Talk:Dipterocarpus costatus

Copyright issues

Hello EncycoPetey, yes I am new to editing Wikipedia, though I have worked as an academic archaeobotanist for many years. So I was a little surprised at the guilty until proven innocent "Copyright Violation" notice. Why? 3 reasons:

1 I comprehensively referenced all material, just as in my academic work, published by publishing institutions, published in monographs and academic journals;

2 yes I used many of the same phrases as one of the original sources, they are botanical descriptors, can you tell me why botanical descriptors should be altered to please Wikipedia. It is an encyclopaedia, "no original research", so if including botanical and ecological descriptors relying on rigourously applied criteria, how do I not use the same terms as source material;

3. it is an academic website I was quoting from, not a commercial site, they themselves acknowledge that they are freesource and built on the research of others, they cite the academic literature that they derived their material from, therefore whose copyright am I violating? I draw your attention to http://www.biotik.org/res_technical.html

So, guilty until proven innocent, I have contacted Dr Edelin, project coordinator, to clarify the situation. I doubt his main work tool is web-trawling bots and that he is busy with other work, how long before you make an un-investigated deletion of my contribution?Brunswicknic (talk) 12:49, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

To make sure the review is impartial, I will not be the administrator to examine this issue. However, you do seem to be unaware of Wikipedia:Copy-paste and Wikipedia's stance on plagiarism. You may wish to read it and its associated policies before this case reviewed. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:07, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I am a university-trained and professional academic, I am very aware of what is and is not plagiarism. I am also an archaeobotanist, and know the terminology of botany, by what authority do we change the terminology? If a description of plant parts is written in standard terminology, you are asking for it to be changed for what reason?Brunswicknic (talk) 05:37, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

There's a confusion of terminology here. This certainly wasn't plagiarism, as Brunswicknic properly attributed the content. The problem is *copyright*, which is something else entirely. (And it's important to get the distinction right; plagiarism is a moral offence, copyright a rather technical legal one, and the two carry rather different weight.) Because Wikipedia is licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0, article text in Wikipedia can be resdistributed anywhere as long as it's attributed, even in commercial products. That means that some of the "fair use" territory we enjoy as academics is out-of-bounds for Wikipedia text.

As best I can make out, the text on biotik.org is the original composition of its own authors, and is not a verbatim quote of the references. Therefore, the authors (presumably Edelin et al.) are the copyright holders on the project.

If they're willing to release their text under a compatible Creative Commons license, it can be incorporated into Wikipedia. That said, I tend to avoid verbatim quotation of technical botanical descriptions in Wikipedia; I feel the language is usually a bit too esoteric for the purposes of a general encyclopedia. It takes some careful writing, but it's often possible to rewrite a botanical description in something closer to "standard English". (When it's essential to retain a technical term to avoid obscuring an important distinction, like "tomentose" vs. merely "pubescent", I often gloss the technical term in parentheses afterwards.) To give an example from my own work, compare Adiantum viridimontanum#Description (ignore the digressive 2nd paragraph) with the original English diagnosis upon which it was almost entirely based. Choess (talk) 04:13, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

EncycloPetey, thank your for your contribution. Choess, thank you for the info about copyright and redistribution, had similar discussion with Paxse. I do think that if wikipedia is to grow, then it is not just to provide "standard English" statements of generalities but also some of the facts that allow an accurate botanical description of taxa. Here I quote APG's description of the salient distinguishing features of Dipterocarpaceae (http://www.mobot.org/mobot/research/apweb/welcome.html): DIPTEROCARPACEAE Blume, nom. cons Trees, (ectomycorrhizal); triterpenoid dipterocarpol, sesquiterpene oleoresins +; cork also outer cortical; cambium storied; (vessel elements with scalariform perforation plates); tyloses +; cortical bundles +; secretory cavities in pith; nodes also 5:5; petiole geniculate; stomata ?; hairs tufted, peltate, etc.; leaves spiral and two-ranked, lamina vernation conduplicate(-plicate); inflorescence axillary, often branched; K (slightly connate); A fasiculate, initiation centrifugal, anthers ± versatile, with conspicuous prolonged connective; median carpel abaxial, stigma slightly lobed or not; ovules apical; K thinnish, enlarging somewhat in fruit; seed usu. 1, testa vascularized; endosperm 0 (+), cotyledons often folded, enclosing radicle. While the terms here should be explained in plain language in wikipedia, to do this each time for each and every taxa is a ridiculous project. Can we get a botanical template that allows use of botanical descriptors (with links to plain language explanation pages that are often already extant), following the orthodox rules of botanical description and allowing the quoting of others work. As for the botanical descriptions in Biotik, on every page they give a reference to the Flora that they themselves are quoting. There are very few scholars out there who have time to document a small part of a flora. They are quoting others who are quoting others who are quoting others. This is standard botanical and scientific practice. Finally, of course, the plants are not copyrighted, I have never seen a botanical description that was itself copyright, the overall monograph may have copyright, but the descriptions and the descriptors like the plants themselves are not subject of copyright. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brunswicknic (talk • contribs) 13:06, 9 August 2012 (UTC) oops forgot me tildes againBrunswicknic (talk) 13:12, 9 August 2012 (UTC) Oh yes I quote Biotik's webpage (http://www.biotik.org/res_technical.html) again:

