Gartner Tells Reporter: You're Not Allowed To Mention Gartner Research Without Our Permission

from the copyright-gone-insane dept

Fri, Aug 21st 2009 10:19am — Mike Masnick

Rich Kulawiec alerts us to the news that Gartner (which absolutely should know better) sent a legal nastygram to a Network World blogger, Larry Chaffin, for the mortal sin of mentioning Gartner without Gartner's permission. Specifically, Gartner is claiming full control over its research reports, and saying that a reporter cannot quote them. Gartner is almost certainly wrong about this. If the information is newsworthy (and it sounds like it was), then a reporter absolutely has the right to post it. Also, Gartner seems confused about how all of this works. It first claims that posting such info was a violation of its own policy... but it's a policy that Chaffin had not agreed to. Perhaps Gartner had a claim against the vendor who gave Chaffin the report, but that doesn't preclude posting the information. On top of that (of course) Gartner is pulling a bit of copyfraud, by claiming that copyright gives it many more rights than it really does:

Gartner's published research is proprietary intellectual property of Gartner, Inc., and is protected by the copyright laws of the United States and other countries. Your company's mention of our research in your material does not comply with our Copyright and Quote Policy (available at the link below) and so this is an infringement of our copyrights. I ask that you take immediate and effective steps to remove this blog posting and also any other unauthorized mention of Gartner's research in any other venue which you control.

There's just one (big) problem with that. Copyright law doesn't really give a hoot what Gartner's own "Quote Policy" is. Copyright law has built in exceptions that can't just be written away like that.

Chaffin actually did take down the posts after being threatened, claiming that in doing so he's showing how meaningless Gartner is. He also promises never to post about any Gartner reports ever again in the future -- but did talk up Gartner's ridiculous policies and demands (amusingly referring to the company as Gar-ner).

Beyond just being of questionable legality, Gartner's actions also seem incredibly short-sighted (especially for a firm that's supposed to be known for being forward looking). Everyone knows the real value in a Gartner report is not in any actual analysis, but in the PR it might generate for companies that find their way into the infamous (and silly) "magic quadrant." By forcing reporters not to talk about who's in that magic quadrant, Gartner has just made its reports significantly less valuable. Now that's foresight.

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Filed Under: chilling effects, copyfraud, copyright, research, takedowns
Companies: gartner

20 Comments

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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 21 Aug 2009 @ 10:35am

File Under
... copyright as cudgel.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Aug 2009 @ 10:40am

Fair Use or Bullying?
As long as the NEW work (the blog article) is at least 5% new, the NEW work could fall under fair-use. I'd say even MIT Guidelines are a bit intrusive at 5%, but is a starting point no less, for the often subjective interpretation of Section 107 of the Copyright Act (Fair Use). So long as Larry didn't post the complete work, I tend to think Gar-ner is standing on shaky grounds, but that would be for the court to decide.

A new work will be considered to be within the bounds of fair use if:

1. It reproduces not more than 1,000 words, in the aggregate, from a given Source Work;
2. It reproduces not more than 5 percent, in the aggregate, of the Source Work, and no complete poems or other self-contained literary works;

These guidelines are cumulative. A use must comply with all of them to be considered fair. Thus, when quoting from a book, the author of a new work may quote no more than a total of 1000 words from that book; in addition, the quoted words must not constitute more than 5 percent of the Source Work or more than 5 percent of the new work.

Source:
http://mitpress.mit.edu/mitpress/copyright/MITCopyrightGuidelines_and_FairUse.pdf
Section IV: Quantitative Guidelines
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Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 21 Aug 2009 @ 10:57am

Re: Fair Use or Bullying?
That's MIT's rules on fair use not the US government. The copyright law is a little less clear. It douse not limit how many words can be used or how much can be copied. It only limits on how it can be used, must be transformative, or commentary or a few other things. An article about the works would qualify as transformative and commentary.

