Talk:C++ Programming/About the Book/Authors

The contributors here want to avoid conflict with you. If they want to remove their names, they can remove them. 3rd parties have added names to author pages before. I don't see anything wrong with it in this case. -- xixtas talk 01:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
 * This is not about conflict, I will not act against any other author, I have stated so, but this is a legal document, consider it as a requirement to take responsibility for what you claim (you sign your posts, you log into wikibooks), so the option is open to anyone to claim their rights and subscribe to the GFDL, but they must do it themselves, any author has legal options to request to be forcefully listed if prevented (this is not what I'm doing) and to have erroneous/conflicting claims resolved, this may include copyright disputes. --Panic 01:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
 * You have no authority to grant other peoples rights over this work or make legal decisions for them. --Panic 01:41, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll support you in requesting other authors to sign the page, but probably not the complete list you have added, another point is that are now 4 authors listed on this page. --Panic 01:52, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Of all the wrong-headed things you have done, this may be the wrong-headedest. This page confers no special privileges or obligations (not already transferred by the edit histories here) and these are not legal signatures. (Although I agree that it is a legal document.) It is recognition, plain and simple, and that you would deprive others who have invested freely of their time, talent and knowledge of that small amount of recognition is both mean and uncivil in my view. I will not engage in an edit war with you, but I will support anyone who agrees that additional Wikibookians should be credited with their contributions on this page and acts to recognize them. -- xixtas talk 02:44, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with the "wrong-headed things" bit but I understand you seeing them as such.
 * I agree that this page confers no special privileges on Wikibooks no obligations in general, but it legally informs users of right owners and it is were authors grant rights under the GFDL.
 * Legal signature is a simplification, as you make a change when you edit, you get attribution and the intention of any change on this page is clear if performed to ascertain authorship of the work and validate the GFDL.
 * This is not a recognition, the listed authors aren't recognizing anything, they are informing others of the claim of authorship of the work and granting some of their rights to the FSF under the GFDL, it is up to other right owners to make sure no one infringes on their rights (but not an obligation).
 * I will support and welcome any author that wishes to add himself to this page. --Panic 02:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

