Derivative Works

[WebRanger]

If I write an article and publish it as a knol, I retain the copyright
(unless I choose another option). If people comment on my knol, and I
incorporate their comments, it becomes a derivative work.

Can someone help me understand the legal ramifications?

First, once my knol becomes a derivative work, do I lose some or all
my copyright protection? I assume other authors would still have to
request my permission to quote portions of my original article, but
would any material suggested by someone else and added to the author
be in the public domain? Or would they have to ask each contributor
for permission to use whatever they contributed?

Imagine a website focusing on animals, with articles titled Animals,
Mammals, Carninvores, Tiger, etc. Let's say I publish a copy of the
article Animals as a knol. There are now two identical articles
online, one on my website, the other on knol.google.com.

Suppose half a dozen people comment on my knol and I incorporate their
suggestions, turning it into a derivative work. Would I be able to
upgrade the article on my personal site with the revised knol? Could I
do so if I received permission from every contributor? Or would I also
need permission from Google?

Thanks.

[Dan]

Copyright law, at least in the US, allows you to incorporate others'
comments as long as you paraphrase their words.

However, I have the same question you have about verbatim
modifications submitted through the Edit tab. I'm not sure whether
Fair Use allows you to incorporate minor edits, or whether the public
declaration that the work is "All Rights Reserved" (which technically
prohibits the creation of a derivative work via the Edit tab) is
sufficient for preserving the owner's complete ownership.

For now, I have specified that Edit modifications require owner-
approval. This allows me to first email the modifier asking that they
state they are transferring their copyright on the derivative work to
me. If they agree, I can apply the modification. If they don't, I
won't or will paraphrase.

I am not a lawyer, but I am interested in such issues and think this
process is roughly correct.

It is possible that Google could benefit its author community by
creating a license more in-line with WebRanger and my desires. I
imagine anyone wanting to maintain editorial control and the future
ability to publish in alternate media (such as books) would want
something like this: The submission of edits via the Edit tab should
imply copyright transfer on the derivative work. It may be that US
law implies this, but if it does, Google should an FAQ that makes it
clear.

Dan Greening

[WebRanger]

Thanks for the very enlightening answer. One question...

You wrote, "For now, I have specified that Edit modifications require
owner-
approval."

What do you mean by "specified"? Did you simply include a statement on
your knol(s) spelling out the rules by which people can comment on it?
Or is there some sort of technical feature you can use to
automatically advise commenters and reviewers on your terms.

Thanks.

[elle]

Such technicalities are important to those submitting articles. How
does wikipedia do it so successfully? Do they have an editorial team
to tidy things up or to authenticate data?

[Dan]

I guess what I meant was that I chose "Moderated collaboration", which
requires my approval before I make a change. Since no one has edited
any of my articles, I can't tell whether I can email the author of the
modifications, but I guess I was assuming I could. Would you like to
fix a typo or something on one of mine? Here's an article of
moderately general interest: http://knol.google.com/k/dan-r-greening/pattern/pcduwttervag/4.
Try editing it, I'll see what happens, make you agree to transfer
copyright (via email) and report back here.

Dan

[merriam]

On Aug 1, 4:31 pm, Dan <green...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Would you like to
> fix a typo or something on one of mine? Here's an article of
> moderately general interest: http://knol.google.com/k/dan-r-greening/pattern/pcduwttervag/4.

I've done that.

[WebRanger]

Good idea. I found a very small typo in the second section...

Problem
People can recite rules, but misunderstand their spirit.

* * * * *

There should be no comma there. I clicked Edit, made the change and
saved it, but, of course, the change didn't stick. I thought I'd see a
warning or notice that I don't have permission to edit it, or that
you would be notified of my edit.

I clicked the E-mail link but discovered it's designed for sharing the
URL, not sharing edits.

So I'm not sure if you would know about my edit if I didn't tell you
about it here.

Thanks.

