Grog

Tom,

If Neil had posted that and confused authorship...for instance one could reasonably conclude that Neil was the author of Watts' work, then that would be a copyright infringement. Is that what happened? As I understand it, copying a blog post for the purpose of criticizing the content therein is fairly well protected in case law. Wouldn't you agree?

neilgodfrey

I also downloaded a copy of Joel's page that I responded to at the time I wrote my own post and saved it in my zotero file. That clearly shows the entire post with the CC license notice near the bottom of the page.

Joel has only today removed that CC notice.

Grog

Tom, Can you point out exactly how Neil's blog "violat[ed] Joel's legal rights?" Watts' response is inane that it was out of his hands. Come on. First, he conjured what seems to be a false claim that Neil violated his copyright in teh first place. I don't see where that occurred.

This is from EFF:

The law favors "transformative" uses — commentary, either praise or criticism, is better than straight copying — but courts have said that even putting a piece of an existing work into a new context (such as a thumbnail in an image search engine) counts as "transformative."

It seems like Neil was criticism the piece, right?

neilgodfrey

It is instructive the way people who have had intellectual differences with me are now imputing to me all sorts of devilish character as well. (Tom recently sent me flattering emails when I began to review is "Not the Carpenter" book but turned against me again once I reviewed his own chapter.)

I did not receive any notice from Joel or Wordpress despite their claims and apparent evidence to the contrary. I have submitted my legal counter-claim inviting my gmail account be scrutinized to verify this.

I might partly be able to "understand" one such email not getting through, but for both -- there is something wrong here that I do not understand. I would love to find out.

Further, Joel saw my comment on his own blogpost alerting him to my post criticizing it, and he replied within 6 minutes. He could at that time have commented to me his complaint but did not do so. The Automattic Inc advice required Joel specifically to leave a comment on my own blog. He did not do that. I also have (had) a Permissions page on my blog inviting notice if anyone feels I have infringed copyright.

I can only lay out the evidence as I know it. I have now submitted this to Wordpress and may copy it on vridar.org later.

Neil

Grog

Why? I encourage Neil to send the whole form to Chilling Effect. When Joel signed that, he agreed that he understood the information could be made public. That is on the Automattic ToS Copyright Infringement page.

Grog

Why is it Godfrey's fault? Godfrey filed a copyright infringement claim against himself? Joel Watts filed the complaint. It's his fault any of this is happening.

Grog

Once again, what exactly is the infringement?

Grog

Yes. False claim. Makes him liable.

Steven Carr

Everything posted there was made freely available by Joel Watts as he ensured that he posted with a 'Creative Commons' licence.

What a great guy he is, waiving any claims to copyright that he might have had, purely in the hope of benefitting the blogging community.

A less charitable person that Joel (I'm a saint) Watts might have copyrighted his posts.

But Joel isn't that sort of guy.

Grog

I don't agree. Coming from the political world, I have seen this sort of tactic used to silence good people doing good things that help good people. I think it is absolutely loathsome behavior designed to silence opposing views. And it is, more often than not, successful.

I am not encouraging Neil to take some sort of legal action which would be costly and unpredictable, but I do think that Joel should out of good faith at least offer to pay for Neil's expenses in getting his site back up as well as ask for an apology. I think the community here should back that. What Joel has done damages the public discourse (look at how many people assumed Neil had infringed Joel's rights!).