Wikipedia talk:Copyrights/MikeGodwinSays

This seems a little questionable. If I were Mike I might have some issues with people paraphrasing legal opinion. Also, are these things binding? Does he know things he mentions might be binding? - cohesion 02:24, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, they link to diffs, so ignore the paraphrasing part :) - cohesion 02:36, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I left a note on his UT page about this page several hours ago. Hopefully, he'll weigh in soon.  Pending any input from Mike, he's the WMF attorney, and intellectual property is his specialty, so I think it would be foolish to disregard his opinions, especially where they address specific situations.  I'm actually relieved to be getting some guidance in this area. --  But | seriously | folks   04:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm super happy he is giving advice, and we obviously shouldn't ignore it, like you said though, I'd like his opinion on this presentation. - cohesion 15:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

How to contact
It might be good to mention the best way to contact him for this kind of opinion - user talk, on which wiki, or email? --NE2 18:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

"Fair Use" Policy
Could Mike (or other) please comment on the limits of "Fair Use"? Is it possible to have guidelines for WP to operate under, by number of words or proportion of work?

I'm attempting to work on an article which is suffering mass reversions on grounds on copyvio. In one place, just 11 consecutive words was labelled a copyvio and removed, and even shorter clips (2 words) may be threatened. This article (and many others, if not the entire project) could quickly be gutted. Paraphrasing the Reliable Sources is often a poor alternative to decent clips, and in many cases threatens verifiability. Until now, there have been objections to excessive quoting as "quotefarms", but that's on grounds of "unencyclopedic", nothing to do with legal problems. I'd never before seen objections like the ones I'm seeing now (which have no basis in current WP policy that I can find).

In addition, in one of the cases I'm thinking of, the text is coming from a report with no copyright notice. I know it is still legally copyright - but would WP policy be slightly different in this case?. PalestineRemembered 09:16, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment The issue he's having is that he's cutting and pasting complete sentences from other websites and using them directly as the subject matter on the Battle of Jenin article. These are not being used sparingly, in some cases the cut and pasted sections are the only text in subsections. The guideline he is breaking reads: "Inclusion of brief attributed quotations of copyrighted text, used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea is acceptable under "fair use". Text must be used verbatim: any alterations must be clearly marked." He is not marking alterations, such as the shuffling of text within his cut and pasted sections, as well. If requested, I can provide links to examples of the infractions. Kyaa the Catlord 15:51, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * This is not the place to ask whether specific examples are permitted. These questions can be asked by listing the article at WP:CP or WP:SCV.  I should point out, however, that even paraphrasing a source can be a copyright violation.  You should instead review the various sources and write from scratch without looking at any source. --  But | seriously | folks   16:03, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I was rather hoping there'd be some policy on this, and it would be applied in a uniform fashion to protect the encyclopedia. If you're saying there is no policy, I may not be the only person a little perplexed. PalestineRemembered 17:49, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You're looking for Wikipedia talk:Non-free content. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 04:16, 10 August 2007 (UTC)