Talk:De Hoghton baronets

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Copyvio

The first sentence in the deleted Ancestors section is verbatim from source. Rephrasing is pointless, because relating dubious genealogical claims from 500 years before is excessive genealogy. Agricolae (talk) 13:08, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Did you mean this sentence: "The de Hoghtons are descended directly from Harvey de Walter, one of the companions of William the Conqueror, and through the female line from the Lady Godiva of Coventry, wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia." from this BBC source? How can this be copyright? It's a series of declarative facts. You're saying the BBC has a copyright claim on these historical facts? What a bizarre notion. And why is the sourced genealogy "dubious"? I see no reason to doubt Singleton. Do you have any better source(s), which can challenge these names and dates? By all means provide them here. Why is "500 years before"... "excessive genealogy"? That's how history works, isn't it? These were notable people. I think you should restore what you have unfairly deleted. 86.187.165.49 (talk) 21:07, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Please educate yourself on copyright. It has nothing to do with the factual nature (or not) of the content. It is the text itself that is subject to copyright, and the verbatim reproduction of text produced by anyone else is a violation of their copyright. As to the rest, this article is about a title Baronet of Hoghton and its holders, not about the entire history of the Houghton family from the dawn of time to the present. Immediate genealogical context for the holders of the title only - we don't use the article on specific titles as a WP:COATRACK to gratuitously provide 500 years of ancestors. Agricolae (talk) 22:38, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding WP:COATRACK, your interpretation of which here seems unnecessarily and gratuitously prescriptive, thanks for the history lesson: I didn't know that 1203 was, in fact, "the dawn of time". Regarding copyright, please feel free to offer a copyright-free re-write, in your own educating words. Unless you can, it seems that these simple historical facts will remain forever, legally, the property of the BBC. Thanks. 86.187.170.189 (talk) 19:31, 16 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Not forever, and not the property of the BBC. The copyright is certainly vested in the author, not the BBC, who are hosting this bit of self-promotion on their travel site, written on the person responsible for renting out the place for events. The duration would be the life of the author, plus 70 years, so depending on the age of the composer, that would probably be in the early 2100s. As to 'the dawn of time', given that English land law calls everything before 1189 "time immemorial" it amounts to pretty much the same thing, but whatever you want to call it, it is too remote to be noteworthy. Agricolae (talk) 00:46, 17 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

So did Events Manager Melissa Peter make that up? Or did she just copy it from the Houghton Tower website, or from castelsfortsbattles.co.uk, or perhaps from cheshirenow.co.uk, or even from the book Ghost Trails of Lancashire: Lancashires Ghosts, Ghouls and Things That Go Bump in the Night by Clive Kristen (2014), or from an earlier printed source (... notwithstanding any copyright agreement between Ms. Peter and the BBC, to which we are not party)? How would we ever know, without asking Peter herself? Are those sources any better? Or does using them also breach copyright? Do we have to find the same facts, but written by someone who died more than 70 years ago, for them to be legally useable here? I don't see any mention of 1189 or "time immemorial" at English land law, perhaps it should be added (with a good source). As for notability, it seems that only 6 of the 14 Baronets are considered notable in their own right - should all the others be removed. Is your claim that "500 years before is excessive genealogy" based on some agreed Wikipedia policy, or just your own subjective feelings on the matter? My own subjective feelings are that the genealogy is useful background. Perhaps it could be included, but in shorter form, with less detail. 86.187.160.102 (talk) 20:15, 17 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect the Hoghton Tower site was written by the same author, given that she is associated with the management of the place. All the others first appeared no less than 5 years after Ms. Peter wrote her essay (in the case of the web sites, based on when they first appear in the Internet Archive), so who copied from whom isn't really up for debate. You still don't seem to understand copyright though - text is subject to copyright, not facts. Regarding your notability concerned, this can be addressed from two different perspectives. First, based on how Wikipedia defines notability, someone is 'presumed' to be notable based simply on holding the title. Likewise, though, it is fully legitimate to list all members of a defined small group, in this case holders of title, even if the group members themselves are not individually notable. The same doesn't apply to non-members of the group - people that didn't hold the title. There is no reason to give any extensive genealogy, and WP:NOTGENEALOGY counsels restraint - we shouldn't use a page on a title as an excuse to present genealogies of generations of people who did not hold the title. This is the approach followed by Cockayne in all of his sketches of baronetcies - he starts with the first baronet, and only gives that person's parents for context, not extensive family histories. This is fitting given that baronetcies were invented by the king to raise money - they were to be sold for money, not awarded based on pedigree and service. Agricolae (talk) 21:46, 17 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yours might be a reasonable suspicion. But that's all it is. We have no proof either way, do we. So, you're saying that if someone puts their name to a sentence already published anonymously on the internet, we must assume they hold the legal copyright of that material, yes? How very odd. But the question for this article seems to be simply this - can that sentence be re-written in a way that avoids breach of copyright? Both sources might be deemed unreliable, of course, but that's a separate question. I'd very much appreciate your answer to the first question. I'm trying to educate myself on copyright. Thanks. 86.187.166.23 (talk) 20:12, 18 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Whose copyright it is is irrelevant. What is important is that it isn't ours. Something published anonymously on the internet is still vested with copyright belonging to the author, whoever that is - they own it, not us, no matter how many websites have violated their copyright. Under current law in the vast majority of the world, any original text fixed into permanent form - written or typed or even recorded as audio - of length longer than a handful of words is inherently vested with copyright, not free for others to use. Even if the material is in the public domain, it is still plagiarism to repeat text verbatim. The only exception is quoting, when it is made clear it is a quote and the quote itself is directly cited immediately at the end of the quote, but quoting should only be used when the precise wording of the source, not just the information, is important to the point being made. In short, copyright or no copyright, always rephrase. Agricolae (talk) 22:00, 18 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm really not sure what constitutes "a handful of words" in copyright law. But it seems, in your view, it's not as many as 36. But you're now also saying that if we had an audio recording of that sentence in this article, spoken by an anonymous speaker, that would also beach Peter's legal copyright? How truly bizarre. This sentence certainly is in the public domain. But even if it was written only anonymously, you're saying we couldn't copy it exactly, as that would be plagiarism. (Another potential court case for Wikipedia I suppose. Even though Jimmy Wales's Wikimedia Foundation seems to have lots of money). So you're still pretty sure Melissa Peter has copyright on that sentence - even if the constituent facts may exist, in hard copy books, written previously by other people? I don't think the precise wording of the source matters here, so we need not directly quote Peter, using quotation marks. So I humbly and respectfully invite you now to provide a new version of the facts in that sentence, in a way that avoids an infringement of Melisa's Peter's copyright. I'd like to see how it's done. Thank you. 86.187.161.158 (talk) 21:37, 19 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Literally a handful (or maybe a half-dozen - it isn't clearly defined, just a string short enough that the combination of so few words does not involve significant creativity). Short book titles are not vested with copyright, but complete sentences or significant parts of sentences are (unless they are really short sentences, such as "Oh my." There are caveats - for example, the work has to be çreative no matter how long it is. A telephone directory cannot be copyrighted, because it is just a datadump that involves no creativity by the compiler, but were one to rearrange the names in a unique alternative manner, that might be eligible.)

