Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Other/List of Jewish scientists and philosophers


 * List of Jewish scientists and philosophers ([ history] · [ last edit]) and List of Jewish Recipients of National Medal of Science ([ history] · [ last edit]) . User:Jinfo contends that these are copied from http://www.jinfo.org but the deletion was not handled here (one was speedy deleted, without meeting speedy deletion criteria, and the other went through AfD). I would argue that if anything here is copied from jinfo.org (and these are not simple cut-and-paste cases), then the overlap consists of factual information such as name, ethnicity, or the date of an award, and is not copyrightable under Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service. --Michael Snow 23:10, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * "If anything here is copied from jinfo.org"??? The entire webpage, with the exception of its list of "Cognitive scientists" was copied nearly verbatim from JINFO.ORG.  Why don't you ask the individual who produced the current "List of Jewish scientists and philosophers" webpage what his references were and whether he had any other references beyond the solitary one that he listed, viz., JINFO.ORG?  Even the categories covered coincide exactly with JINFO.ORG's (with the one exception noted); why no geologists, astronomers, or political scientists?  The answer is simple: because there are no JINFO.ORG lists in these areas available for copying.  I have addressed the issue of whether or not these lists constitute simple compilations of fact at great length in private correspondence with you and in more abbreviated form in the bulleted items on the discussion page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_Jewish_scientists_and_philosophers. You have never responded to the substance of these arguments. Jinfo 03:47, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * There is no one individual to ask, the history of the article goes back more than 500 edits to July of 2004, and a number of different people have made substantive contributions to it. I also did respond to your previous arguments, even if you don't care to accept the response. Much of your argument is beside the point. It's easy to point to things the list doesn't contain, but might. That doesn't affect whether the overlap between it and the jinfo.org lists amounts only to factual information. --Michael Snow 18:42, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * It may be that one individual did some wholesale copying, but there were many entries on the list before he/she started. - Newport 20:20, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * If you examine the page at the time of the edit performed at 15:16 on 9 September 2005, you can view it as it existed prior to the beginning of the appropriation of material from JINFO.ORG. There were six categories present at that time among the eleven under current contention: Biologists, Chemists, Computer Scientists, Mathematicians, Philosophers, and Physicists (the category Anthropologists is also listed, but without any entries; also I am not disputing the category now called Cognitive Scientists, which was then called Cognitive Scientists and Psychologists).  The six disputed categories contained a total of 127 names.  These six categories, together with the five additional categories that have since been appropriated from JINFO.ORG now contain about 2000 names, nearly all (>90%) of which came from JINFO.ORG.  "Many" is a relative term, so to say that there were "many" names on the lists prior to the wholesale copying of the JINFO.ORG lists is inaccurate.
 * If you next examine the edit performed at 15:31 on 9 September 2005, you can observe the JINFO.ORG list of Anthropologists being added verbatim. Over the course of the next month, the remaining JINFO.ORG lists are added.  The party or parties responsible for this appear to be anonymous; however on 9 October 2005, you can see the list of Physicists increase from 34 names at 14:05 to more than 250 names at 20:17 as the JINFO.ORG list is copied in.  This time, however, the editor has left his signature: LazarKr.
 * My arguments are not "beside the point," Michael. They are specifically directed to your central contention that these lists are just "facts." I have asked you how you know they're facts.  No answer.  I have asked you why, if these are facts, the Wikipedia editors of the Jewish Scientists and Philosophers webpage couldn't figure them out for themselves.  No answer.  I have given you a list of ten extremely prominent scientists whom Wikipedia is claiming to be Jewish (as a result of copying my lists) and asked you to provide me with specific references justifying this claim.  No answer.  So how can you claim these are facts?  These lists are mostly assertions by me, and you have no idea whether I know what I'm talking about or not.  The creative originality in the JINFO.ORG lists is contained in their extent, comprehensiveness, uniformity, accuracy, and in the research methodology used to establish them.  I am not claiming that some "reasonable usage" of the information in the lists cannot be made; I am, however, claiming that the near verbatim appropriation of them without permission is copyright infringement. Jinfo 06:51, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm saying that these assertions are factual in nature, and therefore not capable of being copyrighted under Feist v. Rural. I don't personally know these facts, this isn't my field (although I'm pretty sure Albert Einstein was a physicist). But in terms of copyright, the issue is not proving whether the facts are correct (e.g., showing that Einstein was indeed a physicist), but whether the assertion, "Einstein was a physicist," is a statement of fact. From what I have seen, any overlap between these lists is of this character.