Technical Resources GNU and Simputer: Our main sources of inspiration for this project. The philosophy of free software advocated by GNU and a hardware open source initiative by Simputer Trust sparked the basic idea for an open source project. www.gnu.org www.simputer.org

Note use of term open source project Brunswicknic (talk) 13:12, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

The bit is question appears to be the description of the specimen and a large part of that are the standard traits for this genus/family i.e. all Dipterocarps have resinous exudates, all have simple leaves, all Dipterocarpus have sheathing stipules that leave an annular scar - these are the diganositc features we use to id the family in the field and then get it down to genera. Similarly the info about the fruit (single seed, and generally winged) and bisexual flowers are standard traits for the family. My point is I'm not sure there is a lot of copyrightable material here, although I think a rewrite would improve the description and get rid of the problem Sepilok2007 (talk) 09:29, 16 August 2012 (UTC).

Biotik describes itself as open

Dear admin people, Biotik does not describe itself as creative commons, however on their home page http://www.biotik.org/ they use the following sentences: Developed as an open source web-based application, the knowledge base will be made available on-line, ... To promote the development of Open Source based IT&C tools in biodiversity informatics for southern countries through a transfer of know-how between Europe and Asia. To build two knowledge bases (an open-to-all web-based application... To establish open data standards and protocols for the common use of species descriptions... I believe this addresses any immediate concerns of permission to use data. I reiterate that all descriptions in the data base are built up on existing scientific data, and existing scientific publication protocol, which is not copyright based, and which is incredibly standardised. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brunswicknic (talk • contribs) 07:19, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

That describes the software as open-source, and an open-source license refers to the software, not necessarily to intellectual content made using the software. Even a Creative Commons license can prohibit derivative works, so we need an explicit CC that explicitly permits the use of the content. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:15, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Update

I've had look at this article as it was listed at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2012 August 5. To be on the safe side, I've reverted it back to the original stub for now. However, Sepilok2007 has a point in that these standard terms and their order of presentation may not be copyrightable. I'll ask one of Wikipedia's best copyright experts to weigh in here if she can. As for the print source used, I provisionally put what looked to me like possibly quoted material in quote marks. Voceditenore (talk) 16:57, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I wish I had a definitive answer for you, but I do not. :/ Taxonomic descriptions can be copyrighted. See, for instance, [1] where only those ant species whose taxonomies are not copyrighted were reproduced by the Smithsonian. This 2009 book says that myrmecologist Donat Agosti was known for championing liberating taxonomies from copyright protection, which would suggest he had a reason to. Andrew Polaszek (15 June 2009). Systema Naturae 250 - The Linnaean Ark. Taylor & Francis. p. 11. ISBN 978-1-4200-9501-2. Retrieved 18 October 2012. Likewise, this book indicates that current copyright laws (ca. 2008) prevent including original descriptions as a mandatory part of registering new taxa. Quentin D. Wheeler (9 April 2008). The New Taxonomy. Taylor & Francis. p. 133. ISBN 978-0-8493-9088-3. Retrieved 18 October 2012. I think, given WP:C's prohibition that we proceed cautious with copyright, that we must presume that taxonomies are copyrighted until and unless we have a clear court decision that says they aren't. If taxonomies are copyrightable (as it seems likely they are), I think we cannot assume that we can copy botanical descriptions. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:27, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Moonriddengirl - thanks for this info. Wouldn't it be the original description that would be copyrightable? Everything else has been a rehashing of the original description (although that might be being a bit unfair to the botanists). The longest copyright length according to the list of countries and the length of their standard copyright - is in Mexico (Life +100 years). The original taxonomic description of this species was in 1805 by C.F.Gaertn. who died in 1850. That said I still think the description needs to be rewritten, as it mainly covered the standard chararistic for the family/genus Sepilok2007 (talk) 09:13, 19 October 2012 (UTC)