French Author Plagiarizes Wikipedia; Does That Mean His Entire Book Is Now CC Licensed?
from the a-legal-test dept
PrometheeFeu alerts us to a fascinating situation happening in France. Apparently, a successful French author, Michel Houellebecq, recently came out with a novel, La Carte et Le Territoire. However, it turns out that Houellebecq copied decent chunks of three separate Wikipedia articles in the novel, without any credit or indication that he was quoting another source. This is what is normally referred to as plagiarism -- or, in some views, sampling. This isn't all that surprising, and we hear stories of plagiarism in books all the time. In fact, we tend to think that people get way too upset over such things in books. After being called on it, Houellebecq appears to have admitted to copying those sections.However, what makes this case more interesting, is what came next. Some folks realized that Wikipedia articles are licensed via a CC-BY-SA license, which in real terms says that you are free to share and remix the work, so long as it's with attribution and (most importantly):
"If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one."If you're paying attention, you'll realize that it appears Houellebecq's La Carte et Le Territoire appears to "build upon" the Wikipedia works, which would then mean that his work, as well, must also be available under such a license. Thus, they've created a PDF version of the book -- with the proper Wikipedia references added back in -- and put it up for download under the very same CC-BY-SA license.
The question now is whether or not the author or his publisher will take legal action -- and whether or not the reading of the Wikipedia CC-BY-SA license is accurate. It certainly seems like a pretty strong argument can be made in favor of those now sharing the work. The terms of the Wikipedia content are clear, and thus, in using that content, it does appear that Houellebecq and his publisher may be required to abide by the terms of the license. Of course, there are other questions raised by this as well: such as the enforceability of a license that the person might not have read or understood. Before people automatically assume those posting the PDF are in the right here, remember all those stories we've discussed in the past about questionable end user license agreements that people agree to on websites without ever having actually seen them. In those cases, many of us feel that such licenses should not be enforceable. Is the same thing true for a Creative Commons license?
Update: As noted in the comments, the publisher has said it will take legal action against those who posted the work, though it's unclear if such proceedings have started yet.
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Filed Under: copyright, creative commons, france, michel houellebecq, plagiarism, wikipedia
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Well damn...
*Puts on shades*
Between a Rock and a hard place.
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No it wont mike, CC is not GPL
You see mike, one is a CC license, and one is a GPL license, I dont think the terms of the GPL applies to the CC.
But maybe im missing something, or maybe im not ;)
Are you implying that anything you use from the CC has to be licensed under the CC ? does that not defy the whole idea of the CC.. ??
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Re: No it wont mike, CC is not GPL
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Re: No it wont mike, CC is not GPL
But maybe im missing something, or maybe im not ;)
The particular cc license in question has similar provisions to the GPL. This was made clear in the article.
The license in question (CC BY SA) is similar to the GPL in requiring redistribution under the same terms - and adds a requirement of attribution.
By my reading there are only two possible outcomes here.
1) The book is cc licensed.
2) The usage of the book breaks the cc license (no attribution) and therefore the author has no license, all copies of the book should be pulped and statutory damages are due. The option that "I didn't understand the license so it doesn't apply" in incredible here since the default for copyright is "all rights reserved" not "public domain".
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Re: Re: No it wont mike, CC is not GPL
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Re: Re: Re: No it wont mike, CC is not GPL
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Re: Re: Re: No it wont mike, CC is not GPL
Because in this case by accepting the license you are not surrendering any rights that you would normally have expected to have.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: No it wont mike, CC is not GPL
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No it wont mike, CC is not GPL
By default, all published works are fully copyrighted. That means that if he was ignorant of the specific CC license, he would have thought that he couldn't build upon those works at all.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No it wont mike, CC is not GPL
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No it wont mike, CC is not GPL
No - they demand that you destroy all copies of the infringing work.
So you have nothing left to claim copyright on.
Now of course, in either case you could re-publish the non-infringing part subsequently - but all the books already printed would have to be pulped and electronic copies taken down from websites etc.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No it wont mike, CC is not GPL
You would still have your original copy of the non-infringing portion of the work from before any infringing material was added to it to claim copyright on.
