User:Marshallsumter/Dominant group/Attribution and copyright

Attribution or credit means to let everyone know where a piece of knowledge, even as small as a "least publishable unit", is from. A "least publishable unit" is an older expression for the smallest possible fact that has been determined to be a fact that just might be publishable, and has not as yet been published.

Dominant group
"Dominant group" is a term that has several definitions in the scholarly literature and a number of relative synonyms. Its origin dates to at least 1826 and perhaps earlier. It appears to be an entity designated by the author to indicate an observation of importance that needs to be addressed by relevant theory.

"A study of usage, which is what the subject research involves, requires exact quotation, paraphrase would not be showing primary evidence, and a link to an article, in lieu of exact quotation, would simply not work, it would be too cumbersome. The citations are necessary for the research, they are the very core of it."

Plagiarism
Here's a simple example: from Edmond Halley, "In 1718 he discovered the proper motion of the "fixed" stars by comparing his astrometric measurements with those given in Ptolemy's Almagest." A least publishable unit is that Halley had a copy of the Almagest available to him that he compared his efforts to. While it makes sense considering his position at the University of Oxford, he'd have access, but how did anyone know that he made this comparison? This apparent little tiny fact has no attribution or citation. Okay, maybe the fact is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN. But, I want to know who found that out or where that little fact came from. While it may not be plagiarism that no citation for this little fact is given (I think it may be), I may have to search high and low to find out. Worse, let's say someone just found this out by reviewing an old handwritten note left in the University of Oxford archives that Halley really did this. Who ever found this out has had a part of his/her soul stolen and appropriated by whomever put this in the article without a citation. Not a big deal - Yes it is!

"If you have referred material from the writings of earlier scholars, please be bold enough to give the reference. Not doing so is plagiarism - an academic sin which must be avoided at all costs." "The act of stealing from the writings of another person and passing the material off as one’s own is a form of intellectual property theft. In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else’s work and pretending that this is to be one’s own and, lying about it afterward."

“Plagiarism is the act of using the words of another without giving the originator credit.” Yes, but more importantly is the phrase "put it into your own words". Briefly this means some kind of factual synonymy. Beautiful! But, the 'synonymizer' didn't determine the fact, the apparent originator who put it in the literature did. "Within these quotes is a short sentence that may contain a fact, even a little tiny inconspicuous fact."[1] Let's say the quotes were left off, who cares why, but the citation [1] is still there. Credit has been given! No plagiarism. It's better with the quotes there but in the past and in some disciplines quotes are forbidden, but the citation is not. What about the synonymy "put it in your own words". Not an excuse to uncite anything. I don't care whether the synonymizer understands the fact or not. I want to know where the synonymizer got it from. And, the person who determined that fact is going to want to know why the cite was left off.

Some authors, editors, writers, article creators "think that changing the words is sufficient to avoid plagiarism." So they leave off the citation. Wrong!

"Plagiarism also can be an unintentional or accidental [act] when there is careless omission of citations and failure in using quotation marks".

Everyone makes mistakes too! But, here's the important part. Let's say someone writes 100 sentences that should have an attribution or citation after them or within them somewhere and misses one. Is that plagiarism? Well, for that one sentence, yes. But, the other 99 are cited. The rule of thumb is "beyond reasonable doubt", that's better than 98% certainty. So is it beyond reasonable doubt that the author who wrote those 100 sentences is not plagiarizing. Yes! Should we shoot the author for that one - no! But, if you find it let the author know so it can be cited. If you don't, you could be considered an accessory after the fact. In addition, give the author the benefit of the doubt (assume good faith, AGF). It's not only the good thing to do, in many countries it's the law - to do anything else may be a serious crime! When the author is no longer with Wikipedia, Wikiversity, or other Wikimedia resources, then it's up to you. You found it, please have the courage to fix it (be bold). At the other extreme is to put the whole page up for deletion (AfD) on Wikipedia, (RfD) on Wikiversity, each Wikimedia resource may have its own version.

Copyright violation
“One of the least understood laws that affects or potentially affects perhaps 90% of the school teachers in the country is the Copyright Act.” “The primary violations are of two types: illegal copying and illegal display or performance.” “Illegal copying occurs when public educators copy music, poetry, literature, current news articles, and computer software without permission of the copyright holder.”

