User talk:Sharon Mooney

Tasks: start a new article • add basic, wanted or requested articles • add definitions • add metadata • edit new pages

Welcome to the Citizendium! We hope you will contribute boldly and well. Here are pointers for a quick start. You'll probably want to know how to get started as an author. Just look at Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, our help system and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. Be sure to stay abreast of events via Twitter. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forum is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any administrator for help, too. Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun! --Larry Sanger 15:28, 23 February 2007 (CST)

Picture

Hi Sharon, welcome again--regarding Image:Oldest carbon life.jpg, is that something that you have the copyright to? If so, can you please include the copyright info & permission/license so we can be sure we can use it? --Larry Sanger 17:11, 23 February 2007 (CST)

Hi. Yes, I have the legal right to use and redistribute this particular image. Foremost would be the fair use in copyright law, but second, an image like this one was modified / colorized through an image editing program (Adobe Photoshop) -- in other words, it has been modified to enough of an extent, when held to the original nobody would be mistaken -- it is not the same image. *smile*) so it's different than the one I based the image on. Due to modifications, though "similar" to the original, it's my own image. Technically, I can't use it for commercial purposes of my own. That would be unethical, but it can be used for educational purposes legally, and of course all respective credits intact. --Sharon Mooney 18:47, 23 February 2007 (EST)

"I am not a lawyer," but surely we cannot with good sense justify use of entire, decent-quality images via the doctrine of "fair use," since we're redistributing images to the entire world. We aren't making a copy for use in a college course, or taking a small quotation from a whole book and putting it in another publication--we're taking an entire, decent-quality image of the same sort that was copyrighted by the original source. That's why I don't buy the use of "fair use" with respect to any but very small reproductions, and maybe not even then.

I also don't buy the argument that because you have modified an image, it is therefore yours. If I make a copy of a picture I found in Time magazine, and photoshop it, that obviously doesn't make the picture mine. It makes it an altered version of Time magazine's picture.

Proper authorization would take the form of actual permission from the copyright holder. --Larry Sanger 18:31, 23 February 2007 (CST)

I could try to email National Geographic and get permission to use the one in the book (they would refuse to acknowledge the one I submitted, because it was modified) or, I can provide an original trace and colorization of the image. That in fact, would truly be my image. Would that be acceptable? I am an artist afterall. Although, even if I hand-design an image, if I base it on another person's art or photography, I still provide respective credits, not to mention it offers credibility. --Sharon Mooney 19:35, 23 February 2007 (EST)

Either of the things you suggest would be fine, I think. --Larry Sanger 18:47, 23 February 2007 (CST)

Traced a new image, splashed some color -- used some texture effects and blur to try to make it as realistic as possible. There shouldn't be any mistake now who created the image. I hope it looks good enough to others for the page. I would be happy to help out on art and images any time contributors really need them for support material in articles, (when my schedule permits). They only need to contact me. I'm a fairly good photographer, can do microscopy photos and video and, original art by sketch. --Sharon Mooney 20:47, 23 February 2007 (EST)

Great to see another author interested in the Origin of life. Cheers David Tribe 19:31, 23 February 2007 (CST)

Thanks for the welcome David. --Sharon Mooney 20:49, 23 February 2007 (EST)

Copyright protection covers not only the original work, but also any works based on the original (called derivative works).

"In addition to the right to make copies, copyright protection also allows the owner to control derivative works. . . " (West Nutshell series on Intellectual Property).

"A copyright owner has the right to exclude all others from creating works based on his own. This right safeguards a copyright owner from what otherwise might be an unduly narrow interpretation of the reproduction right, which could then permit another to vary elements of the work sufficiently to to assert that it is not actually a copy." (also from West Nutshell)

"The statutory definition of a 'derivative work' is extremely comprehensive . . ." (also West)

Your original description (above) is precisely what a derivative work is. I do not know what you mean by an "original trace". It still sounds like a derivative product. IANAL, but you do not want not hear this from a lawyer! James F. Perry 23:53, 24 February 2007 (CST)

I just took a look at the Oldest carbon life photo. It says "based on". That sounds very much like "derivative product". James F. Perry 00:03, 25 February 2007 (CST)