Or even if you don't, and the entire work must be destroyed (including your original copy of the non-infrining work), some people could still view this as less restrictive than being forced to give up the copyright on the non-infringing portion of the work to someone else to do with as they please.
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Re: Re: No it wont mike, CC is not GPL
1) The book is cc licensed.
2) The usage of the book breaks the cc license (no attribution) and therefore the author has no license, all copies of the book should be pulped and statutory damages are due. The option that "I didn't understand the license so it doesn't apply" in incredible here since the default for copyright is "all rights reserved" not "public domain".
3) The usage of the passages from wikipedia constitute fair use, and the cc license need not be invoked.
This last one is a bit of a stretch, considering the lack of attribution and the four-part test for fair use.
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Re: Re: Re: No it wont mike, CC is not GPL
Does French law even recognise fair use?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: No it wont mike, CC is not GPL
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Re: No it wont mike, CC is not GPL
I wanted to compliment you on, what has been perhaps you most pleasant and conversation reply I've seen.
Please don't misunderstand, I am not heckling you here. I actually have come to recognize that despite some of the nasty tirades you have provided, there does appear to be a thoughtful person at the keyboard.
So, in summary, please continue to comment but I appreciate the mature and conversational tone over the angry and name calling one.
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How can you have a contract with no witnesses and no agreement?
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Re:
How can you have a contract with no witnesses and no agreement?
If the license restricts your rights compared to the default then I would agree with you. However a cc license extends your rights relative to the default (all rights reserved) so I see no problem with it.
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Re: Re:
it could be argued that giving someone else the ability to freely publish your work if the contract is breached is more restrictive than simply preventing you from publishing it, or giving them the ability to sue you for publishing it.
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Re: Re: Re:
I don't think it works like that (maybe I wasn't completely clear in the previous post).
The cc license says that you can republish a derivative work provided you make it available under the same (CC) terms. It is therefore up to you to do this. If you choose not to, and still publish your work under different terms, then you have broken the cc license terms. This actually does NOT give any third party the right to redistribute your work as if it was cc licensed. In that case you would be forced to withdraw you publication (and pulp any printed copies) - ie exactly the same thing as would have happened had you violated any other copyright.
Having said that I believe that in some cases IP on infringing articles HAS been transferred to the plaintiffs - however this may be only in trademark cases (eg Bratz).
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
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Re: Re: Re:
I don't think it works like that (maybe I wasn't completely clear in the previous post).
The cc license says that you can republish a derivative work provided you make it available under the same (CC) terms. It is therefore up to you to do this. If you choose not to, and still publish your work under different terms, then you have broken the cc license terms. This actually does NOT give any third party the right to redistribute your work as if it was cc licensed. In that case you would be forced to withdraw you publication (and pulp any printed copies) - ie exactly the same thing as would have happened had you violated any other copyright.
Having said that I believe that in some cases IP on infringing articles HAS been transferred to the plaintiffs - however this may be only in trademark cases (eg Bratz).
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Re: How can you have a contract with no witnesses and no agreement?
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He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
was >quoting another source.
"If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one."
Quoting directly, and including quotes in another work cannot be classified as any of:
alter
transform
build upon
You might think 'build upon' but no, he is using the quotes to 'build upon' his own work.
He did not take a wike article, and build it into his own article, he build his own article, and used the quotes to build upon it.
So he has not breached the license condition in any way, im sure he can sleep well tonight, and not worry about a thing..
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Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
"without any credit or indication that he was quoting another source"
Quotes have references.. or at least quotation marks or some sort of indicator.
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Re: Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
He's on a roll!
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Re: Re: Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
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Re: Re: Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
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Re: Re: Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
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Re: Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
where does it say that quoting is not allowed, even quoting without reference.
alter
transform
build upon
When you quote someone, you do not alter, transform, or build upon, what you are quoting.
As I said, all he did was use quotes from a source to build upon his own work..
So again, where does it say you cannot quote wiki ?