[merriam]

While you're editing, there's a warning under the editor toolbar:

"This knol is moderated. Changes you make here will be sent as
suggestions to the author(s). Once your suggestions are accepted by
the author(s), they will be visible to everyone."

When you've finished editing it says "Your revision is pending" in the
right column under the blue button saying "Write a Knol".

[elle]

As it should be?

[merriam]

Yes. WebRanger said "I thought I'd see a warning". I quoted the
warning that you see when editing under moderated collaboration.

[Dan]

We have now gone through one cycle of editing, where William Merriam
made a correction and I accepted. William emailed me out-of-band using
the email address revealed in my personal profile. I also have a
pending edit from David Blomstrom, but I don't have his email address,
so I can't get his copyright transfer. This exposes a usability bug
in Knol.

Here is the exchange I had with William:
----
Hi William,

Interesting that Knol doesn't give me a way to email the person making
the submission! Furthermore, it doesn't email ME letting me know
someone tried to edit my submission.

OK, here's what I would say if I had your email (and if you had done
something more serious than correct a misspelling):

Hi William,
Thanks for the edit. In order for me to incorporate your work without
encumbering my ability to publish this elsewhere, I need you to
transfer your copyright over the "derivative work" you created back to
me. Can you respond as follows, with your email signature following
the declaration?

"Dan, I hereby transfer the copyright over my derivative work at
http://knol.google.com/k/dan-r-greening/pattern/pcduwttervag/4#edit-suggestions
to you, with no encumbrances. You may credit me in the article or in a
related publication, but I am not requiring you to do so."

Once you do that, I will apply your edit. Thanks for the edit!

Dan R. Greening d...@greening.org

----
Hi Dan:

Even if you had email notification with the contributor's address,
that wouldn't do. Knol should add a warning about the license along
with the collaboration mode message when the contributor starts
editing.

Mediawiki puts a short statement under the edit box. More
specifically, Wikipedia uses this text:

You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL*.

Until we have that, I think an in-band message will do. I want to use
the same combination of all rights reserved and moderated
collaboration for some articles. It should be useful for typos and,
for example, corrections from the author of software that is the
subject of the article.

Anyway, for this time, of course...

Dan, I hereby transfer the copyright over my derivative work at
http://knol.google.com/k/dan-r-greening/pattern/pcduwttervag/4#edit-suggestions
to you, with no encumbrances. You may credit me in the article or in a
related publication, but I am not requiring you to do so.

Also, please quote any of the text of this message, for example on the
Google Groups "Derivative Works" thread, if it helps.

----
Now back to the knol-users group:

Note that William is automatically credited in the knol as a
contributor (right column). I also credited him at the bottom, but I
don't think that's necessary. Finally, I think this could all be
resolved by a new license that states that submissions become the
property of the document owner. Submission would imply agreement with
the submission license, and therefore no exchange would be required.
This type of license is neither a GFDL license or a Creative Commons
license, because it is for the protection of the original author.
Does anyone know of the existence of such a license, so we don't have
to invent one?

Dan

[David Blomstrom]

On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 8:06 AM, Dan <gree...@gmail.com> wrote:

We have now gone through one cycle of editing, where William Merriam
made a correction and I accepted. William emailed me out-of-band using
the email address revealed in my personal profile. I also have a
pending edit from David Blomstrom, but I don't have his email address,
so I can't get his copyright transfer.

Hmmmm... I don't want to post my e-mail address online (spam), but I doubt that you need my permission to simply insert a comma. Nevertheless, you have my permission to implement my suggestion with no strings attached.

[Dan]

Perfectly reasonable. Of course, the point is that Google should
provide the ability to email the suggester through a web-interface,
allowing for limited communication without spam risk.

I did a little wikipedia research, and you are correct that minor
edits don't require permission: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work.

Thanks for your participation in our experiment!

Dan

On Aug 2, 12:46 pm, "David Blomstrom" <david.blomst...@gmail.com>
wrote: