Forum Moderators: not2easy
I don't think anyone has ever justified copying even a paragraph from somebody else's work and placing it on a website as "fair use" (the grounds under which you do not need to obtain permission); so I would argue that to be sure you should contact the author / publisher and seek permission. Tell them that you intend to give a full accreditation alongside the content you wish to use.
For example; Gartner Group frequently publish reports containing the results of surveys and research, for example "40% of sick days are taken on Monday's and Friday's".
Are these "facts" now in the public domain and can be used freely without reference / accreditation to Gartner?
Are these "facts" now in the public domain and can be used freely without reference / accreditation to Gartner?
This is exactly what I mean - I not sure?
[fairuse.stanford.edu...]
The Stanford Libraries use Google for their site search (I wonder why that does not surprise me :) ) and a quick site search for "facts" led me to the Copyright Basics FAQ [fairuse.stanford.edu] which conclusively answer's dmorison's question.
No, you can't use these "facts" without attributing them to the source. In this case, the research firm paid a lot of money to do that research, they used their methodology, their sampling, their survey and their time - so consequently, those research results are owned by them.
No, you can't use these "facts" without attributing them to the source. In this case, the research firm paid a lot of money to do that research, they used their methodology, their sampling, their survey and their time - so consequently, those research results are owned by them.
But it is nothing that you could not find out by doing your own research; and nobody can prove that you haven't...
Or to look at it yet another way; you could say that it took many universities and scientific research establishments many years and thousands of dollars to discover that a single molecule of water consists of 2 hydrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atom - yet there is nothing to prevent you from stating that fact on a website. So what is the difference between the chemical composition of water and a fact published in a Gartner report?
[edited by: dmorison at 4:44 pm (utc) on Oct. 7, 2003]
But it is nothing that you could not find out by doing your own research; and nobody can prove that you haven't...
You just have to hope that they got their facts right, otherwise it may be noticed that you copied them. ;)
Absolutely! It is well known that map publishers include errors on purpose to "fingerprint" their maps...
No, you can't use these "facts" without attributing them to the source.
What really does people in when they use material created by someone else is that they don't use their own words but instead copy it. That is what infringes on the copyright unless they can fall under "fair use".
The way a research firm phrases questions and orders those questions makes a difference in the results.
The type of sample a research firm chooses to use makes a difference in the results.
The size of sample a research firm chooses to use makes a difference in the results.
The type of survey instrument a research firm chooses (online, paper & pencil, phone interview, etc.) makes a difference in the results.
If three different research firms survey to find out: "The percentage of female Californians who support Arnold Schwarzzeneger for Governor" - they will get three different sets of results.
If three different chemists study to find out the number of hydrogen atoms in a molecule of water, they'll get the same result three times.
Social research, although scientific in nature, is not scientific. So the "facts" that social researchers come up with, as fantastic as they are, are not generally used in the same way.
Nobody seems to have followed the link that I gave, so I will quote the relevant text:
For similar reasons, copyright does not protect facts -- whether scientific, historical, biographical or news of the day. Any facts that an author discovers in the course of research are in the public domain, free to all. For instance, anyone is free to use information included in a book about how the brain works, an article about the life and times of Neanderthals or a TV documentary about the childhood of President Clinton -- provided that that they express the information in their own words.Ed note: See the site for further details
The Neanderthals example seems to me to carry over, word for word, to the Gartner example.
It is the specific words that are protected by copyright, not the facts behind the words.
[edited by: engine at 7:54 pm (utc) on Oct. 7, 2003]
[edit reason] edited [/edit]
Sigh ...Nobody seems to have followed the link that I gave
Hee! I followed it, don't worry.
But I'm questioning whether survey research results are "facts."
They're not "scientific, historical, biographical or news of the day" (from your quote from the link you gave) ... so are they facts? I feel the need to go dig around more and find out.
I can think of instances where they are used as such - but I can also think of instances where they are not. I'm off to dig around some more. ;)
Ed
The problem is, those types of research results are not necessarily "facts."
For copyright purposes, you can use their facts. You cannot use their words though without giving them credit. In some cases, compilation of facts can be copyrighted as well.
I could go to a small village in Madagascar where they have never heard pop music and start playing beatles songs on my guitar and if I didn't tell anyone they were written by the beatles I would be passing myself and my talents off as something they weren't.
I think you are confusing plagerism with copyrighted information. Plagerism is when you don't source a documented fact (research or not).
If we wish to duplicate a table from a published study, we must get permission and often pay a licensing fee.
My two cents to all this is that, even if it turns out to be fair use for a writer to cop a "fact" such as "40% of sick days are taken on Mondays and Fridays", the intelligent writer will always attribute where that datum comes from. Otherwise, the reader's like, "Oh yeah? Sez who?"
You weaken your case if you cite survey-type facts without saying where you got the facts. How do we know you didn't just make it up?
You just have to hope that they got their facts right, otherwise it may be noticed that you copied them
Some publishers introduce innocuous errors or extra 'facts' in their products for just this purpose. These red herrings make it easy to root out plagiarism. Until recently map publishers used to (not sure if they still do) add an extra small alley, street, lane or an obscure mispelling to part of a map. When that feature shows up on other published maps, well, that's kind of proof that it was copied and not based on other, original sources.
<aside>It's kind of the same way that mailing list publishers include a "control address" in lists they sell. If they receive a mailing they can immediately tell whether somebody is making unauthorized use of the list.</aside>
Be careful out there.
As long as "40% of sick days are taken on Monday's and Friday's" is in your own words, it's not plagarism since this is a fact and not an idea.
"BT and GG are the same person" is a proposition. Most of us don't know if this proposition describes a fact.
"WG has written that BT and GG are the same person" is a fact (and a true proposition) if WG has written it. But it's no quotation. It's like "I heard WG saying that BT and GG are the same person." - You may add where WG has written or said that - still no quotation.
"WG has said <date, source>: 'I know that BT and GG are the same person' is a quotation. You may quote that sentence, but you are not allowed to copy all arguments given by WG literally, or to copy a photo published by WG proving what he said.
It's just an example :)
If three different research firms survey to find out: "The percentage of female Californians who support Arnold Schwarzzeneger for Governor" - they will get three different sets of results.
Is there a middle ground? Sure... I think it would be perfectly safe to say, "Some experts estimate the cost of PC ownership to be over $10,000 per year" without reference to a specific researcher or article. Your readers, of course, would probably appreciate more details to permit followup research if desired.
[thehollowearthinsider.com...] :)
To further muddy the issue, you can copyright a compilation of facts. If a data set enjoys the status of being a compilation, it is protected by copyright laws.
You cannot use their words though without giving them credit.
As others have pointed out, that may be true as applied to plagiarism, but not to copyright violations. If I quote three paragraphs from today's Dave Barry article on my Web site, I'm infringing on his copyright, regardless of whether I attribute it to him or not.
That is a downright silly notion...
