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______________________________________________________________________________
Does
Open License Mean Open Season?
BY
Jason Lee Miller *
The
unattributed verbatim appearance of a Wikipedia article in a book from a
major publisher
sparked accusations of plagiarism, and raises more serious issues of
ethics as well as
the perils of publishing under open licenses.
Slashdot
blew the whistle on John Wiley and Sons (Wiley) and author George Orwel
(note the one "L") for publishing a Wikipedia article on the
1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. The article appeared
without attribution in Orwel's Black
Gold: The New Frontier in Oil for Investors as though they were
Orwel's words, and not the collective writers of the article on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia
contributor "Ydorb," who prefers to remain anonymous, says he
wrote much, but not all, of the text that appeared in Black Gold, and
provides a side-by-side comparison at Wikipedia. Ydorb says he was
informed of the situation via another contributor who had read the book,
prompting him to put together the
comparison page.
In
response to a WebProNews inquiry, Wiley's Susan Spilka issued the
following statement:
"In
Black Gold by George Orwel, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., published a
credentialed author and a thoroughly-sourced book. However, it
appears that a specific passage from Wikipedia was inadvertently added
by our author to the text without attribution. George Orwel has assured
us this was not intentional and has asked that we rectify the situation.
Wiley will provide corrections to all future reprints of this book and
make the changes to the ebook version.
"We
take this situation very seriously. We earn our readers’ trust
by producing quality works by reputable authors. On rare
occasions, mistakes happen. When they happen, we appreciate being
alerted and do what is necessary to rectify any problems."
While
it appears that Wiley will be doing just that, the incident brings up some
important issues regarding open licenses used for collaborative works,
including software, on the Internet. Because of the terms of the licensing
agreement and the nature of the work, Ydorb and other contributors may
have had no other recourse aside from media coverage.
Like
much open source software, Wikipedia content is licensed under GNU Free
Documentation License, also known as "copyleft."
This type of licensing says that content can be reused or repurposed
verbatim, either commercially or non-commercially "so long as the new
version grants the same freedoms to others and acknowledges the authors of
the Wikipedia article used (a direct link back to the article satisfies
our author credit requirement)."
But
what if the attribution requirement is not met? Who will pursue the matter
of infringement?
Wikipedia
says not them. Though the staff at the Wikimedia Foundation found the
situation "frustrating," spokespersons agreed the company
"doesn't really take any position on this. It is not the copyright
holder, the individuals who wrote the article in question are. They have
licensed their contributions to the Foundation to get them into Wikipedia.
"Realistically
all these folks can do if they feel aggrieved is appeal to public opinion
via the media, it is expensive to pursue a copyright infringement case,
and for material under GFDL the process would not be to extract money from
the plagiarist, but to make them release their work under a compatible
license."
And
then there's the problem of multiple anonymous contributors. "That
it's been edited raises very big factual questions," Technology
and Marketing Law blogger Eric Goldman tells WebProNews. "Who did
what to whom?" And because it's under an open license, "it's a
little hard to object if somebody actually takes it."
At
least in the case of the Khobar Towers article, it is clear that
non-attribution is cause for infringement of the license. But there's
nobody willing to pursue the case, and if attribution is made eventually,
it becomes a sort of no-harm-no-foul situation.
"This
is a really great example of some of the problems with taking content off
the Internet," says Goldman. "The publisher may not realize
they're giving their stuff away."
*
Jason Lee Miller is a WebProNews
editor and writer covering business and technology.
[Source
and © WebProNews]
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