New Research Shows How Copyright Law Is Keeping Useful Info Off Wikipedia
from the too-bad dept
The Atlantic has an interesting article about some forthcoming research from MIT PhD student Abhishek Nagaraj (though, oddly, the article never introduces him, never mentions his first name, and just refers to him throughout by his last name only). It's the latest in an increasingly long line of evidence showing how copyright is stifling content and keeping it from reaching the public in useful ways. Nagaraj found a particularly useful natural experiment in the archives of Baseball Digest "the oldest and longest-running journal of matters baseball-related," which has been published continuously since 1942. For various reasons (sounds like they didn't renew...) the issues from 1942 until 1964 are in the public domain. Everything after that... not so much. Google's book scanning project scanned nearly every issue from July 1945 until 2008.Nagaraj realized that Wikipedians were using this as good source material for Wikipedia pages -- especially on the profiles of older baseball players. He noted that there was little stopping the text from being rewritten, but the real issue was around images. People could use the scanned images to illustrate the profiles, but clearly they could only use the public domain ones without permission.
But Nagaraj found was that the availability of public domain material dramatically improved the article's images. Before the digitization, players from between '44 and '64 had an average of .183 pictures on their articles. The '64 to '84 group had about .158 pictures. But after digitization, those numbers dramatically changed: there were 1.15 pictures on each of the older group's articles -- but only .667 in the new group. More recent players, covered by privately-owned parts of Baseball Digest, had half as many images on their pages as did old-timers.And, yes, the article notes that he put in place various controls to correct for unrelated differences. Basically, the only observable difference in why the pages have more images is the public domain status of some of those works vs. others. Some might argue that this is no big deal, but he found a second bit of useful data s well:
And the effects of this -- of just having an image on the page -- cascaded to other metrics. "Out-of-copyright" players's pages saw a significant boost in traffic. Articles from the pre-'64 that were already in the top 10 percent saw their hits increase more than 70 percent. Articles from that group in the least-popular ten percent saw traffic to their articles increase by 25 percent. Those pages were more frequently edited across the board, too. And this makes sense: Google rewards updated content, and it rewards images. The out-of-copyright players provided more of both.I'm reminded, yet again, of that chart of the now infamous gap in books under copyright that you can't find any more -- even though older books in the public domain are widely available. Once again, we're seeing not only the massive value of the public domain, but how much useful content is being locked away by excessively strict (and excessively long) copyright law.
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Filed Under: baseball digest, copyright, information, learning, public domain, wikipedia
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Think like a mental case !
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Get mental help. Now.
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Writes a thesis (something he HAS TO do) about stuff he gives a shit about.
NOW........ it's a CONSPIRACY !
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By that standard, any study, poll, research, etc. is suspect, because SOMEONE is paying for it, either private or govermental, and will force the results to reflect their bias.
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*jumps on abc gum's head*
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Another AC said: "Warner Music Group has that tune"
The public's had that tune since 1936, actually. What WMG has is a tenuous claim on the lyrics. I've said it before, but here goes:
This tune's Public Domain
This tune's Public Domain
So it's free, WMG
'Cos it's Public Domain!
Copyright © 2010 Romersa's Protégé. Individuals and groups are free to copy, share, and perform this work for non-commercial purposes. All other rights reserved.
Adapted from 'Good Morning to All'
AKA 'Happy Birthday to You'; Public
Domain.
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An Anecdote
For example, most of the pictures in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femur are from the 1918 edition of Gray's anatomy.
I'm pretty sure it isn't out of some massive epidemic of nostalgia on the part of Wikipedians, but rather that the long term of copyright means that reference sources from the roaring 20s onwards are off-limits.
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http://www.humanatlasproject.com/
Not because there is no free data, because there is.
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It's humorous, and has elements of conceptual truth, but in practice, it just doesn't work.
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Despite claims to the contrary IP laws limit the availability of everything, that is the rule the exception is when for some reason the contrary is true, which may happen in a very specific set of circumstances that are rare.
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http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/executive-orders
Particul arly in the one about Russian enriched uranium, you'll notice the president casually declaring a state of emergency. hmmm. I don't recall any news agencies mentioning that.
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Re: article
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We love to see those too.
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never
My rights cancel your privilege, have a great day.
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"Artists" are just your canon folder, they are just a word to be thrown in the mix to elicit an emotional response and because of that you are full of shite.
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(Article 1, Section 8; emphasis added).
This article is arguing that the length of copyright (ie, the fact that it really is no longer for "limited Times") is hindering "the Progress of Science and useful Arts".
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now i just have this to say.
Logic'd bitch.
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You are full of shite.
And it doesn't even lockup one piece it locks up an entire segment since it applies to derivative works also for a hundred years.
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You call misappropriation of derivatives limited?
You call paying levies that are pirate taxes on everybody limited?
