5 ms·

This article verges on a copyright violation. It simply copies a large block of Munroe's copyrighted content, without even a pretense of a satirical or critical

by lutusp 12y ago

This article verges on a copyright violation. It simply copies a large block of Munroe's copyrighted content, without even a pretense of a satirical or critical purpose, or as a review of the work (a few of the legitimate reasons to copy copyrighted content). It's a straight-up copy, including copies of the artwork, with no added material except quotation marks.

dalke 12y ago
Quoting http://xkcd.com/about/ http://xkcd.com/about/ : > Can we print xkcd in our magazine/newspaper/other publication? > If it's a not-for-profit publication, you need no permission -- just print them with attribution to xkcd.com. If it's a for-profit operation, I will probably give you permission if you email me to let me know. You can post xkcd in your blog (whether ad-supported or not) with no need to get my permission. It's possible that "What if?" has different permissions than the thrice-weekly xkcd, but there's no obvious reason it isn't the same. For example, the bottom of What if? says "Copyright ©2012-14 xkcd", which is the same word used in the permissions, and the permissions page is for "xkcd.com" It appears that the linked-to site is not-for-profit, in which case the license to copy has already been granted.
- lutusp 12y ago
  > It's possible that "What if?" has different permissions than the thrice-weekly xkcd, but there's no obvious reason it isn't the same. I can think of one obvious reason -- the fact that it's a book. Most publishers won't publish works whose distribution they can't control, or that are expected to be copied freely. Book retailers work by the same rules -- they won't carry a book that can be coped online without any copyright limitations. > It appears that the linked-to site is not-for-profit, in which case the license to copy has already been granted. No, it doesn't work that way in the case of a book, and Mr. Munroe's remarks about his Web site apply only to his Web site. Can a not-for-profit site post a copy of a motion picture or some tracks from a commercial CD? The fact that they're not-for-profit can't enter into it. I just examined my copy of "What If?", and it has all the usual publisher protections -- all rights reserved, contact us for information and permission to copy select portions of this work, and so forth. The normal, strict copyright protections. The book cannot be freely copied or excerpted without one of the normal exceptions being true (critical review, satire, etc.), none of which apply in this case. One of two things is true. Either Houghton Mifflin expects to be able to control the distribution of the book, or they don't. The fact that they published the book strongly suggests the first case is true. Same for their distributors and retail outlets.
  - dalke 12y ago
    I double-checked the material, and you are right. The text and images in http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2014/09/what-if-serious-scientific-answers-to-absurd-hypothetical-questions/ http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2014/09/what-if-serious-scie... are different than at https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/ , so not covered by the xkcd.com license. More specifically, the original has text like "Each collision releases a burst of gamma rays and scattered particles." while the quoted text on that site uses the conditional mood "Each collision would release a burst of gamma rays and scattered particles." Also, the end in the original is "A careful reading of official Major League Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests ..." while the blog uses "Major League Baseball Rule 6.08( b) suggests ..."; and the order of the baseball fusion zone images have been swapped. Thus, this extensive quote did not come from xkcd.com and is not covered under the automatic license grant for non-profit use. I agree that it is copyright infringement and not covered under fair use - for what little that's worth. :) (However, had the material on that blog been identical to xkcd.com then I believe there would not be an infringement.) Could you check to see if that matches the book? There's a small chance that the blog cited something else; eg an older copy of the online page.
    - lutusp 12y ago
      > More specifically, the original has text like "Each collision releases a burst of gamma rays and scattered particles." while the quoted text on that site uses the conditional mood "Each collision would release a burst of gamma rays and scattered particles." Check: the book contains the second form. Also, the end in the original is "A careful reading of official Major League Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests ..." while the blog uses "Major League Baseball Rule 6.08( b) suggests ..."; and the order of the baseball fusion zone images have been swapped. Check: the book contains the second form. To me, this suggests that the blog content was scanned out of the book and converted to text using OCR (except the images). I am not saying this is so, only that this is the appearance. > (However, had the material on that blog been identical to xkcd.com then I believe there would not be an infringement.) I agree, but before my initial post I had established that at least some of the text came from the book (I spot-checked a few passages from my copy). Again -- why would Houghton Mifflin release a book containing the content of a bunch of Web pages that are free to copy? The publishing business is difficult enough as things stand, even with fully protected content. > Could you check to see if that matches the book? I haven't compared the entire blog, but after the above comparisons I read more content than I had earlier. The first few paragraphs are word-for-word in correspondence with book. The graphics appear in the same order in both the blog and book, and are identical. Maybe the blog's author is confused, since the online content is free to copy. Again, I doubt that a bricks and mortar publisher would be willing to publish a book that has no copy protection. I am particularly sensitive about this, because until the past few years people would regularly scrape my Website's articles and either present them as their own or wholesale copy with attribution but with no pretense of commentary or other rationale. This is why there are hyperlinks, a feature of the Web people seem to have forgotten. Randall Munroe is in a unique and deserved position -- when people copy his articles, they want the origin to be known. I don't have that privilege. :)