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Re: Re: Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
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Re: Re: Re: Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
he did not do any of the following
Alter
Transform
Build upon
Quote
So on what grounds does Wiki have a case ?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
To build upon something would mean you take the entire wike article, and build upon IT, you make it better, bigger, more accurate, you modifty if, by adding to it.
He did not do that, he did not create a competing article that would compete against the wiki info.
He just used the quotes from wike, to build upon his own work, his book.. Not the other way around.
And you would have a difficult time trying to show that he built upon the wiki info in any way.
so he has not breached any of the CC license conditions. As they state them.
You might want to look up what the CC defines as "built upon" as terms like that legally have a very concise definition.
Im sure, without checking it means build upon the wiki info, not use the wiki info to build upon your own independent work.
Plus the factual information from an exclopedia, is public domain, it is hard to claim copyright or such for facts and public facts, and in that case he used quotes, and not the entire article, so 1. he did not build upon the article
2. he has a very good fair use case.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
They seem to be claiming it breaches the license by building upon their work. I'm certainly not going to defend the "Build Upon" claim for them though I'll let someone else speak to that :)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
2. he has a very good fair use case."
Is public domain?
Tell that to Britannica.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
without having read the book (i am assuming you have), does this book or (at the minimum) the sections of this book stand on their own without the "quotes"?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
Nope he breached the clause that says you need offer derivative works with the same license if you use their material, after all it is theirs it is not?
What happen to the "if you produce it, it is yours and if somebody copy it it is stealing", you see the end result of that kind of thinking?
I will remember your posts here and will bring them up every time you say another word about copying is theft.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
The point is that he has not followed the license conditions and therefore he has simply violated wikipedia's copyright.
He used a portion of their text. Unless he used quotation marks and gave attribution and only used a very short extract then that is not fair use/fair dealing. He would therefore be in violation of a standard "all rights reserved" copyright. In that situation he would be rescued by the CC license only if he obeyed its terms. If, as you suggest, he did something different from what the license specifies then that does not mean that he is in the clear. Instead it means he cannot rely on the CC license at all and is simply in violation of Wikipedia's copyright in the ordinary way.
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Re: Re: Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
transform
build upon"
Daryl,
Technically, taking an electronic form (wikipedia) and putting it into a printed form is transforming.
In addition, a car turning into a robot is also transforming.
I suspect the definition of transforming is itself transforming.
O.P.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
But text, turning into text is not transforming, it did not even "turn into" other text, it was a quote, (unreferenced) but it still did not transform it, or any of those other things.
And if the CC ment you could not copy it, they would have said you cannot COPY it.
But they omit that, and for good reason.
How often have you seen a Wiki page displayed on a news program or a show, that is not breaching the CC license.
BTW:
You would expect a license called "creative commons" to be a license to, you know, have a commons from which you can create thing from !!
I dont know, but that was it idea of the CC to begin with was it not.
Not for it to be a restrictive license, to allow someone to cash in on someone elses effort
Comments ?
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Re: Re: Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
I don't know about French law, but under U.S. law, "quoting" definitely falls under "altering, transforming, or building upon" the work. If he'd used a Stephen King passage in his book (especially without attribution), he'd probably get his ass sued.
On the other hand, if he was in the U.S., he would definitely have a case for "fair use" - and if his use is fair use, the use itself is exempt from copyright, including copyright licenses such as CC.
If it's not fair use (or whatever the French equivalent is), then only two things are legally possible:
1. His entire work is now covered under the same copyright license (CC-BY-SA).
2. His entire work is in violation of copyright law.
Either way, neither he nor his agent (publisher) have the legal right to sue people who share the work.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
Well I don' think that's true. If it is case 2 (his entire work is in violation of copyright law), that doesn't give anyone else the right to share (copy) the work.
As I understand the facts as things currently stand, his work is in violation of copyright law. Period.
He could probably negotiate a settlement by placing his work under the same CC-BY-SA license, and adding attribution, thereby bringing future copies of his work into compliance, but it seems the violated authors (wikipedia) would have to agree that was acceptable.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
That right is granted by default. As a copyright owner, you have the legal right to stop people from doing that. But if you're not the copyright owner, you don't have that right. That's why DMCA takedown notices can only be sent by the copyright holders (or their agents), not third parties.