Would giving a recording of a copyrighted text breach the copyright? - it would, absolutely. Part of copyright is the right of the creator to determine in what manner their work is allowed to be reproduced. The sentence in question is not in the 'public domain', which does not simply mean 'out there in public'. It specifically refers to material that is no longer covered by copyright.

We couldn't copy the sentence exactly because it is still under copyright (plagiarism is a separate issue). If Melissa Peter wrote it she owns the copyright. If someone else wrote it and she had it published under her name on the BBC website without the author's permission, then she and the BBC would be violating that copyright. (This is another reason why I think Peter was the original author - the BBC would almost certainly have made sure before hosting the content, because they are on the hook for it, and have more money for a litigious person to target.) Either way, Wikipedia is violating the copyright of the author, whether it be Peter or someone else. As to plagiarism, that refers to any verbatim copying without appropriate attribution. It is only copyright infringement if the material plagiarized is still under copyright. Plagiarizing material that has entered the public domain is not illegal, but is really bad form and should be avoided nonetheless.

Again, copyright is about text, not facts. Anyone can use the facts, just not the specific string of words that have been composed by someone else. As to how to do it, simply taking a single sentence and trying to rejigger it is not the way to go about it. Maybe not all of the facts from Peter's sentence belong in the same sentence in what you are writing (or even the same paragraph, or even the article at all), maybe there are other facts that Peter did not include that go better. You collect all of the information you want to put into a paragraph, from the various relevant sources, and then you write the paragraph from scratch based on that compiled information. Agricolae (talk) 02:31, 20 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your very detailed reply. I'm not advocating plagiarism. The BBC source, with Peter's name, is there - I'm not proposing a paragraph. The information I am suggesting should be included is this: "The de Hoghtons are descended directly from Harvey de Walter, one of the companions of William the Conqueror, and through the female line from the Lady Godiva of Coventry, wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia." I invite you again to provide a new version of the facts in that sentence, in a way that avoids an infringement of Melisa's Peter's copyright. I'm trying to educate myself on copyright. 86.187.161.121 (talk) 07:06, 20 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I already addressed this - "simply taking a single sentence and trying to rejigger it is not the way to go about it." More important, the content itself is valueless. It is based on uncritical legends, traditions and inventions, not authentic history. Harvey was not one of the demonstrable companions of William the Conqueror, the descent of the Houghtons from Harvey is completely made up - someone just pickled a famous family to connect the Houghtons to, and the descent from Godiva is both trivial and apparently without authentic historical foundation. There is no point in rephrasing this mess. Agricolae (talk) 14:29, 20 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, so Harvey de Walter never actually existed. He's fictitious. Thanks so much for not educating us about how to avoid copyright. And thanks so much for waiting until now to tell us this was all a made up mess. But why would anyone want to pickle a famous family? 86.187.164.118 (talk) 21:12, 21 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, that should have been 'picked'. At its heart, there were three separate issues here: 1) copyright, 2) relevance of 500-year-removed ancestry, even if true, and 3) it isn't true. The first two are easier to address because they are policy based, while the last is a quagmire that requires going into the weeds of medieval genealogy. With a good bit of digging, I figured out that 'Hervey de Walter' was actually Hervey Walter, ancestor of the Butler Earls of Ormonde, but there is no evidence whatsoever that he was ancestral to the Houghtons, plus he lived 2 generations after the Conquest. As to the Godiva descent, as best I can tell this was just made up, ans were a lot of similar family claims, but I have yet to see is spelled out in a way that can even be confirmed or refuted, even though the provable descent from Godiva is extremely limited. Agricolae (talk) 22:12, 21 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]