Talk:The 48 Laws of Power/Archives/2013

This is an archive of past discussions about The 48 Laws of Power. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

self-worth

I changed "self-worth" to "power". This book has less to do with how you feel about yourself and more about how to effectively use power against others, or to protect yourself from others use of it against you. It's a strategy book. I have a feeling eventually someone is going to remove the word "seminal" as well because that seems like an opinion. But it was harmless enough so i left it. --Bigplankton 20:34, 14 February 2006 (UTC)Bigplankton

Copyvio

Uh... how is copying the 48 laws word for word not a copyvio? Sure there is plenty more to the book, but still... Jdotpitts 15:31, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

It seems to be a complete transcription of the book's Table of Contents ([http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0140280197/ref=sib_dp_pop_toc/002-9683976-2704815?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S00B#reader-link verified via amazon]). I dont know if that counts as copyvio? or promotional? (it is useful as a summation, but does seem potentially legally dubious...). I'll add a template just in case. (The full text desciption of each was inserted by A-man on feb 13.) -Quiddity 20:20, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

That template made me crap my pants : ) Bigplankton 02:43, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't think simply listing the 48 laws is a copyvio, it merely illustrates what they are. The author freely admits to borrowing the laws from many other sources himself. I think a copyvio would lie more in reprinting his own explanations and summations of said laws. RoyBatty42 19:09, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

The list of 48 laws is copyright and reproducing it in its entirety is a copyvio, which could reduce the commercial potential of the original for one thing. I have deleted it. There is no problem with reproducing a small sample of selected laws, say 6 or so, to give the flavour of them. See also rationale on wikiquote. Tyrenius 00:53, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Well the book's about 470 pages, the 48 laws titles are expressed in 1 page. No doubt having the summary explanation on every law should be copyvio but a kind of 48 "chapter" title in a raw, is fair use... else why the article's title should be as well a copyvio: it's a copyrighted name right? I suggest to put back the laws titles - no more. Let's pretend it's not a copy/paste from table of content and just chapters titles, and see if the author complains? Else i could rephrase each in my way but it would be my non fully objective perception of course...

I agree with having the list back. Publishing the index of a book would surely be considered fair use. As for this reducing "the commercial potential of the original", I would think the effect of it would be the opposite. wikisoul 22:22, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree that the list of every law constitutes fair use. I've asked for more thoughts on this at Wikipedia_talk:Fair_use#Talk:The_48_Laws_of_Power Tyrenius 02:07, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

There have been shorter lengths of text that have been ruled not to be fair use.Genisock2 14:43, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Would like to point out that I completed the full list by following the first link (adstockweb.com). If they still have the page up fully listing all 48 AND giving explanations for them, then it goes to show that the list itself is not considered protected. RoyBatty42 19:06, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Judging what is and is not a copyvio based on what other websites contain is risky. The website you gave may have permission from the author or be paying money for a license to display all of those. --Iamunknown 22:05, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't show anything of the sort. There are plenty of sites carrying copyvio material. Tyrenius 01:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

They don't have to show permission, they only have to have permission to prevent from getting a lawsuit handed to them. --Iamunknown 01:06, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Excerpts from WP:FU:

Inclusion of brief attributed quotations of copyrighted text, used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea is acceptable under fair use.

In general, extensive quotation of copyrighted news materials (such as newspapers and wire services), movie scripts, or any other copyrighted text is not fair use and is prohibited by Wikipedia policy.

Clearly this is not a brief quotation. It is an extensive quotation which contains the substance of the book. Tyrenius 01:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Tyrenius, I tend to agree. See http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-c.html, particularly the fifth bullet under "Cases involving text". The text under consideration here parallels the fifth bullet at that website in that it essentially paraphrases the entire book and, I argue, does adversely affect the potential market value because anyone can read it and see all 48 laws whereas, if the text were not in the article, they would have to buy the book to read all 48 laws. --Iamunknown 01:13, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Removing the list was the right thing here. In addition to our free content goals, part of the motivation behind our policies is to make sure that we are conservative in the use of unfree copyrighted material and do not tread anywhere near legal boundaries that are hard to predict without litigation. In this case, I agree that printing the list at least puts us on the wrong side of the amount and substantiality factor for fair use. Quoting and commenting on a small number of the items would be far safer with regard to copyright, as well as more appropriate for an encyclopedia article. ×Meegs 06:25, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

AARRRGGG!! over-tired of this copyshity lock down, i'm gonna put the 48 laws on the page because this article is name The_48_Laws_of_Power and i (and others i guess) strongly expect to see what are theses damned laws!! So i'll put back the 48 laws in line as soon as i'll get them personally rephrased! death to copyright!! long life to copyleft!!