Common Sense vs. Proprietorship - 'dat waskly wabbit

If everyone sued everyone for replicating a concept, idea or fact commerce would come to a virtual halt, educational institutions would shut down, no further books could be published. In fact, this entire site is one big 'derivitive' work. All the articles are derived from printed or electronic material, and those being ideas and concepts that were not originally the authors' own ideas, rather, they are replicating ideas and words that belonged to somebody else. Derivitive work, as in commercial products. e.g., a cartoon character owned by Warner Brothers, -- it would be illegal to create a Bugs Bunny decal, and to sell T-Shirts without Warner Brothers' permission. Warner Brothers owns proprietary rights to Bugs. However, as for the photograph in discussion and the photographer in question, does not and cannot claim ownership over a mass-publicized carbon ball found in a rock. There's a line between absurdity and common sense. That is why there are stipulations such as fair use in Copyright law. The photographer would have to prove beyond reasonable doubt to a court of law they were caused financial harm. They do not own a patent on the carbon ball. *smile*

An image of a carbon ball, an article based on the writings of others... intellectual property rights... same thing. --Sharon Mooney 1:49, 25 February 2007 (EST)

Database Down

Thanks for your inquiry...from 2007-02-23 23:40:00-06 to 2007-02-24 00:40:00-06 (database notation) I was doing some backend database work. "Lost" revisions are now restored.

-Jason Potkanski

Images

Looks as if your talents and images will be a valued addition to CZ, Sharon. Another welcome David Tribe 15:18, 24 February 2007 (CST)

I agree--thanks for your work here, Sharon. However, can you please make a habit of including copyright information, in addition to source information, in all images you upload? For example, I notice that Image:Snail leech eggs 03.jpg and Image:Snail leech babies 02.jpg and perhaps others (?) credit the work to a particular person, but it is not clear whether we actually have that person's permission, and what the license is. --Larry Sanger 22:31, 24 February 2007 (CST)

My apologies. I have added a statement of 2007 copyright and permission to use. --Sharon Mooney 11:51, 24 February 2007 (EST)

Intellectual Property

"If everyone sued everyone for replicating a concept, idea or fact commerce would come to a virtual halt, educational institutions would shut down, no further books could be published. In fact, this entire site is one big 'derivitive' work. All the articles are derived from printed or electronic material, and those being ideas and concepts that were not originally the authors' own ideas, rather, they are replicating ideas and words that belonged to somebody else. Derivitive work, as in commercial products. e.g., a cartoon character owned by Warner Brothers, -- it would be illegal to create a Bugs Bunny decal, and to sell T-Shirts without Warner Brothers' permission. Warner Brothers owns proprietary rights to Bugs. However, as for the photograph in discussion and the photographer in question, does not and cannot claim ownership over a mass-publicized carbon ball found in a rock. There's a line between absurdity and common sense. That is why there are stipulations such as fair use in Copyright law. The photographer would have to prove beyond reasonable doubt to a court of law they were caused financial harm. They do not own a patent on the carbon ball. *smile*

"An image of a carbon ball, an article based on the writings of others... intellectual property rights... same thing." --Sharon Mooney 1:49, 25 February 2007 (EST)

We are not talking about a "concept, idea, or fact". Such things are not copyrightable. You cannot copyright a fact, for example. We are talking about a photographic work - an original creation. You cannot just take such a photograph, re-work it in PhotoShop and call it yours. If it were as simple as that, then the concept of copyright of photos would be meaningless, for any photo could be "touched up" and re-issued under someone else's name.

Likewise, it is, as you say, not possible to copyright (note: copyright is different from patent) a "work of nature" (the carbon ball), but that is not what is at issue here. What the issue is concerns the particular representation of that work of nature, the photograph, which is copyrightable.

A copyright infringement suit is a civil action. The proof burden is not "beyond a reasonable doubt" (that applies to criminal actions, not civil actions). The financial harm to the copyright owner is a factor in determing financial obligation of the infringer, not whether an infringement has or has not occurred (which likewise does not depend on commercial, non-commmercial distinction - NC use is still an infringement).

I reiterate: I am quite certain that the original use of the photo was not "fair use" and, further, the re-working in PhotoShop created a deriviative product. I do not know about the "original trace" because I do not know what that involved.

As for this site (CZ): articles derived from WP are permissable because WP is licensed GFDL which explicitly permits such derivative works. And if I create a new (non-WP) article on Joan of Arc, it is "based on" the life of JofA, not derived from the work of another. Again, don't confuse a particular work, which is copyrightable, with "ideas and concepts" which are not.

I'm cutting out of this conversation right now. You need to read some books on copyright. James F. Perry 08:48, 25 February 2007 (CST)

I have created a {{CopyrightQ}} template, with a corresponding Category:Copyright Questionable category, that we can place on the talk pages of files that have questionable copyright/licensing status. --Larry Sanger 09:15, 25 February 2007 (CST)