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#18688 02/11/01 09:47 PM
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jmh Offline OP
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>All I can think of is that I'd be honored that somebody valued it that much.

This is true but put yourself in the shoes of an artist, say John Denver. He would have been (oops) "delighted" if you liked his song enough to record it and send copies to all your friends. He'd have been even be more happy if you bought each of them a CD, so that he got paid for his work.

We're hardly on the scale of an MP3 download site here but I do worry when we/I refer to sites which have clearly posted material which should be copyright onto their site. I suspect that the big lyrics site we looked at recently is above board but that someone who has posted the entire lyrics of a recent pop song onto their home page probably isn't. In which case short exerpts to illustrate a point are probably "fair dealing" but full versions are not. In the case of the traditional song lyrics that have been discussed, they are likely to be in the public domain, so are OK. Similarly Shakespeare, Keats etc are out of copyright but whilst Beowolf is out of copyright, a recent translation is not.


#18689 02/12/01 07:10 AM
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jmh Offline OP
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>These are the guidelines for us researchers who are not at all legal experts and still need to use quotes and refer to other people's work in our own. I think the key phrase here is "the length of the quoted passage and the use to which it is put should be fair to the author and publisher". We are using the material here for learning purposes, and as far as I can see, people who use extraneous material on this site provide sources and references alongside. Both of these seem to me to be quite "fair" practices.

I agree Marianna. I think that short quotes are probably fine and that when we use them they should be acknowledged, as they are at present, in most cases.


#18690 02/12/01 07:39 AM
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This is true but put yourself in the shoes of an artist, say John Denver. He'd be "delighted" if you liked his song enough to record it and send copies to all your friends.

Right now I reckon he'd settle for an aircraft fuel value that wasn't stiff and in an awkward position ...

Both my wife and myself have had to research international copyright law at various times. It's all amazingly similar (well, not so amazingly, really). The law says acknowledge, but for single lines or partial lines there is usually a deliberate grey area. The safest thing to do from both the ethical and the legal point of view is to acknowledge. Unless you are quoting wholesale, however, no one would quibble in a forum like this.

The big thing is that you put quotes around it or otherwise acknowledge that you aren't claiming it as your own work. Which I think we all do!



The idiot also known as Capfka ...
#18691 02/12/01 07:53 AM
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>The big thing is that you put quotes around it or otherwise acknowledge that you aren't claiming it as your own work. Which I think we all do!

Yup, I agree with this. In this forum, I have often seen people who got complimented on a quote susequently replying that they were quoting someone else.

Here, I think the acknowledgements are not done when the person feels it is obvious the quote is not theirs...eg, if I said "I cannot tell a lie" in the U.S. I would certainly not need to specify that George Washington was the one famous for having said this.


#18692 02/12/01 11:24 AM
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Or, as Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachesky would advise;

"... Let no-ones work evade your eyes
Why do you think the Good Lord madde your eyes?
Plagiarise, plagiarise, plagiarise -

But be certain you always call it 'research'!"
(Tom Lehrer)


#18693 02/12/01 02:07 PM
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wow Offline
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Then, there's this old wheeze :

"Stealing from one is plagiarism,stealing from many is research."
Sorry,it's been around so long I have no idea of the originator.
wow


#18694 02/12/01 03:21 PM
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Or as Woody Guthrie said, "Oh, they just stole from me, but I stole from everybody."


#18695 02/12/01 04:30 PM
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"Stealing from one is plagiarism,stealing from many is research."

Yes, I can see how this quote might give a former journalist a level of comfort ...



The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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