 * Arguing about the quantity or reliability of facts is indeed beside the point. If the New York Times reports as fact that George W. Bush has 30 times authorized wiretaps of U.S. citizens without needing a warrant, and gives the dates for each of those occasions, somebody else could publish the same fact, and they could publish all of those dates as well. The New York Times might turn out to be wrong, but that wouldn't make it copyright infringement. The copyright doesn't rest on their reporters having learned all this information, although this may have required some effort. The originality and creativity is found in the article they wrote about it. --Michael Snow 23:22, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I am afraid Michael snow is in error here: Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service is inapplicable here: "if the facts are specifically selected (i.e., they've chosen some specific subset of facts for expository purposes), or if they are presented in some specific order, they might have a claim on those editorial choices as being "creative" and therefore protectable." Therefore I am about to delete the pages in question according to the owners' requests. Frankly, I find this discussion ugly. It gives a bad fame to wikipedia. Michael, the copyright area is a very serious issue and you cannot engage in discussion without being an expert. The best way for you would be to contact a wikipedian-expert in copyrights. I gave you a very specific quotation that is relatet to this case. So IMO the case as follows: theList_of_Jewish_Recipients_of_National_Medal_of_Science is non-creative, because these people are officially registered as such; while List of Jewish scientists and philosophers is a creative compilation and must be deleted. mikka (t) 19:23, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Thank you mikka. Michael Snow's reading of Feist v. Rural is extremely narrow and tendentious.  Leaving aside the entire question of whether the "facts" compiled by JINFO.ORG (see, e.g., JINFO.ORG's footnotes on the mathematicians Jesse Douglas and Georg Cantor) are of a qualitative nature remotely comparable to the facts in dispute in Feist v. Rural (viz., names in a public telephone directory), the ruling, as described in the Wikipedia article on the subject, clearly states that while facts of the latter type cannot be copyrighted, collections of facts that display even a "minimal degree" of creativity and/or originality can be protected.  Examples of the latter include compilations of facts that entail "the creative choice of what data to include or exclude..."
 * I have made this point repeatedly in private correspondence with Michael. There is no such thing as an objective list of the type appearing on the "Jewish philosophers and scientists" webpage.  Two different experts would, in general, produce two quite distinct lists.  This is because there are literally hundreds, or even thousands, of distinguished individuals whose names could  potentially go on any one of these lists.  Although roughly the upper third of the JINFO.ORG lists (measured in terms of individual level of achievement) have a high degree completeness and are, therefore, in some sense "objective," the bottom two-thirds are quite subjective.  There is an imaginary cutoff point for inclusion, and where that lies, and who is above it and who is below it, largely reflects my understanding and my judgment.  The lists, therefore, have a high degree of subjectivity in terms of the way in which I defined the categories (e.g., "Computer and Information Scientists" rather than just "Computer Scientists"), my determination of the threshold for inclusion, my judgment about what work is more vs. less important, and my knowledge and ability to verify who is, and who isn't, Jewish.
 * In the final analysis, the objective of copyright law and its fair use doctrine is to attempt to promote both the production and the dissemination of information. These are conflicting interests that require very delicate balancing.  The net effect of Wikipedia's wholesale appropriation of content from JINFO.ORG and JEWHOO.COM, the only two websites on the Internet that were doing credible Jewish biographical research, has been to make it impossible for either one to continue operation.  JEWHOO.COM has taken its huge website down almost completely as a result.  Michael's interpretation of Feist v. Rural in this case clearly undermines the purposes and intention of the law.  Jinfo 00:44, 25 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I think Michael is right in this case. If our list was the same, verbatim, as the Jinfo list, then this would be a copyright violation. But if Jinfo was just one source of many used, as appears to be the case, then the copyright is not violated. For instance, if I made a list of my favorite albums of all time, and there was lots of overlap with the "Rolling Stones 100 Greatest Albums of All Time", then even if I used the Rolling Stones list as one of 5 or 6 sources, and even though the Rolling Stones list is copyrighted, this is still not a violation of RS's copyright. This seems to be the case here. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 13:51, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
 * It's funny that Mikkalai should bring up the issue of expertise - I'd be curious to know what expertise he claims on matters of copyright, and whether he's willing to stack it up against mine. Also, it took me some digging, but I was finally able to dig up the quote Mikkalai cites. The use of it appeared to suggest that it actually came from Feist v. Rural, which it doesn't. It's actually simply a comment that was part of a long discussion at Wikipedia and copyright issues, and not something to use as an authoritative interpretation of the legal principles involved here. --Michael Snow 04:52, 4 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The complete text of the Feist v. Rural decision can be found at http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/499_US_340.htm. It is relatively easy to read and comprehend, and is completely consistent with the comment cited by mikka and the statement quoted by me from the Wikipedia article Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service that Michael Snow has repeatedly referred to in this matter.  Briefly, the case involved the copyrightability of a telephone directory that Rural Telephone Service Co. in Kansas compiled as a legal requirement under the terms of a monopoly franchise that it had been granted.  Feist Publications made repeated, unsuccessful attempts to license Rural's directory content for a fee in order to be able to compile a regional phone directory.  (In a separate proceeding, a lower court had already found that Rural's refusal to come to agreement with Feist was motivated by an unlawful purpose, viz., the extension of its monopoly.)  Sandra Day O'Connor's ruling was joined in by all of the Justices, with the exception of Blackmun, who concurred in it.


