[IP] Re: UNfair use -- Google iPhone usage shocks search giant

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

________________________________________
From: Mike Godwin [mnemonic@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2008 2:35 PM
To: David Farber
Cc: ip
Subject: Re: [IP] UNfair use --  Google iPhone usage shocks search giant

Hi, Dave.

Peter Wayner's comment regarding a purported plagiarism of a Financial
Times story challenged "fair use advocates to explain how this kind of
'fair use' is good for society."

This comment illustrates a common misconception about the relationship
between plagiarism and copyright infringement.  A work can an instance
of plagiarism without being copyright infringement (a rewrite of a
news service story might qualify if the new expression were
sufficiently different from the original expression, which is the only
thing protected by copyright law).  Conversely, a work can be an
instance of copyright infringement without being plagiarism (as when a
quotation exceeds fair use but is correctly attributed to the original
author).

No one who defends fair use is a defender of plagiarism, so far as I
know.  Copyright infringement is a legal matter; plagiarism is a
matter of  academic or authorial integrity.  While the two topics are
not wholly unrelated (hence Peter's conflation of "fair use" with
plagiarism here), they're analytically distinct.

In the particular case to which Peter refers, by the way, I'm inclined
to say that both copyright infringement *and* plagiarism occurred, and
of course I disapprove of both.


--Mike Godwin
General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation



On Feb 15, 2008, at 10:18 AM, David Farber wrote:

>
> ________________________________________
> From: Peter Wayner [pcw@flyzone.com]
> Sent: Friday, February 15, 2008 12:57 PM
> To: David Farber; Dewayne Hendricks
> Subject: Fwd: [IP] Google iPhone usage shocks search giant
>
> Dave-
>
> Let's give credit where credit is due. Maija Palmer and Paul Taylor
> of the Financial Times are the real author of most of the work,
> "Google iPhone usage shocks search giant", that you reprinted/
> repurposed/fair-used/pinched:
>
> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/667f13de-da60-11dc-9bb9-0000779fd2ac.html
>
> By my count at least 200 words of the 318 words in the AppleInsider
> story are direct copies. The rest are cheap substitutes ("2008" for
> "this year".) The few changes were cursory at best and dangerously
> speculative at worst. (Will Android phones be "be announced in the
> second half of this year" as the Financial Times reported or will
> they "begin shipping during the second half<http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/11/05/notes_of_interest_on_googles_android_announcement.html
> > of 2008" as AppleInsider reported?)
>
> If this were my student, I would have strung him up on plagiarism
> charges. I think you should publish a clarification.
>
> So let me challenge the fair use advocates to explain how this kind
> of "fair use" is good for society?
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: dewayne@warpspeed.com<mailto:dewayne@warpspeed.com> (Dewayne
> Hendricks)
> Date: February 15, 2008 3:57:05 AM EST
> To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy@warpspeed.com<mailto:xyzzy@warpspeed.com
> >>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Google iPhone usage shocks search giant
>
> Google iPhone usage shocks search giant
>
> By Slash Lane
> Published: 03:00 PM EST
> <http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/02/14/google_iphone_usage_shocks_search_giant.html
> >
>
> -------------------------------------------


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