by lutusp 12y ago

dalke 12y ago

Quoting http://xkcd.com/about/ http://xkcd.com/about/ : > Can we print xkcd in our magazine/newspaper/other publication? > If it's a not-for-profit publication, you need no permission -- just print them with attribution to xkcd.com. If it's a for-profit operation, I will probably give you permission if you email me to let me know. You can post xkcd in your blog (whether ad-supported or not) with no need to get my permission. It's possible that "What if?" has different permissions than the thrice-weekly xkcd, but there's no obvious reason it isn't the same. For example, the bottom of What if? says "Copyright ©2012-14 xkcd", which is the same word used in the permissions, and the permissions page is for "xkcd.com" It appears that the linked-to site is not-for-profit, in which case the license to copy has already been granted.

lutusp 12y ago
> It's possible that "What if?" has different permissions than the thrice-weekly xkcd, but there's no obvious reason it isn't the same. I can think of one obvious reason -- the fact that it's a book. Most publishers won't publish works whose distribution they can't control, or that are expected to be copied freely. Book retailers work by the same rules -- they won't carry a book that can be coped online without any copyright limitations. > It appears that the linked-to site is not-for-profit, in which case the license to copy has already been granted. No, it doesn't work that way in the case of a book, and Mr. Munroe's remarks about his Web site apply only to his Web site. Can a not-for-profit site post a copy of a motion picture or some tracks from a commercial CD? The fact that they're not-for-profit can't enter into it. I just examined my copy of "What If?", and it has all the usual publisher protections -- all rights reserved, contact us for information and permission to copy select portions of this work, and so forth. The normal, strict copyright protections. The book cannot be freely copied or excerpted without one of the normal exceptions being true (critical review, satire, etc.), none of which apply in this case. One of two things is true. Either Houghton Mifflin expects to be able to control the distribution of the book, or they don't. The fact that they published the book strongly suggests the first case is true. Same for their distributors and retail outlets.
- dalke 12y ago
  I double-checked the material, and you are right. The text and images in http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2014/09/what-if-serious-scientific-answers-to-absurd-hypothetical-questions/ http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2014/09/what-if-serious-scie... are different than at https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/ , so not covered by the xkcd.com license. More specifically, the original has text like "Each collision releases a burst of gamma rays and scattered particles." while the quoted text on that site uses the conditional mood "Each collision would release a burst of gamma rays and scattered particles." Also, the end in the original is "A careful reading of official Major League Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests ..." while the blog uses "Major League Baseball Rule 6.08( b) suggests ..."; and the order of the baseball fusion zone images have been swapped. Thus, this extensive quote did not come from xkcd.com and is not covered under the automatic license grant for non-profit use. I agree that it is copyright infringement and not covered under fair use - for what little that's worth. :) (However, had the material on that blog been identical to xkcd.com then I believe there would not be an infringement.) Could you check to see if that matches the book? There's a small chance that the blog cited something else; eg an older copy of the online page.
  - lutusp 12y ago
    > More specifically, the original has text like "Each collision releases a burst of gamma rays and scattered particles." while the quoted text on that site uses the conditional mood "Each collision would release a burst of gamma rays and scattered particles." Check: the book contains the second form. Also, the end in the original is "A careful reading of official Major League Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests ..." while the blog uses "Major League Baseball Rule 6.08( b) suggests ..."; and the order of the baseball fusion zone images have been swapped. Check: the book contains the second form. To me, this suggests that the blog content was scanned out of the book and converted to text using OCR (except the images). I am not saying this is so, only that this is the appearance. > (However, had the material on that blog been identical to xkcd.com then I believe there would not be an infringement.) I agree, but before my initial post I had established that at least some of the text came from the book (I spot-checked a few passages from my copy). Again -- why would Houghton Mifflin release a book containing the content of a bunch of Web pages that are free to copy? The publishing business is difficult enough as things stand, even with fully protected content. > Could you check to see if that matches the book? I haven't compared the entire blog, but after the above comparisons I read more content than I had earlier. The first few paragraphs are word-for-word in correspondence with book. The graphics appear in the same order in both the blog and book, and are identical. Maybe the blog's author is confused, since the online content is free to copy. Again, I doubt that a bricks and mortar publisher would be willing to publish a book that has no copy protection. I am particularly sensitive about this, because until the past few years people would regularly scrape my Website's articles and either present them as their own or wholesale copy with attribution but with no pretense of commentary or other rationale. This is why there are hyperlinks, a feature of the Web people seem to have forgotten. Randall Munroe is in a unique and deserved position -- when people copy his articles, they want the origin to be known. I don't have that privilege. :)