That's how it works in the U.S. at least.
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Re: He did not "alter, transform or build upon" the wiki stuff,
So he has not breached the license condition in any way, im sure he can sleep well tonight, and not worry about a thing..
I suggest you take another book from this author, extract similar sized passages, insert them into your own book without attribution and see how long it takes for his publisher to sue.
The only possible defence this guy has is fair use/fair dealing and it doesn't sound like he has obeyed the rules for that.
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Why, it's GREAT for the author! Publicity and free distribution!
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For more fun, consider 17 USC §103(a)
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Fair use?
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Re: Fair use?
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Re: Re: Fair use?
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Turnitin
Seems to me that they need to open up their database or their business is illegal.
;)
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Re: Turnitin
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More info
Source : http://www.numerama.com/magazine/17454-houellebecq-sous-licence-libre-flammarion-attaque-et-c-est-ta nt-mieux.html
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Now, this book itself may be a copyright violation for using the wikipedia material, but that does not automatically mean it's licensed under the cc-by-sa and the people trying to redistribute the book under said license are doing so illegally.
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Re:
Also they could get the author to pay statutory damages.
About Linux, there is no one to go after even if it was infringing on something that is the beauty of distributed production you are free from those constraints.
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Re:
1. CC-BY-SA says you can only distribute derived works if they are also CC-BY-SA;
2. The book is a derived work;
3. The book is being distributed;
4. Therefore, the book is CC-BY-SA.
Or, writing in a bit more formal style:
0. cc-by-sa(WIKIPEDIA-ARTICLE)
1. cc-by-sa(X) ^ derived-work(Y, X) ^ distributed(Y) -> cc-by-sa(Y)
2. derived-work(BOOK, WIKIPEDIA-ARTICLE)
3. distributed(BOOK)
4. Therefore, cc-by-sa(BOOK)
This means that they can distribute the book freely under CC-BY-SA.
However, that logic is incomplete. A better logic could be:
0. cc-by-sa(WIKIPEDIA-ARTICLE)
1. cc-by-sa(X) ^ derived-work(Y, X) ^ distributed(Y) -> cc-by-sa(Y) V copyright-violation(Y)
2. derived-work(BOOK, WIKIPEDIA-ARTICLE)
3. distributed(BOOK)
4. Therefore, cc-by-sa(BOOK) V copyright-violation(BOOK)
5. ~cc-by-sa(BOOK)
6. Therefore, copyright-violation(BOOK)
Where both sides are in the wrong. The book is a copyright violation, and the copyright on it is itself being violated.
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Re: Re:
cc-by-sa(X) ^ derived-work(Y, X) -> cc-by-sa(Y) V ~distributed(Y)
With the same final result.
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Re:
Your comparison with SCO is bit inaccurate though. A proprietary license says you cannot redistribute period. Not that you can redistribute only if conditions x y z are met. So giving Linux to SCO would not remedy the violation. Placing the book under CC would.
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Have a seat next to Jammie Thomas
This is pretty standard stuff and really has squat to do with the GPL or CC. That is why these sorts of licenses "work".
They exploit copyright law itself.
If you copy and publish someone else's work, that thing still remains someone else's work.
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Re:
There are only three possible situations:
1. His use of Wikipedia material is fair use/fair dealings under French law. In this case, he holds the copyright to his portions of the book, and the people who redistribute the book are infringing.
2. His use is not fair use, but he obeys the law and releases the work as CC-BY-SA.
3. His use is not fair use, and he tries to release the book under a different license. In this case, he is in violation of copyright law, and cannot legally sue the people who redistribute the book. Only the original copyright holder (Wikipedia) can do that - and since the PDF is being distributed in a way that is automatically granted by Wikipedia's license, those people are not infringing on Wikipedia's copyright.
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Decent chunks?
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Re: Decent chunks?
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Ffgallaire.flext.net%2Fhouellebecq-creative- commons%2F&sl=fr&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8
Copyright is hard and it is getting harder and will maul everybody.