Often a copyright notice will say "whole or in part", so how much is that? Whole is the easy one. So don't copy the whole thing without permission, unless it's been proven to be in the PUBLIC DOMAIN. Even when it is I still like to give credit with a Credit: line, as for images. There are arguments pro and con about copyright and payment. Usually there's an initial lump sum, salary, or wage, sometimes followed by a royalty, say 5% for each individual reuse of the whole thing, or for a neat part design the assembly line manufacture of which is being used on automobiles. But not forever with every penny you have.

What about the 'part' part? Usually, that refers to one page of many. Of course, if the entire thing is one page, then copying it is a violation without consent, when it's copyrighted. But, sentences that are cited with or without quotes are a part. Here again I use the "beyond reasonable doubt" principle. Let's say an article has 10,000 words and I quote 150 in ten sentences either all together or scattered about. And, I cite them. The part used is less than 2%. Is it a copyright violation? I say no. It's Fair Use. Even more than that is something most don't think about. I'm citing the source. The usual argument is that by taking any small part I've lowered the value of the creator's work. No, what I've done is increase the value of the creator's work. Because anyone who reads what I've written knows where it came from and can check it out. Every time that happens, the original and its creator have their value increased. From an author's perspective, the worst that can happen is no one reads what you've written any more. Now that's zero value or even negative value. It's just a journal on a shelf, now in microfiche, or in a memory chip somewhere, maybe.

It has been written that “any work can be reduced to plagiarism if enough research is done.” Paraphrasing this regarding copyright, 'any work can be reduced to copyright violation if enough research is done.' This is where the nebulous concepts of 'fair' and 'reasonable'; hence, Fair use, come in. Also, within fair use is the idea of "likely to be replaceable by public domain material." This is better providing the PUBLIC DOMAIN text serves the exact same purposes. If it does not, then the referenced source should remain.

Short quotation
Here the word 'short' means something less than quoting the full written work. "[T]he right of quotation and criticism ... is a basic prerequisite of any journalist's or scientist's works." "This right should also be effectively protected under the conditions of DRM [Digital Rights Management] and access to the relevant information should not be prevented by technical measures."

"According to Copyright Law of the United States: ... Short quotations of a copyrighted publication may be reproduced without permission in books, articles, and other publications. This is often interpreted as fewer than 250 words (in total) from a book-length work or less than 5% of a journal article." Just to illustrate: all of the quotes from More total 160 words of a total of 5704; i.e., 2.81%. While this is above my preferred less than 2% rule, it is below the 285 words of the 5% rule indicated.

"[T]he French copyright act recognise[s] a right of short quotation". But, "the complete representation of a protected work [is] not covered by the right to make short quotations."

An older ruling by the Landgericht Berlin (District Court) in 1960 indicated that there are "statutory exceptions for quotation" with respect to copyright law. But, "the German Copyright Act [does] not allow quoting protected works in their integrity in the press." "[A]n integral reproduction of caricatures must be allowed under special circumstances, such as political debates, where the possibility to quote the political adversary is necessary."

From the German Constitutional Court back in 1978, of the legislator, "He shall bring into just equation and balance the constitutionally guaranteed requirement of a reasonable use of the creative accomplishment and the interests of the general public worthy of protection". This statement is to provide guidance for resolving conflicts "between the individual proprietary interests and the general cultural, social and political interests arising in the digital environment."

"Considering that DRM systems will most probably affect the general conditions of intellectual freedom in democratic societies this issue is too important to be left to the industry to determine." The Supreme Court of Austria "the (OGH) on 3 October 2000" noted "the exception for the use of copyright protected works in quotations." in the Austrian Copyright Act.

Over on Wikiquote are several quotation guidelines (unreferenced):
 * 1) Length of quotes - "a maximum of 250 words per quote", that's about 20-25 lines from a journal article,
 * 2) Books - "[a] recommended maximum of five lines of prose or eight lines of poetry for every ten pages of a book not in the public domain. This is equal to about 1.25% of the total content of a book."
 * 3) "Adding unsourced quotes to articles will be reverted." - plagiarism!

On Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises/Dissent Brennan are many excellent points regarding use of quotations (Fair Use) by Supreme Court Justice Brennan. Also, Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises/Opinion of the Court contains a few additional, albeit limited points. The case was actually focused on using quotes prior to original publication as a violation of copyright, but the justices took the opportunity to clarify the fair use issue to some extent.