 * As to the copyrightability of factual information, it states inter alia:
 * [8] "...it is beyond dispute that compilations of facts are within the subject matter of copyright. Compilations were expressly mentioned in the Copyright Act of 1909, and again in the Copyright Act of 1976."
 * [10] "The sine qua non of copyright is originality. To qualify for copyright protection, a work must be original to the author. See Harper & Row, supra, at 547-549. Original, as the term is used in copyright, means only that the work was independently created by the author (as opposed to copied from other works), and that it possesses at least some minimal degree of creativity."
 * [16] "Factual compilations ... may possess the requisite originality. The compilation author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the collected data so that they may be used effectively by readers. These choices as to selection and arrangement, so long as they are made independently by the compiler and entail a minimal degree of creativity, are sufficiently original that Congress may protect such compilations through the copyright laws. Nimmer §§ 2.11[D], 3.03; Denicola 523, n. 38. Thus, even a directory that contains absolutely no protectible written expression, only facts, meets the constitutional minimum for copyright protection if it features an original selection or arrangement. See Harper & Row, 471 U.S., at 547. Accord Nimmer § 3.03."


 * The Court found that Rural's telephone directory did not meet the above criteria for the following reasons:
 * [51] "Rural's selection of listings could not be more obvious: it publishes the most basic information -- name, town, and telephone number -- about each person who applies to it for telephone service. This is “selection” of a sort, but it lacks the modicum of creativity necessary to transform mere selection into copyrightable expression. Rural expended sufficient effort [p*363] to make the white pages directory useful, but insufficient creativity to make it original."
 * [52] "We note in passing that the selection featured in Rural's white pages may also fail the originality requirement for another reason. Feist points out that Rural did not truly “select” to publish the names and telephone numbers of its subscribers; rather, it was required to do so by the Kansas Corporation Commission as part of its monopoly franchise. See 737 F. Supp., at 612. Accordingly, one could plausibly conclude that this selection was dictated by state law, not by Rural."


 * The United States Copyright Office (where JINFO.ORG has been registered since 14 April 2004) states that "most 'compilations' may be registered as literary works," and are thereby eligible for copyright protection: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wwp. The factual information compilations that are not eligible for protection are "works consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship (for example: standard calendars, height and weight charts, tape measures and rulers, and lists or tables taken from public documents or other common sources)."


 * I have already discussed the high degree of originality, selectivity, and structure in my lists (see my discussion of 25 December above and: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_Jewish_scientists_and_philosophers). It is also worth reiterating that many of the "facts" that comprise my lists have been established through private communications and through genealogical investigations, the details of which I have, for obvious reasons, not published on the Internet (or anywhere else at this point).  As such, they do not constitute "facts" in the sense that the Copyright Office and the Courts employ this term, viz., data "taken from public documents or other common sources."  This makes my lists even more strongly copyrightable.  They are not just compilations of fact, they are also compilations of assertions of fact by me (and only by me).


