User talk:Ydorb/khobar-copyvio

On 2007-11-13, User:Ydorb/khobar-copyvio was linked from Slashdot, a high-traffic website. (Traffic)

All prior and subsequent edits to the article are noted in its revision history.

My analysis

After auditing the history of the article, it looks like you were the only significant contributor to the version that was plagiarized, and since your contributions are public domain it looks like there might not be any significant copyvio to speak of. Pretty lucky if you ask me, as I'm sure Orwel wouldn't have conducted such an investigation himself (would have been easier just to rewrite the text). Kaldari 01:47, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It could still be argued that Orwel violated Wikipedia's licensing terms, but I'm afraid no individual authors of the article would have standing to complain. Kaldari 02:00, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There were a few sentences written by other people, though. Since those weren't released under the public domain, isn't it still a license violation? Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 14:25, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I thought all content written by Wikipedia editors was automatically released, otherwise it can't be used here. The same goes for images. Copyrighted images can't be used unless released. OTOH, if an editor uses copyrighted material under fair use, and then that material was used in a copyrighted source (book, magazine, etc.) elsewhere without attribution, it could be a copyright violation and there would be an issue between the original author (before Wikipedia use) and the publisher. Wikipedia wouldn't be a player in that dilemma. I'm no lawyer, so I could be wrong, but that's been my impression. There is still the issue of ethics here - attribution is still a requirement to avoid charges of plagiarism. -- Fyslee / talk 15:55, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Copy rights

Since his book is a modification of a Wikipedia article and therefore under the GFDL, wouldn't that make his entire book under the GFDL as well? Jecowa 14:49, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

no. it's just a copyright violation. if you receive text A under GFDL and make a work A+B released as non-GFDL, your work don't become GFDLed automatically, but you may be sued. After the court and the money you have to pay, you must also obey the law: one option is cease to distribute A+B, or distribute it now complying with GFDL. --189.12.159.40 23:51, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The rest of the book

Has anyone looked into whether other parts of the book contain wikipedia articles? I think it's unlikely that the author would take a single article from wikipedia, but ignore other topics. I haven't, and don't have the time to do so right now. Ydorb 06:27, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's an interesting idea. I will check some samples. -- Gabi S. (talk) 16:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Diffs

If anyone wants to take the time and do readers a great service, a list of the URL diffs would be nice. Then compare the edits with the relevant parts of the book in a column format to ease comparison. -- Fyslee / talk 15:53, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]