On 8/25/07, K P [email protected] wrote: [snip]
even an entire article in Wikipedia is seldom ever the contribution of only one editor,
Do you have any evidence to support this claim?
All the data that I've seen so far suggest that most articles may well be the product of single authors. Not most high profile articles, or most featured articles, ... but most articles. Most articles are mostly short and on obsecure matters.
Yes, most have had edits by a few others. But these edits are overwhelmingly tagging and markup related. It would often be hard to argue that they were substantial enough to carry a copyright interest, and no one sane would argue that such edits are enough to rightly call the editor an author.
On 8/25/07, Gregory Maxwell [email protected] wrote:
On 8/25/07, K P [email protected] wrote: [snip]
even an entire article in Wikipedia is seldom ever the contribution of only one editor,
Do you have any evidence to support this claim?
All the data that I've seen so far suggest that most articles may well be the product of single authors. Not most high profile articles, or most featured articles, ... but most articles. Most articles are mostly short and on obsecure matters.
Yes, most have had edits by a few others. But these edits are overwhelmingly tagging and markup related. It would often be hard to argue that they were substantial enough to carry a copyright interest, and no one sane would argue that such edits are enough to rightly call the editor an author.
So, I'm wrong but right in the details? Or vice versa. It's still different than an image.
KP
On 8/26/07, Gregory Maxwell [email protected] wrote:
All the data that I've seen so far suggest that most articles may well be the product of single authors. Not most high profile articles, or most featured articles, ... but most articles. Most articles are mostly short and on obsecure matters.
Yes, most have had edits by a few others. But these edits are overwhelmingly tagging and markup related. It would often be hard to argue that they were substantial enough to carry a copyright interest, and no one sane would argue that such edits are enough to rightly call the editor an author.
In my experience, that's about right. I have a list of about 100 articles that I've started, and I highlight the ones that have been greatly expanded by others. Probably about 70% are really entirely my own work - stubs, categories and types aside. Another 20-25% might have a few sentences here or there added. And the last few have been more than doubled by other editors. They're the ones that warm your heart...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcot_Manor
(I wrote two sentences. Some crazy person expanded it to a full article complete with pictures...)
Steve
On 8/28/07, Steve Bennett [email protected] wrote:
On 8/26/07, Gregory Maxwell [email protected] wrote:
All the data that I've seen so far suggest that most articles may well be the product of single authors. Not most high profile articles, or most featured articles, ... but most articles. Most articles are mostly short and on obsecure matters.
Yes, most have had edits by a few others. But these edits are overwhelmingly tagging and markup related. It would often be hard to argue that they were substantial enough to carry a copyright interest, and no one sane would argue that such edits are enough to rightly call the editor an author.
In my experience, that's about right. I have a list of about 100 articles that I've started, and I highlight the ones that have been greatly expanded by others. Probably about 70% are really entirely my own work - stubs, categories and types aside. Another 20-25% might have a few sentences here or there added. And the last few have been more than doubled by other editors. They're the ones that warm your heart...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcot_Manor
(I wrote two sentences. Some crazy person expanded it to a full article complete with pictures...)
Steve
Even articles I wrote almost every word of are not anywhere near entirely my own, because they are so vastly improved by what others do to them. My pictures, however, are mine.
Apples and oranges are not the same. Sometimes you need potassium.
KP
On 8/29/07, K P [email protected] wrote:
Even articles I wrote almost every word of are not anywhere near entirely my own, because they are so vastly improved by what others do to them. My pictures, however, are mine.
AFAIK, the editors, friends, wives, colleagues, flatmates etc of authors have no part of the copyright of printed works. Even if someone breaks your stream of consciousness into sections, formats it and adds a graphic or two, it's still "entirely your own".
Steve
On 8/29/07, Steve Bennett [email protected] wrote:
On 8/29/07, K P [email protected] wrote:
Even articles I wrote almost every word of are not anywhere near entirely my own, because they are so vastly improved by what others do to them. My pictures, however, are mine.
