[thelist] Harvester: Plagiarism, or Permission?

[the head lemur]

> So, do I proceed with publishing tips that are already on the
> harvester? Do I make sure I have individual permissions? Group
> permission?

ahhhh......a break from my currently ramblings having to do with copyright,
theft, and publication issues just like this............

my view is that , anything on this list and on the evolt  site is fair game
for commentary, critisism, reuse, republication, or rebuttal.  This is borne
out by the interactive nature of the list and the comments section of every
article that is published.

you could use them under the Fair Use doctrine of US copyright law and then
the originators of the tips could drag your butt into court for a long
protracted trial, with the attendant publicity, excoration, excommunication,
and bad juju.....
but i don't think it needs to go that far..


The hyperlink is the most powerful item on the web. No other piece of code,
image, style or presentation has the same impact, and in my view is the
defining source of the web and the reason for its explosive growth.
The web unlike any other media gives us the power to do this.
source credit at a minimum is the right thing to do.

Without credit, the implication is that it is your creation, which in the
short term may fly briefly, but will sooner or later trip you up.
there currently a number of active discussions taking place on the web on
this and the broader issues of copyright, attribution and theft:

The website captain saga -Dreamless.org
http://www.dreamless.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000971.html

Inspiration or ripoff - Design is kKnky net
http://www.designiskinky.net/theory/index.html

stealing design - austounding websites
http://www.astoundingweb.org/cgi-bin/wwwthreads/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=b
igthreads&Number=5930&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5




I do a lot of writing on the web, and make sure that i provide a link to the
source material for a few reasons;

first, it is the right thing to do,

second, it affords the readers an opportunity to see what it was that led me
to comment, enabling them to draw their own conclusions, and tell me what a
perceptive, intelligent, and wonderful human i am, or to tell me that i am a
lunatic of epic proportions.

third, as i quote passages from these source pages, it covers my butt under
the Fair Use Doctrine.

the head lemur-alan herrell
http://www.lemurzone.com
Member Evolt.org
http://www.evolt.org
Member Web Standards Project
http://www.webstandards.org