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Re: Re: Decent chunks?
I found something similar under exceptions on the French copyright law article on Wikipedia:
3. In cases where the name of the author and the source are clearly indicated,
a) Analyses and short citations justified by the critical, polemical, scientific or pedagogical nature of the work.
I hope that clears it up; no attribution equals no exception.
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Re: Re: Decent chunks?
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Re:
We are trying to "justify" using someone elses work and then suing others that re-use yours.
Feel free to chime in :)
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Derivative
A CC license is not a disease, it's not cooties. You can just declare that the book used a passage, perhaps where it shouldn't have, and thus the entire copyright on the book is void. It doesn't work like that.
You know how some websites say things like "you can't copy any part of the website ever, and there is no fair use, ever"? Well, just because they say that, doesn't make it true. This is a similar situation, it just happens to be the party whose saying that is someone you're more prone to side with.
I'm not saying the author wasn't in wrong, of course he was. But it is a minor wrong, and it certainly doesn't prevent him from having a copyright on the book.
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Re: Derivative
Unless you can convince some judge that this work is engaging in "fair use", it is no longer distributable the usual manner employed by Old Media.
It's no different than if Jamie Thomas decided to create her own label and start pressing her own set of 24 infringed songs as an 80s nostalgia collection. It would be the same way even if she only included 1 of those moldy oldies and all of the other tracks were her reading the phone book.
Sauce for the goose and all of that...
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Re: Derivative
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Re: Derivative
And what do you think the chances are that the publisher will admit that they made a mistake and remove those passages? My guess is that they'll argue that they're entitled to use them, while ignoring the CC license. In other words, they probably think they're entitled to special treatment because the quote came from a source that was 'just a web site'.
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Here's to the wonderful complexities of copyright law
Everyone screws up now and then. This time it was a book author who didn't understand or didn't care he was using someone else's work, without following the rules laid out on how to do so in front of him. Perhaps he thought because it was "on the internet" it was "free" and "public domain". After all, a little "Judith Griggs"ing never hurt anyone, except for Judith G's internet reputation... for life.
Creative Commons licenses are recognized in France and without the author having a Fair Use defense there, it will be interesting to see on which side the ball lands, should anyone be actually taken to court over the CC release of the book.
The way I see it, there would be no issue here except for this one error: The author is to blame for putting these quotes into his book without reading, understanding and complying with the terms of Wikipedia's licensing to use the text, and now he is being hoisted by his own petard. Boom!
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Or...as I expect...the courts will make us a nice double standard, where only the "old guard" ever gets a chance. That is, copyright is always right and any new model loses by default.
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Re:
Basically the Publisher should get out now before he has to choose (legally) between a will-full infringement suite with mass distributed damages.... and making copyright un-enforcable if you dont read the warnings :)
Oh my... Lions, Tigers.... and a Bear on a Ball Juggling.
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What is the CC if it is not for this purpose ?
I dont know, but that was it idea of the CC to begin with was it not?
Not for it to be a restrictive license, to allow someone to cash in on someone elses effort
Comments ?
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Re: What is the CC if it is not for this purpose ?
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Re: What is the CC if it is not for this purpose ?
What, like H is doing with the effort of wikipedia's editors?
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And it not that restrictive but it does have restriction, you can cash in if there is no NC-Non Commercial clause on it, but a Sharealike needs:
a) You give it credit
b) You make it the same license
Neither of those were found on this case, so it is infringing the license. Ain't copyright a b.?
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what matters is that judges think
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Did they stop distribution?
As far as this goes, it is similar to GPL enforcement cases. Now that the violation of the license terms has been pointed out, the publisher can either cease publication and work out a deal with Wikimedia for past infringement, or else they can accept the license and continue to publish the work.
The options of continuing to publish the work without a license, or seeking a non-CC license from Wikimedia aren't available to them.
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not it's not like a GPL infringement case
Besides, this is not like a GPL infringement case - we're dealing with literary work here, which a French court is likely to treat differently than code.
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