AFAIK, the editors, friends, wives, colleagues, flatmates etc of authors have no part of the copyright of printed works. Even if someone breaks your stream of consciousness into sections, formats it and adds a graphic or two, it's still "entirely your own".
Steve
But people don't upload their individual, solo, original printed works onto Wikipedia, they upload extensively researched information from other people's original printed works, then others edit them. The originals worth having are published under copyright and sold with the author's name on them.
Photographers upload their original photographs to Wikipedia.
KP
On 8/30/07, K P [email protected] wrote:
Photographers upload their original photographs to Wikipedia.
Of a reality largely not of the photographer's creation, though - at least, those photographs useful to Wikipedia.
-Matt
On 8/31/07, Matthew Brown [email protected] wrote:
On 8/30/07, K P [email protected] wrote:
Photographers upload their original photographs to Wikipedia.
Of a reality largely not of the photographer's creation, though - at least, those photographs useful to Wikipedia.
-Matt
I don't follow?
KP
On 8/31/07, K P [email protected] wrote:
I don't follow?
The photographer only turned some knobs and actuated the shutter. Other people and forces created the world. The photographer is but a infinitesimal part of what it really took to make any image of our world.
Yet because of the properties of our law the photographer or those he designates are the only ones with standing to demand credit under copyright.
Those who would complain about trivial preferences on credit would do well to remember they did not create this world, they likely did not invent their art, and their labors are infinitesimal compared to all the work by man and nature which came before them. By comparison with these great things an individual passage of text or a photograph is tiny achievement, and without them these works would not be remotely possible. We all stand on the shoulders of giants...
Its something of a tangent for our discussion, but it's interesting food for thought. Under these sort of absolute terms the authors of our text and of our images both contribute similar tiny amounts to the wealth of our world. We should be appreciative and respectful, but there is no sense in letting it get out of hand.
On 8/31/07, Gregory Maxwell [email protected] wrote:
On 8/31/07, K P [email protected] wrote:
I don't follow?
The photographer only turned some knobs and actuated the shutter. Other people and forces created the world. The photographer is but a infinitesimal part of what it really took to make any image of our world.
Yet because of the properties of our law the photographer or those he designates are the only ones with standing to demand credit under copyright.
Those who would complain about trivial preferences on credit would do well to remember they did not create this world, they likely did not invent their art, and their labors are infinitesimal compared to all the work by man and nature which came before them. By comparison with these great things an individual passage of text or a photograph is tiny achievement, and without them these works would not be remotely possible. We all stand on the shoulders of giants...
Its something of a tangent for our discussion, but it's interesting food for thought. Under these sort of absolute terms the authors of our text and of our images both contribute similar tiny amounts to the wealth of our world. We should be appreciative and respectful, but there is no sense in letting it get out of hand.
Well, that's a unique take on it. But, sorry, no, just arming an army of monkeys or even chimpanzees trained to point and shoot isn't going to create art that's going to stop people from forking over hundreds of dollars for little itty bitty prints by me of the things they see every day and could shoot themselves.
But that is the original reason I put many of my nature prints in the public domain: I didn't create the world I shoot. On the other hand, when I donate my prints to a natural history museum, including the rights to reproduce them, 100% of mine are accepted, and I'm asked for more, while the overall acceptance rate for images is well under 10%. Again, all those folks just turning knobs and actuating shutters that someone else invented didn't create art worth publishing, or even worth being kept for free, no matter how much you consider the act of taking a picture to be nothing more than using an invention by someone else.
Picasso didn't invent the paintbrush or canvas, but try telling Spain how little their painting is worth, in light of the fact that he's not the inventor of his tools, and maybe they'll send it to you for the cost of the freight.
Being appreciative and respectful doesn't mean treating all things as equal when they're not--this, in fact, artificially diminishes or elevates things to what they are not, which is disrespectful.
KP