You can evermore expanding interpretations of what can be excluded limited?
So we are clear, we have very different notions of what limited means.
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The fact the work was created without the extension shows that the length of copyright already in effect before the extension was enough incentive for the copyright holder to create the work.
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If you allow congress to kepp extending copyrigth at will then you have no limited times because they can just up the expiration date thus granting unlimited copyright without granting unlimited copyrigth.
And promoting new works is the thing congress is enpowered to do under the copyrigth act, anything that goes against that would be judged unconstitutional by a copetent and non corrupt supreme court.
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It doesn't take an incompetent or corrupt Court to determine that Congress has the power to determine what is necessary and proper in effectuating a Constitutionally-approved goal.
I know that people who disagree with Congress would really like the Supreme Court to swoop in and institute their judgment on what makes the best law, but that's not how the system is designed to work.
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I, and most English speakers, think that any limit makes something limited, such that a set time is a limited time, even if it's a really long time.
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I know this because a guy with a swastika tatoo told me. Seemed legit
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http://www.springwise.com/media_publishing/hip2b2/
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If copying is stealing then competition is theft since you must do some degree of copying to compete. For example:
- A mexican restaurant and a chinese restaurant must both copy the basic concept of what a restaurant is and a direct competitor of either of the first two types must copy the style of cuisine.
- a smartphone must copy the concepts of a cellphone(naturally) and the idea of running software from your phone
- first person shooters copy a number of things such as having a generally standard set of weapons which themselves are based on real life weapons or ceatures
- and don't get me started on movies and TV massive amounts of copying abound there.
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Your ideas are meaningless, because you are confusing GENERAL concepts with specific ones. A specific image, a specific written story, a specific performance, those are key. The general concept of images, the general concepts of writing a story or recording a song are not.
You suck at this stuff. Try again.
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Please call us back when you get a clue.
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You amuse me moron
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In fact, if they contacted the players themselves (or their orgasnizations) I am sure they have publicity photos which could be used.
I get more of the feeling that people are lazy, and would rather lift the information from wherever, rather than actually develop a proper source. That's the Wikipedia disadvantage, people taking shortcuts.
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Have you actually done this?
"people are lazy"
and water is wet
"would rather lift the information from wherever, rather than actually develop a proper source. That's the Wikipedia disadvantage, people taking shortcuts."
Proper source people, yeah that's the ticket. No more lazy pirating of past research, one must reinvent the wheel at every occasion. Oh and btw, Wikipedia is the only place people take shortcuts leading to its "disadvantage".
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Have you actually done this?"
I have gone to sporting events, and taken pictures, some of which are good enough for publication, yes.
"Proper source people, yeah that's the ticket. No more lazy pirating of past research, one must reinvent the wheel at every occasion. "
It's not a question of re-inventing the wheel. If you want publicity pics of a player, ask his team. They almost always have some. Most of them would LOVE to help you out, especially on past players. It's good for them.
Wikipedia isn't the only place - but it's the biggest.
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Hopefully this will continue to be the case ... however, just try that at other locations and you will be accosted by the picture police. They use many excuses, from copyright to terrorism, but the result is the same - they get to harass you and suffer little consequence. Several courts have ruled that it is not illegal to photograph things in public but the picture police do not care about the law.
When I read this blog post, I took it as just another of many examples of how copyright is being abused. Pointing out how one item in the post is arguable (pictures at ballgames) does not mean the entire post is trash.
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I would recommend you be careful which brand of tin foil you use for your hat, some of them are purposely poorly made as to let the signals get through, so those voices can talk to you all night. You know, the ones you are listening to right now.
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Cameras weren't just invented, and nobody had a monopoly use of a single camera.
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Oh wait....
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I'm sure wikipedia contributors do that: today. But the article concerns players from the 1964-1984 time period, a time which is decidedly not today.
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People are lazy and water is wet as someone mentioned...
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All the pictures from back then are tied up in copywrong.
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Fucking moron
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Asking people for publicity photos is a daft and dangerous solution. It gives the copyright holders the option to add demands for the use of the photos (don't mention the steroids or else) or to charge for the use of the photos, or worse, decide to refuse publication of the photos altogether because they don't like the site, the author or the subject matter.
Anyway... photos of public figures doing things in public should be fair use anyway, so all this jumping through copyright hoops shouldn't be necessary in the first place. But this of course is the way some people want things: illegal to take photos, illegal to use other people's photos, and if you ask to use someone's PR photos - you must pay licensing fees, and obey their demands to censor your own work according to their wishes. It's fucking beautiful, isn't it? Also, let's not forget that we are now trying to grant famous people additional copyrights to protect them even more.
But sure, let's take the easy way out and decide the system is good, and people are lazy. That explains everything.
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That was not at all clear to me from the article.
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