But I'm with you on the other parts, Gar-ner has no legal grounds to stand on and it is for the courts to decide if Gar-ner desires to push it.
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Kevin Stapp (profile), 21 Aug 2009 @ 11:02am

What is odd is Gar-ner reports are quoted in business press and corporate presentations every day, yet they don't seem to mind that.
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Anonymous Poster, 21 Aug 2009 @ 11:16am

Re:
This is probably because those businesses probably paid licensing fees (or some other form of copyright compensation) to avoid having Gar-ner do this sort of thing to them, despite not need to pay them.

It's easier to pay a small fee to avoid having to defend yourself in court in a drawn-out legal battle, even if you have the law on your side.
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Neil (SM), 21 Aug 2009 @ 11:17am

protest?
So in what Chaffin calls, "an act of protest," he did exactly what they asked of him

That'll show 'em!
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Aug 2009 @ 11:20am

Re: Re: Fair Use or Bullying?
>> That's MIT's rules on fair use not the US government.

Good catch Chrono. Technically, I was wrong, it's University of Chicago, and was adopted by MIT. But you're right. I guess the point is that as more illustrations about the mis-aligned usage of copyright law comes to light, perhaps a more transparent version of the copyright law will come forward. Fair use is incredibly subjective, but MIT/Chicago guidelines at minimum offer a starting point.

It appears that Larry Chaffin seems like a well-educated person. He purports to have a PH.d. Yet in this situation, there seems to be disparity between what constitutes fair use between Gar-ner and others. Copyright needs to be exponentially more understandable. As it stands now, it's hindering many in the non-legal community, and actions against reform seem quite deliberate.
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fogbugzd, 21 Aug 2009 @ 11:24am

Re: protest?
>>So in what Chaffin calls, "an act of protest," he did exactly what they asked of him

Except that I doubt that they wanted him to mock them, or have the story cast in terms of pettiness and backward thinking. They probably also did not intend for it to get picked up by other bloggers and spread.
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Anonymous Poster, 21 Aug 2009 @ 11:41am

Re: Re: protest?
In other words, they didn't expect the Streisand Effect.

Sill Gar-ner.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Aug 2009 @ 11:51am

Re: Fair Use or Bullying?
Umm... Do you mean 'As long as the NEW work (the blog article) is at least 95% new....' ? Otherwise you're contradicting yourself.
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william (profile), 21 Aug 2009 @ 12:25pm

Re: Re:
we live in a sad sad world where people can extort you by threaten to take you to court.

the court system is broken.
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Dark Helmet (profile), 21 Aug 2009 @ 12:38pm

Re: Re: Re: Fair Use or Bullying?
"Technically, I was wrong, it's University of Chicago"

Pshh, no wonder it's vague and used to the benefit of the elite.

"but MIT/Chicago guidelines at minimum offer a starting point"

Can't judge for sure w/o seeing funding for the research or department that went into creating those guidelines, but if it was paid for by Rockefeller endowments, then no thanks.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Aug 2009 @ 12:54pm

fuck them
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Anonymous Poster, 21 Aug 2009 @ 1:11pm

Re: Re: Re:
So's the copyright system, but you don't hear nearly as many people rising up to voice their complaints about that.
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PsiPhi, 21 Aug 2009 @ 1:44pm

A valid reason not to publish research
Sometimes, the results of research are not what the client wanted it to be, so they suppress the results...
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lordmorgul, 21 Aug 2009 @ 2:22pm

I am one more consumer now completely unconcerned with (oblivious to) anything Gartner produces in the future. "Research" is a word that does not apply to garbage reports when you must prevent anyone from mentioning them in order to find validation for their existence.
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..., 21 Aug 2009 @ 6:09pm

Gartner is a worthless rag
Who really reads that crap anyways ?
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Aug 2009 @ 7:31pm

Funny thing about the US legal system: it costs money to follow the law, and defend yourself in court for doing so.
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cixiz, 27 Aug 2009 @ 8:21am

cixiz.com
Cixiz.Com But10.Com
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Larry Chaffin, 7 Sep 2009 @ 8:14am

New Blog
Thanks for the mention on your web site, hers is my latest blog I just posted.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/45016
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