Wikipedia talk:Contributor copyright investigations/Communicat

Winer's book released

The online version of Winer's book Between the Lies has been released under CC-BY-SA 3.0 and the GFDL. The relevant release notice is posted here. I expect this will close all of the Winer-related issues on this investigation, as the use of his material is no longer a violation of copyright. It would still be helpful if some investigation were made of the other contributions to ensure that there are no other violations (there had been one non-Winer violation found, but it has already been fixed). --Habap (talk) 16:33, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

While that means the edits are no longer copyright violations, my understanding is they are still plagiarism of Winer. Further, Winer is clearly not a reliable source, which means he sources cited by Winer may not support his views. Edward321 (talk) 15:46, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

The real question here is whether the website truth-hertz.net is authorized to release this content. It depends on who owns the copyright. A couple of years ago, we had to remove extensive content added by a published author to articles from his books when it was discovered that his publisher did not release their interest in the material. As WP:DCM notes, "If you are the original author but the rights have been assigned to your publisher, you have given up the ability to license the work to us." Anybody know anything about the contract practices of Southern Universities Press? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:51, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Southern University Press is based out of a London flat.[1][2] Winer's book appears to be its only publication. As such, its contract practices can only be speculated on. Edward321 (talk) 01:26, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

'Southern University Press' doesn't appear to have a website. The British Library lists seven books as being published by a company of this name between 1949 and 2007, though they're on very diverse topics. The book in question here is still available for purchase on Amazon.co.uk: [3] Nick-D (talk) 03:09, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Re: --Moonriddengirl ^(talk)'s assertion that the "real question here is whether the website truth-hertz.net is authorized to release this content". I'd suggest the real question here is why has everyone got it wrong.

The CC-BY-SA 3.0 and the GFDL licenses were revoked by the author and copyright holder because Wikipedia does not have a functional mechanism for countering systemic bias. The work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. A quick glance at the copyright notice of the googlebooks online version of Between the Lies will confirm that the copyright holder of the work is stated clearly to be the author Stan Winer. Same applies to other online versions, both authorised and unauthorised, and also the Copyright notice at Winer's official website truth-hertz.net where the book is reproduced in full. Southern Universities Press is not the copyright holder. Winer is the copyright holder. So why all the confusion? (Rhetorical question). 196.215.59.246 (talk) 16:30, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

That still means that Communicat's edits were plagiarizing Winer. Considering Winer is not the only person Communicat was plagiarizing; I think all of Communicat's edits should be removed to be on the safe side. Regardless, Winer's work is a non-notable fringe work and has no place in an encyclopedia of any kind. 01:02, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

When Communicat was taking material from this book (including attributing text from it to other sources) it was marked as being under copyright. During the arbitration case it moved to a creative commons licence after the copyright violation issues were raised (Communicat claimed to have asked the author of the book to release it under a CC license). Now that the case is over it's moved back to being under copyright (though the website isn't loading at the moment). Interesting. Nick-D (talk) 11:11, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

The only "interesting" thing here is the evasive manner and method whereby Nick-D and others have used convoluted arguments and fuzzy logic revolving around copyright technicalities to sidestep the central issue. That central issue concerns essentially the inherent systemic bias of the WW2 and related wikipedia articles, which attempt to regurgitate simplistically the dominant Western historical narrative, to the total exclusion of divergent narratives. That is what the dispute was about; it has very little to do with "plagiarism". Nick-D and others appear to have neither the grace nor the historical integrity to admit this, and they get away with it because there is no functional wikipedia mechanism for countering systemic bias. 196.215.76.234 (talk) 20:50, 31 May 2011 (UTC)