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Plagiarizing Wikipedia For Profit

Posted by kdawson on from the ip-is-on-the-other-foot dept.

An anonymous reader sends word of a dustup involving the publisher John Wiley and Sons and Wikipedia. Two pages from a Wiley book, Black Gold: The New Frontier in Oil for Investors, consist of a verbatim copy from the English Wikipedia article on the Khobar Towers bombing. This is the publisher that touched off a fair use brouhaha earlier this year when they threatened to sue a blogger who had reproduced a chart and a table (fully attributed) from one of their journals.

11 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. According to law... by dotancohen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    According to law, they are doing nothing illegal and are even protecting their own legal rights. This is what happens when law dictates human behaviour, instead of morals. Precisely this situation Plato envisioned when he said that good men need no laws to tell them how to behave, and evil men will find ways around the laws.

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  2. Slashdot tags by EvanED · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This article is tagged "thief". I thought it was standard /. wisdom that copyright infringement isn't theft?

    Anyway, are we sure that the text is from Wikipedia, and not both from a third source? It's probably unlikely, but "they copied from Wikipedia" is far from the only explanation.

    1. Re:Slashdot tags by Sirch · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I thought it was standard /. wisdom that copyright infringement isn't theft? Only when it's Joe Public doing the infringement. When Bob Corporate infringes, Slashdot's bile rises...

      While that's a gross generalization of what I perceive to be a double-standard, I can see some kind of justification behind it - Joe Public generally doesn't make money off it, whereas Bob Corporate infringes for profit.
      --
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    2. Re:Slashdot tags by pipatron · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The thing is that they did copy the text and said "this is mine, I created this", thus you stole the attribution. This does not happen when you send an mp3 to a friend.

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    3. Re:Slashdot tags by mgblst · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think the double standard arises because it is ok to copy something, but to do it for profit is wrong. That seems a more reasonable standard than the one that you propose.

    4. Re:Slashdot tags by DarkOx · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You are totally correct in that plagiarism is the correct word and that it is the word we should be using to talk about the issue. To the point being made by other posters however plagiarism is a more serious matter then copyright infringement IMHO. With copyright infringement some control over the content is lost to the owner/author. With plagiarism not only is some of the control lost to the author but also the credit for the work.

      In both the academic and artistic circles this is much more damaging than copyright infringement. Once you have created a work of academic or artistic value and its recognized by others as one of those things, it really becomes your personal credibility in the field. If your an artist, it gets you hired to perform, or patronized, if your an academic it gets you a job in industry, a teaching position, funding to more similar work, etc.

      If someone plagiarizes your work then they may get these things instead of you and worse yet possible get you accused or suspected of plagiarism. I think its clear the original author is hurt much more by plagiarism then mere copyright infringement, which if people are bothering to infringe on your copyrights probably does more for your general credibility then anything else could and may actually benefit you in a variety, although certainly not all circumstances. If anyone wants to compare this to the RIAA crying about mp3z its would have to be like you uploading the latest top 40 song and then claiming you and your buddies performed it in the garage the other day.

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  3. Re:summary: The copied text is subject to GNU FDL. by PhilHibbs · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not that "interesting" really. Saying that it "must be" under the GFDL isn't the same as saying that it automatically is under the GFDL. They are in violation of copyright, plain and simple, the GFDL doesn't automatically apply to the whole book, that's crazy talk. It's then up to the lawyers or the courts to come up with a suitable violation penalty and a solution going forward.

  4. Wikiplagarism by PhearoX · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would submit that Wikipedia contains more plagarism than any one textual work ever created.

    So someone copied Wikipedia?

    Meh.

  5. Re:How are they going to claim... by allcar · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Is anyone else reminded of Hitchhikers?

    It is interesting to note that a later and wilier editor sent the book backwards in time through a temporal warp and then successfully sued the breakfast cereal company for infringement of the same laws.
  6. Re:How are they going to claim... by __aayurq3262 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, licences do not automatically apply, the *PL and CC* licences are not viral. If I copy your work and disregard the licence, then I have violated your copyright, and you can take me to court. If you released it under a particular licence, then that is pretty much irrelevant to me - if I didn't follow the licence, then I have simply violated your copyright. If you violated the copyright, then you are liable for damages. The measure of damages is calculated based on a variety of factors, one of which is what the author charges for the copied work in the marketplace. That "charge" or fee is usually the *minimum* liability for infringing the author's rights. In this case, the author's "charge" is a license to copy the rest of the work under the LGPL/CC. That charge is highly relevant to the measure of damages suffered by the author.

    it would be unreasonable for the [infringing] author's entire book to become freely available under the LGPL due to his carelessness in not checking the actions of a third party. You may think it's unreasonable, but others might not. The infringing author had an obligation to supervise third party created works and not to infringe. I place a high value on the rights granted to the public under LGPL and CC licenses and comparatively much less value on private copyright rights to prevent the public from copying.
  7. Two differences... by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    First, when Joe Public infringes, he generally does so for himself. When Bob Corporate does, it's for the world at large.

    Second, Bob Corporate usually gets away with it. If Joe Public is caught, he faces heavy, personal penalties. Bob Corporate can simply have Bob Corporate Inc cover the damage, assuming that they're caught at all and that they lose in court.

    Finally, we take great delight in finding a similar double-standard in Bob Corporate. This company, for instance, went after someone else for a fairly sizable quote (with attribution), and we now find them stealing wholesale (with no attribution). This seems almost second nature to most corporations -- in fact, I forget where it was, but I seem to remember reading someone psychoanalyzing a corporation (as if it were a human) and finding that it's insane.

    Which comes back to "A person is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it."

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