Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sunday Times Rich List 2007


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result was Delete. WaltonOne 19:49, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Sunday Times Rich List 2007

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Possible copyright violoation - a list has just been copied from a magazine onto Wikipedia. The article may also not meet WP:NN as it does not state any secondary sources. I am also nominating the following articles for the same resaons:Guest9999 22:48, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Sunday Times Rich List 2006
 * Sunday Times Rich List 2005
 * Sunday Times Rich List 2004
 * Sunday Times Rich List 2003 (1-500)
 * Sunday Times Rich List 2003 (501-1000)


 * Speedy Delete as copyvio. It's essentially a reformat of the content made available here under a copyright notice (click on "Britain" beneath the boxes), there's no real claim for fair use as the Sunday Times have a commercial interest in publishing it, and it's essentially their content because they're speculating as to the wealth of these people (that info isn't in the public domain). Thomjakobsen 22:58, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It is not actually clear without further discussion that there is a copyvio here. Article is not reproducing any of the editorial comment from the magazine, only the facts collected. Copyright on compilations of facts is a non-obvious legal issue.--mervyn 10:46, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment But they're not facts, they're original estimates. The ST list doesn't collate information which is already publically sourcable, they're producing original information and publishing it with a copyright notice. We'd have the same problem if we reproduced a financial analyst's market predictions. The data is not simply being compiled from public sources, it is being produced from scratch in a way that has commercial value and distributed with a copyright notice to protect that value. It would be a different case if, say, they printed a list of the world's tallest buildings, because compilation alone is trivial and we could recreate it from publically-sourceable data. Thomjakobsen 12:44, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The copyright notice only works if the claim is valid! But there is a distinction between the author's original contribution and the facts presented; elaborate techniques for discovering facts don't of themselves create an act of authorship. I am not saying the Sunday Times doesn't have a strong case, only that it is not an area where a decision to delete is so obvious that there is no need for a bit of thinking first. However the wholesale reproduction of the lists here goes beyond what could be justified, and I agree about the "original estimates" claim. The articles should be rewritten to be selected abstracts and reports on the contents of the list. --mervyn 17:00, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Summaries would be fine, and I'd argue that they would be better off in the main Sunday Times Rich List article. As for the copyright claim, the original lists have a claim of UK copyright, and would be covered under the "sweat of the brow" doctrine, which covers even lists/databases of non-original information. For example, someone producing a phone directory cannot take this information directly from another directory, they have to track down the information themselves from other sources. That rule would seem to apply even more forcefully in this case, since it is a list of original estimates, so the copyright claim appears to be valid. Thomjakobsen 18:05, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the more specific law for this is the EU Directive on the legal protection of databases, but whether this is relevant depends on whether it's policy to respect the laws of the country of origin or those of the US (see comment somewhere below) Thomjakobsen 02:25, 9 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletions.   -- John Vandenberg 00:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete and anyways Wikipedia is not the place to throw up pages of statistics-only. WP:NOT.--JForget 01:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete all per all of the above. --Evb-wiki 02:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete as per Thomjakobsen. RS1900 04:50, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * If necessary delete the bulk of the tables and merge and redirect to Sunday Times Rich List.Rich Farmbrough, 12:31 6 September 2007 (GMT).
 * Keep all - it's encyclopaedic background information about the people concerned. And this is just one of many replicated lists on Wikipedia, so why pick on this one? Georgethe23rd 20:14, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - I've got a better idea! Why don't we hold the articles for ransom and then donate the money to the Wikimedia Foundation? ;) Spawn Man 10:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Hold - can we just have a think first about whether we can abstract/summarise/reformat some of this info rather than doing a mass delete since these pages are widely linked to. Note: does List of billionaires (2007) - which is a copy of Forbes's rankings - have the same issues? --mervyn 13:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment The Forbes's list might be okay, because copyright is claimed under US laws and the precedent (based on a phone directory case) is that lists of publically sourceable information are not copyrightable. However, it makes clear that even minimal creativity can lead to a copyright claim, so it depends on the process by which they come up with the estimates. If it's anything like the Times list, it involves creative estimates and so probably fails for that reason. Thomjakobsen 18:09, 8 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep en-WP operates under US law, and this material is not necessarily copyright in the US. As I understand it, we can report their list as long as we do not reproduce its format, just as we do with forbes. Their intellectual creativity in devising the list is not copyrightable, only the expression of it is. The present list is only a summary of their web site, not a full representation of it.   This should be discussed at the Copyright problems board where the more knowledgeable can discuss it properly. DGG (talk) 01:33, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment WP actually operates under the law of the country of the person editing the page. If a user in England uploads copyright material they are breaking the law of England.  And if WP hosts copyright material uploaded from England they are in breach of the law of England.  That is the law - and any statement by WP or its users that it prefers to operate under a different jurisdiction can't effect that.  If this is copyright material, then the Sunday Times in England could sue the American based WP in the English courts.  And nothing that WP states in its T&Cs can change that.  87.127.44.154 11:09, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I was under the impression as per that policy is to respect the copyright laws of the country of origin, even though it would not technically be illegal to host such material on the US servers. As re-use is an issue, and the UK claims are recognized throughout the EU and possibly elsewhere, it would limit re-use (e.g. on CD versions and mirrors) of this material for a pretty sizeable area. Agreed that we'd need someone more expert to take a look at it. Thomjakobsen 02:11, 9 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:V. There is no evidence that the individual lists have received significant coverage from reliable secondary sources.  17Drew 05:23, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * In fact the STRL is widely reported on in other UK media, often as front page stories on the Sunday of publication. See eg "Daily Mail" here: .--mervyn 22:13, 9 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete I've just checked, and I'm not on it.  So delete  :-)  The Sunday Times Rich List is certainly worthy of an encyclopaedic entry because many news articles about those on the list will make mention of their inclusion - not just when the list is first published but throughout the year.  The way this data should be used is by selecting key or significant entries and including them in a much more comprehensive article at Sunday Times Rich List.  The mere reproduction of the lists, however, should not be accepted on WP - the main article can link to the lists on the Sunday Times' own website. 87.127.44.154 09:49, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.