Talk:On Exactitude in Science

Influences and Legacy
I'm not a Wikipedian, but given the existing contents of the Influences and Legacy section, it is notably missing the short story 'The Mapmaker' by Neil Gaiman, from the Fragile Things collection. It's a 2-page story of an Emperor building a scale model of his domain; aspiring to a 1:100 model and eventually a 1:1. 87.83.222.194 (talk) 09:30, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Copyright status of the full text
I was thinking to add the full text (translation) of the story to this article. A quick look in the history shows that it was added, but removed by @Legoktm in 2013, re-added later and once again removed by @❃Adelaide❃ in 2019. I presume Legoktm removed it for copyright infringement; ❃Adelaide❃ openly gave this reason. Well, if it's still under copyright, Wikipedia is obviously not the right place for it—shame. I would still be grateful if either of you, or anyone else, could answer the following questions to generally help my understanding of this case:

How did you identify the text is still copyrighted? (Is there a database, or a rule you used?) If I found someone to make an independent translation, would it classify as a new work that could be freely licensed? Also, given the short length of the piece, could it not be argued to be fair use to quote it in full?

DougInAMug talk 00:27, 27 March 2024 (UTC)


 * To be completely honest with you, I don't remember deleting the text. As far as your questions go, I forget how I knew if it was copyrighted (and it might just have been a hunch). I don't feel qualified to answer either of the second two; my knowledge of copyright law is frankly fairly superficial. If you think the text is out of copyright, or could be included under fair use, I have no objection to you adding it back in. ❃Adelaide❃ (talk) 03:45, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Firstly, translations are considered adaptations, so works can't be freely translated without prior permission from the copyright holder. Secondly, the fair use rationale is more useful for excerpts and not entire pieces; in fact, using the whole of it would make it harder to argue fair use, regardless of its length, because a copyright holder could claim that people won't have an incentive to pay for it if it's freely available in its entirety on Wikipedia. (The Wikipedia guidelines also touch on this; "Extensive quotation of copyrighted text is prohibited.")
 * And thirdly, there's no easy way to determine the copyright status of a work. Different countries have different laws, and Wikipedia asks that we respect all laws when considering works' copyright status (even if the Foundation is US-based). Nevertheless, for US-based considerations, copyright generally expires 70 years after the author's death or 95 years after publication, depending on numerous factors like when the work was first published. A simple way to check if something is in the public domain is to search for it on sites like Project Gutenberg (while paying attention to the copyright statements if we find the work there), or look for whether it was explicitly released into the public domain while the author/copyright holder was alive/operating (like when someone open sources their code). Otherwise, we have to work backwards and calculate when it was published, whether it was renewed, the author's date of death, etc. A useful tool for this is Brewer's copyright slider (note this applies to US-published works), and then we can also search the Library of Congress for when the work was published and/or renewed (e.g. this translation of Dreamtigers, which is still protected by copyright: https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=2&ti=1,2&Search%5FArg=dreamtigers&Search%5FCode=TALL&CNT=25&PID=8Cv-Q8oCQHcJuiWPh3Qg5a2y4pE&SEQ=20240328094323&SID=1). There's also this guide on determining copyright status with respect to works first published outside the United States, which is where it gets more tricky (see also the five-point test therein).
 * All that said, in the case of Borges' short story, the fact that it was published in 1946 means we don't get an easy answer, since I don't personally know if it (in Los Anales de Buenos Aires) was published in the US at that time and consequently whether its copyright would have been renewed. If we consider Argentinian law—author's death + 70s years—then it will still be protected until 2056 (70 years from Borges' death). Using the aforementioned five-point test, it's also still protected, and will continue to be until at least 2025. All this means that, no, it would be inadvisable to add the text of the story, even a personal translation. And, I agree that it's unfortunate. Spontaneous Symmetry (talk) 15:58, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Spontaneous Symmetry thank you very much for the detailed answer! I will come back to it in reference. I sadly can't find anything to suggest the text is in the public domain yet. @❃Adelaide❃ it seems your intuition was quite right. Several academic institutions have published the full text (1, 2) and the Guardian published an audio recording of Will Self reading it in 2013. Is it within Wikipedia policy to link to one of these? DougInAMug talk 14:46, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Apologies, there was an external link (at bottom) already. I have clarified how it was named. DougInAMug talk  14:49, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I suspect both cases from those institutions are in violation of copyright (probably unknowingly), since there's no fair use declaration. Linking to them may violate Wikipedia policy, unless we can reasonably assume either case is fair use, despite the lack of a clear statement. I believe the Guardian version is fine, since we can assume the publication would have cleared it before publishing it. Spontaneous Symmetry (talk) 07:30, 31 March 2024 (UTC)