How can an author ban critique?

[vladimir]

what is your problem silly person?

I have a slight problem with people who post to a thread just to bemoan it's uselessness. That is the behavior of a silly person. Why not spend your time more fruitfully? Go read a book or do some crunches. I am going for a morning run now, so you can get the last word in. I know you need to.

 

[irishsquid]

...The ideas are copyrighted, that is the whole point. The facts are not, but she did it first and so anything that follows might be considered a derivative work, the same with any alterations.

So, she wrote the very first guide making something/anything easy? Substitute Bonaire with Yellowstone Park, diving with hiking, and that violates her copyright because it's derivative of HER idea. I never understand law, it seems to have no common sense.

...On the other hand, raising a bunch of fuss because a single person wants to laminate and add icons to his own copy is a bit silly.

You definitely nailed that one on the head!

 

[DandyDon]

Don, thanks for posting this. Based on item 4, you (and I) have exceeded the fair use boundaries numerous times by reproducing newspaper articles in their entirety for informational use, rather than for critique. While I always cite and link to the source, in the future I will only reproduce small extracts from articles here on the ScubaBoard.

Haha, well there are aspects to that...

• Is it copyrighted? There's really so much to read on US law and international treats - and I have actually done so to some extent discussing similar issue before, that is seems like anything written or otherwise recorded is technically copyrighted;
• Proving that there is a previous right to the work seems to be the next step, and recording a publication can accomplish that, but also leave it open to be copied;
• And finally - a judgment as to whether anyone would bother objecting much less considering legal action...?

Today's electronic traffic has heightened all this in revenue lucrative areas of music and video sharing, but I'm not much at risk there. I'm a boring person who doesn't listen to music or watch movies so I'm never involved in such. It takes me only minutes to capture a video or audio clip on Fire Fox, then convert it to Windows Media Player format or maybe an audio only format so if I want to use the music from one as background on a video I shot, that's easy enough - altho technically unlawful. The rub comes if I want to post it on my Myspace profile or videos where it can become more public, and sites like myspace, tinypic.com, etc have software that blocks that - hehe, been thru that. So I use classical music composed well before the laws. Ever noticed how many times that Hamlet has been made into movies? It predates the laws and besides, William was rewriting older tales by others. There were copyright laws in previous centuries but those have been pretty much rewritten.

I suppose you're referencing my reproduction of news articles for reading here on SB without having to follow a link to another site - that may go dead in time, sometimes all too quickly? Citing the source and acknowledging credits is generally accepted as sufficient here I think; it'd be different if I wanted to publish on a commercial scale.

Then you get into Fair Use, and this contradicts what I said about the First Amendment earlier. :blush: Fair use - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107...

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections and , the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors

 

[hogpark7430]

It is to bad that such a stink was made over this. A personal amendment to a book was made that NO ONE OTHER THAN THE POSTER COULD MAKE USE OF.

The complaints of the Author seem a bit out of sorts. Because of this the book has been somewhat diminished to me.

-The book is handy not essential

 

[JeffInVA]

I have not ever spoken to the author of BSDME, I've only ever used her book on my 3 trips to Bonaire. So I hesitate to try to speak for her, but I will anyway.

I would guess what she is objecting to is the posting on this board of links to a .pdf that has her ratings and other key information from the text for each site. It would seem to me that removing the text alone from the .pdf file that ClayJar posted is not enough. He also posted the ratings and other information for 4 dive sites from the book. It would also seem to me that the ratings and information is an integral part of the book and he posted it.

I would guess that had he not done that Susan would not have had any objection to him making a copy in his own format for his own use (nor could she really. That seems like fair use). But he went a step beyond that and posted information taken directly from the book (albeit in a different format, icons verses text). I compared his example to my copy of BSDME and his icons exactly match up to the text for each dive site in his .pdf. Had he just put random icons up for each site he probably would have been fine, but he didn't.

I actually quite like the format he put stuff in and it would make a nice improvement to BSDME. But lets be honest he already has posted key parts of BSDME. Is it a violation of the author's copyright? IANAL, but I think ClayJar is, at the very least, on shaky ground here.

 

[The Chairman]

For the record...

There was a misunderstanding of what the original post was discussing. Since that time, I have received an e-mail apologizing for the misunderstanding and I am WAY cool with that. This is Mrs. Porter's "baby" and it's understandable that she would not want someone to reprint her work elsewhere. Fortunately, that is not what was discussed and we have all come to that conclusion. I look forward to buying this book when I make it back to Bonaire.

 

[NadMat]

For the record...

There was a misunderstanding of what the original post was discussing. Since that time, I have received an e-mail apologizing for the misunderstanding and I am WAY cool with that. This is Mrs. Porter's "baby" and it's understandable that she would not want someone to reprint her work elsewhere. Fortunately, that is not what was discussed and we have all come to that conclusion. I look forward to buying this book when I make it back to Bonaire.

I am glad you got that straightened out and that she figured out what was actually going on was in praise of her work and one owner of her books efforts to make his copy more usable to him. Since she has come around I can now feel right about having BSDME in my books to buy list.

 

[El Orans]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

Moved to Feedback as this discussion is not really about technical issues but more of a SB policy discussion.

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