shi4shi2. Shi4 shi4 shi4 shi4.”

So, how many? `'mikka (t) 23:26, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * That depends on the characters you use.
 * You can add or take many characters if you like.
 * There are also many Shi stories that do not use story of the lion eating poet and there are also stories that uses other sounds, so you have many zhi zhi zhi, xi xi xi or ji ji ji stories etc.Lie-Hap-Po

How many distinct characters? &mdash;Tamfang 23:58, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * yeah, I counted 91 characters in total (not including the title), and 33 distinct characters Chunlong (talk) 12:30, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The German article says it's 96. Jezabeliberté (talk) 19:53, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Sino-Xenic readings?
This article is now an excellent demonstration of several central issues with regard to Chinese and the relationship between written and spoken languages.

How about adding Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese readings too? The German article does have Vietnamese and Japanese versions. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:24, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Also, Chao's own General Chinese transcription should be added. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:52, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

It’s a moot point now since we cannot use any piece of the poem. I did quote the first verse for my Chinese class’s writing assignment and gave its General Chinese transcription as ruby text: zhiec shit shi zrii shi zhii, zhih sri, zhey zhic zhip sri. Looking up the transcriptions for just that first line was a painstaking process. LCS (talk) 16:25, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Copyright issues
There is evidence that this story was first published in the US in the 1930s, and later included in various books published in different countries until 1990s (e.g. 《语言问题》, Commercial Press, a collection of his speech in 1959 at National Taiwan University). According to copyright regulations it has entered public domain. In Chinese language you can find it generally used without citations, so is other published or unpublished works completed at the similar time. So according to this the story should also be in the PD: if the work was in the public domain in the country of origin as of January 1, 1996, it is in the public domain in the U.S. So why don't add the text? For non-Chinese speakers this article is meaningless without any the original text and its translations. Esiymbro (talk) 13:20, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I've not looked into this particular work, but just to explain the quote above... The context of that quote is: "For works... not published in the U.S., the following rule applies: If the work was in the public domain in the country of origin as of January 1, 1996, it is in the public domain in the U.S."
 * So if you're correct that it was "first published in the US in the 1930s", then the condition "not published in the U.S." is not met and that rule does not apply. TJRC (talk) 19:15, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, a mistake...And now I'm also quite uncertain whether that's correct, as I just found that Chao didn't live in the US until 1938. But if the work is really published, I remember there should be another rule, that works published before 1964 with no copyright notice renewed are in the public domain.
 * Past discussion in the talkpage and non-free-content review archive didn't focus much on this. It seems to be generally agreed that the story was completed in the 1930s as a opposition to the Romanization of Chinese. Chao even gave this an English title when writing the story. But there is controversy. In China use of this story is not restricted, so it would be better if someone can find proof on the original publication and make sure we can also see it freely here. Esiymbro (talk) 12:23, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to add a "Copyright" section on this article explaining some of these points, and indicating that due to potential copyright infringement the full poem text is not reproduced on the Wikipedia. (At least so that people who have previously seen it here understand why it has been removed.) —Cousteau (talk) 15:16, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I too am confused by the lack of the poem text. You can find it elsewhere easily, and the article even links to the text offsite. TricksterWolf (talk) 15:38, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The text is even on Wikipedia itself in other languages! LCS (talk) 15:41, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Purged translation
How can the verse be described in the Copyright issues section as "purged from English Wikipedia" when it appears in various forms in the first paragraph and infobox of this article? O&#39;Dea (talk) 15:19, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

There is a plausible rational solution to the 'Riddle of the Ten Stone Lions'
To date, Shi and the Ten Stone Lions' has been relegated to the genres of tongue-twisters or school-book exercises for learning Chinese. I have, however, found a perfectly sensible explanation for the derived English translation which Yuen Ren Chao put to us as a riddle. If anyone wishes to know this solution they can contact me at red(at)holopoet(dot)com. Redslider (talk) 17:54, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Text and audio recording
Can anyone provide the text (presumably in Classical Chinese and a romanisation) and an audio recording of the poem? — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk; please &#123;&#123;ping&#125;&#125; me in replies) 06:38, 26 April 2023 (UTC)


 * The issue is copyright. See this archive for a discussion of the romanization; and this one for a discussion of the audio. TJRC (talk) 17:04, 26 April 2023 (UTC)