 * I believe I've already answered Quadell's argument above. Over 90% (not one-sixth) of the current names on the List of Jewish scientists and philosophers webpage came from JINFO.ORG.  This is not a coincidental overlap; they were entered verbatim in large groups over a period of about a month, beginning last September. (See my detailed description of this on 16 December, which appears above.)


 * Michael Snow has now twice overridden separate decisions by two different Wikipedia editors to remove the List of Jewish scientists and philosophers webpage as a copyright violation, claiming that "factual information is not copyrightable under Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service," which is clearly a complete misconstruction of that ruling. I am, therefore, asking once again for Wikipedia to live up to its responsibilities under the law.  As I have indicated previously, I am willing to negotiate a fair use arrangement that would be in our mutual interest whereby Wikipedia could, e.g., use my "Short Lists" of the most eminent Jewish scientists (or any other 400 names from my lists).  Such a list of scientists and philosophers would already be four times longer than the comparable Wikipedia lists of British, French, German, and Russian scientists and philosophers (each roughly one hundred names long).  The current Jewish list of over two thousand names is wildly disproportionate in size.  (Jews have made up approximately 25%-30% of leading twentieth century scientists and philosophers, and perhaps 15%-20% of all leading scientists and philosophers.)   The only thing that I would ask in return for such an arrangement is a prominently displayed link to JINFO.ORG and the statement that more extensive listings can be found there.  Jinfo 14:34, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I have not misconstrued the ruling. Rather, it is proving difficult to get across what my point is, partly because the legal analysis hinges on a careful understanding of exactly what is being discussed. Factual information, the facts themselves, are not copyrightable. A factual compilation can be copyrightable, but it is the compilation, not the facts, that has a copyrightable aspect.
 * I don't believe anyone has ever claimed that the Jinfo.org lists are not copyrightable. That's not the issue. The disagreement we have is about whether the Wikipedia lists might infringe on any copyright in the Jinfo.org lists. I still have not seen a convincing argument that any overlap amounts to anything other than just facts. --Michael Snow 07:04, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I've read over all of this discussion, I've read the Feist decision, and I've looked through the history of the lists. I'm convinced that Jinfo's lists are indeed copyrighted. The question is whether our lists violate those copyrights. Jinfo is certainly being reasonable and attempting to compromise, and I think we should try to be at least as reasonable.

Let's look at the individual lists. List of Jewish Recipients of National Medal of Science is, I think, not a copyright violation because there is little or no creative content. But the List of Jewish scientists and philosophers is a problem. It looks obvious that much of the material there was copied verbatim from Jinfo. Now a lawyer could argue that this is not actually an infringement. . . but we're not trying to get as close to the law without breaking it as possible. There are good, solid arguments that the list is a copyright violation, and Jinfo has made those points cogently, and I think we should err on the side of respecting people's copyrights. Otherwise we risk violating one of our core policies.

So what should the article List of Jewish scientists and philosophers look like? We could revert the page back to what it looked like before the additions, but I would like to take up Jinfo's offer to use the "short lists" from his page. There's a technicality here, however. All material on Wikipedia has to licensed under the GFDL -- this means that if a copyright holder allows Wikipedia to use the material, but doesn't give permission for it to be reused, we can't use it. So Jinfo would either have to license the "short lists" under the GFDL, or he would have to assert that those shorter lists are not copyrighted. If he will do so, I think we should merge those lists into the names we had before the infringement, and link to Jinfo as a "source" and as a "fuller, copyrighted list". Is this agreeable? – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 17:23, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


 * If there are no objections in the next couple of days, I'm going to implement this suggested remedy. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 13:40, 10 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Who gets included in the list, or how large the list should be, is an editorial decision as far as I'm concerned. My comments are limited to the copyright issue. --Michael Snow 07:04, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I have now fixed this, and unless anyone has any objections, I consider the matter closed. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 19:43, 16 February 2006 (UTC)