> On Wed, 29 Aug 2007, Charles Plessy wrote: > > >I just realised that I made many package descriptions by cut-and-paste > >from published articles, and I wonder if it is a fair use or a copyright > >infringement ?
Le Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 03:15:59PM +0200, Andreas Tille a écrit : > > If in doubt I would ask the author(s). Le Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 06:15:07PM +0200, Sebastian Hilbert a écrit : > > Most likely it will be treated as copyright infringement. Ask the authors. Le Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 10:38:23PM +0200, Thijs Kinkhorst a écrit : > > The description is a very short excerpt, you explicitly list the source. That > is quoting in my book - of course I'm not a legal expert but I would be > highly surprised if anyone would be offended by it, let alone make a > successful court case out of it and wins too. Hi all, On one hand, I agree with Thijs that it is likely to be a fair quote, but on the other hand, there are two points which worry me: - The quote mostly comes from abastacts and introductions. So if one considers only them, it starts to represent quite a significant percentage of the original work. - In the (not unlikely) case where a Google search would lead on Debian's pages rather than on the publisher's pages, could the publisher decide that it is annoying and send a nasty email to [EMAIL PROTECTED], who may want to avoid spending time on that kind of issue. To have a hint, I sent the following message to a publisher: I am preparing installation packages of bioinformatic software for the Debian GNU/Linux operating system. To write a description which explains what the program is doing, I often simply cut-and-paste sentences from the README, but also from the article in which the software was published. You can find an example of such a description below (the package is not on line yet). I just realised that the abstract is copyrighted work, and I would like to know if you agree that such quote is a "fair use". The Debian operating system puts an equal emphasis on software freedom and respect of intellectual property and copyright works, so I can rewrite the description if needed. The answer I got was that in this particular case is that the copyrights are managed through an external company, Rightslink. I think that it strongly increases the risk that [EMAIL PROTECTED] could receive a letter written by a lawyer... I think that I will try to review the descriptions I made, and to paraphrase when it looks necessary... Or do you think that I should try to contact Rightslink ? "Never wake a sleeping dog", the proverb says... Have a nice day, -- Charles Plessy http://charles.plessy.org Wako, Saitama, Japan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