I've re-removed it. Despite your rewording, the list remains the property of its author, and is unlikely to constitute fair use in the article. It's clear that you have very strong feelings about copyrights, but Wikipedia is not the place to challenge them or take legal risks. ×Meegs 04:57, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

hi there,

very sorry you removed the rephrasing i did, took me lot of time to change everything.

i think you did it wrong, i mean what use would be the 7_deadly_sins page without expression of any of them??? ==> same point for the 48 laws of power!!!

i did rephrase the 48 laws so they don't "look" like the original copyrighted content. And as long as though are not copyrighted i personnaly think it's fair to express world's knowledge into wikipedia!

but in this case i really think it's shit (sorry, i've confess i've drunk a little tonight) and what's the point of wikipedia? being a meta-meta-meta-knowledge-website with no content? if it's the case then i rather stop wasting my time contributing to it!!

So please compare the original 48 laws as expressed and my own rephrasing i did not copyrighted it!!!

The seven deadly sins are a medieval creation, so we have the luxury of being able to recount the list in its entirety without concern for copyright. This is a list thought-up in the 1990s, published, and sold as a the heart of a book. The copyright protection on the list is not diminished by trivial rephrasing. As I advised, it would be acceptable to quote and comment on a small number of exemplary items — the sort of thing you might see in a book review — but exhaustively paraphrasing the list is not an option. ×Meegs 19:02, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Simply put, it would be morally wrong (as well as against copyright) to post the 48 laws in their entirety because that would demolish potential sales of the book: the book itself has absolutely no useful content that can't be gleaned by a quick skim through the list of laws in the table of contents or the back cover. The rest is all "borrowed" stories, quotes, justifications, and other such fluff of utterly no use to the serious and/or intelligent reader. I've read the whole book through so I can say this with confidence. Nobody has any incentive to buy it after they've read the back cover, except perhaps those who need convincing or like quotations.

However, [http://www.amazon.com/48-Laws-Power-Robert-Greene/dp/0140280197 Amazon.com] has license to show all these pages (both covers and the ToC) so merely adding the link to them should be a perfectly fair and satisfactory solution.

I also would like to amend the phrase "The book is similar to Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince," to something like "The book is intended to be similar to Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince," but I'll leave it until someone else feels the need for a more NPOV phrase. Please note also that the citation provided makes absolutely no claim of this nature and is inappropriate. It only mentions The Prince in passing and leaves it to the reader to draw correlations if they will. The Prince was a work of genius, and "The 48 Laws of Power" is not like it at all. The article might benefit from a link to another review as well, for balance. --80.179.12.87 09:11, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Speaking as a layman with a decent knowledge of copyright law, I would classify this as fair use (but you may want to check with an actual lawyer): Firstly, this is only a fraction of the total work and does, IMO, not take the substance as a whole, because the laws are unlikely to be fully understood without elaboration (E=MC^2 is something very different from the theory of relativity). Secondly, this will not damage, but rather improve, the book's success. Thirdly, the use is non-commercial and of "public interest". Fourthly, there are sufficiently many other sources on the Internet with this content that it would be hard to argue any additional damage through the Wikipedia article (if there is any damage at all). On balance, this should be enough.188.100.197.94 (talk) 14:17, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

This is fair use. He has a blog page with just these same laws listed here. I have read the book and agree with the author that posting those titles themselves would not be a violation; in fact they whet your tongue to want to understand more about what he means by "play the perfect courtier", so you have more incentive to buy the book. IMO. // Mark Renier (talk) 11:30, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

How many do we need?

Do we really need such a long and growing list of people who mention they are reading the book in their blog or in their music? Soon the list of Popular Cultural References will be longer than the text of the article.--Sand Squid 14:31, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

cut

better, with just the list. I'm not sure its appropriate either, but its certainly better.DGG (talk) 20:03, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

detailed summary

restored to just a list of chapters, not detailed summary of each. that's not appropriate content for non-fiction; if you want to summarize 2 or 3 high points, perhaps that would make more sense. And in fact, I have my doubts whether even a full list of chapters could withstand challenge, as many have been removed from similar book articles. DGG (talk) 22:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Links

There are links to two online versions. The full text one asserts Attribution Non-commercial, but I think we need some evidence for that to keep the link . The abridged one is so heavily abridgedthat the external link does not bother me, but other people here may judge differently. DGG (talk) 21:11, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Russia?

As far as I know the author is United Statian. Was the book perhaps published in Russia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Netk (talk • contribs) 05:55, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Studio 60 Reference

This book was shown and talked about alot on the TV show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, S01E12. Might be worth putting in the article for whatever reason, other articles seem to include cultural reference. --James Pain (talk) 18:22, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Notability?

I don't know nor care about Wikipedia arcane (2009 voted to keep, 2011 nominated to delete - huh?). I opend the browser and searched Wikipedia to find information on this book. It would be very surprising indeed to find its Wikipedia article missing. I'm sure at least one of my friends has independently heard of this book - my ad hoc test to manage Wikipedia expectations. Sure its is a crappy article, I'll help improve it once I'm finished with the book. I modified this comment after logging in.cogitoboy (talk) 17:09, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

sucking

This article isn't sucking so hard now like before. We still need a lot more cited sources, especially if we want to re-introduce the section that discusses the book's impact. (Heroeswithmetaphors) talk 21:09, 28 June 2012 (UTC)