My attention was called to this page when I was reading the talk page history of WB:OWN. I decided to add myself, having previously contributed to the book. But when I glanced at this discussion page, I noticed Panic's statement above about authors adding themselves. I thought I might point out that Darklama seems to have added his name (along with a few others) in this diff, but which was subsequently taken down by Panic. Given the hot button issue this seems to have been in the past I don't think I will add his name, but it seemed to me this was an accident and should be pointed out. Thenub314 (talk) 06:44, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Darklama and I have already discussed the subject but I will always be open to talk with him about the issue, in any case I have noticed that you have been interested in the discussion about ownership and authorship, and did add yourself to this authors list. That I'm invested part.
 * I remind you that by doing so you are claiming ownership over the work (with all the legal implications), a quick check I made sees that in the year 2010 you did 4 edits none of them of a copyrightable nature.
 * 1 December 2010
 * 16 August 2010
 * 16 August 2010
 * As an author and copyright holder to this work I can't remember any extensive contribution that would grant you the right to claim shared authorship or ownership over the content. Please validate your claim (US Copyright Law/Copyrightable Works - Author), thanks. --Panic (talk) 13:45, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Well I was mostly thinking of my work in 2009 when I added my name. But perhaps our ideas of what is extensive differ, or about what is independently copyrightable.  Exactly how much of a contribution is necessary, in your opinion, to be copyrightable?  Perhaps none of my contributions will fit the bill. Thenub314 (talk) 16:39, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * IANAL but I've explored the subject extensively. There is a small distinction in what is copyrightable and claiming authorship/ownership over all the book's content. I can quote in any work parts of copyrightable material without gaining any control over them. adding copyrightable material to a work doesn't automatically makes one a co-author.
 * An author (or copyright owner), deals with terms like "significant amount" or "noticeable contribution" in a work and has responsibility over it (one becomes liable), this starts as one claims ownership over a work.
 * The US copyright law is extremely diffuse, in general it states that an author must have made a substantial contribution to qualify for authorship. In other words do you feel that you have contributed as much or near as much as other authors, it is fundamentally intuitive that authorship credit should be given where credit is due. This article, by real lawyers may provide further insight on the subject Copyright Ownership: The Joint Authorship Doctrine. When I have the time I'll look in your 2009 contributions.
 * If you have the time and interest take a look in this paper or search around.
 * My interest here is to protect my own rights over my own contributions and work (reuse), get the due recognition, provide a clear licensing for distribution and reuse and keep some control over aggregation with other works. It can also serve to provide a streamlined way to relicense it (untested, and dependent of the specific copyright law). It would be impossible otherwise to establish co-authorship and keep a list of the required attributions or undo them. --Panic (talk) 18:43, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I do not mean to step on your own rights a contributor, the recognition you deserve for putting in a lot of hard work. Much more then I, and most probably much more than any other contributor.  At the same time it would seem inappropriate to me to grant anyone sole authorship over the book, which would allow for the copyright holder to resuse  the text without any acknowledgement of wikibooks, or the work of the other contributors. This too would be a simple but untested matter of releasing the text under a different license. When I read through the past conversations you pointed out to me and there was a lot of discussion of this page, I realized I would like to have my work acknowledged in some small way, and perhaps this was less automatic then I thought if someone felt that I was not an author in the legal sense and there was a sole author for the work. Thenub314 (talk) 22:43, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * For reference I was thinking of this edit. Thenub314 (talk) 16:50, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Looking only to that contribution I can say that it is welcomed but I don't see it as sufficient for claiming co-authorship over the book, in the specific case of source code the subject is different (they are stand alone creative works, even if aggregated to the book) they share most of the issues we have in the project with images (regarding licensing and re-usability), that is why I added the specific disclaimer to the author/license page. Any source contributed to this work if not clearly indicating a special license will fall under the public domain (public domain is a state that you lose any ownership right, even the right of attribution, hypothetically anyone to claim authorship over your work then, only the state as manager of the public space/goods can then act on to enforce that moral right of recognition). --Panic (talk) 18:43, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, I have changed the the Authors template used in this page for two reasons. First we cannot require more from other users contributions then those outlined requirements outlined in the terms of use.  Since it is conceivable that the editors never counter the Authors page, or even the TOC, and they simply follow a link to somewhere in the middle of the book and leave a contribution there, there cannot be any indication that have accepted the additional terms that source code they write will be in the public domain.  As a more minor point, removing remarks about source code makes the template more general to use in other books. Thenub314 (talk) 22:37, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I have also read about this and come to different conclusions. Specifically there are, generally speaking two criteria for deciding if a creative work is a "joint work" and that the coauthors share joint copyright.
 * Each author understands they are creating a joint work.
 * To be a co-author you must have made a copyrightable contribution.
 * Specifically, in Intellectual Property Margreth Barrett writes:
 * "While one party may considerably less copyrightable expression to the work then the other and still be considered a joint author, …"


 * Perhaps notably for wikibooks she also comments that "While it is not necessary that all the authors work at the same time, or that they even know one another each party must intend to contribute to a unitary whole, and thus crate a joint work."


 * While I am not a layer either, there is also a good case for considering the entire book to be a derivative work of whomever started the work. In which case the ramifications are very different.   In any case the size of the contribution is considered circumstantial evidence of ownership at best, and should best be left up to a court to decide if it ever becomes an issue.


 * As I stated above, you are confusing copyright (over copyrightable material) and authorship, granted that you can only claim authorship over something that is copyrightable (that you have intellectual property over) but they are not the same. For instance the inclusion of the attributed works here doesn't grant those authors co-authorship on this work (it does depends on the quantity, I as knowledgeable of the content ratio of the works I can make that affirmation even if it is an aggregation/derivation).
 * The quote you give lacks context, you can be an author and have no ownership over a work (work for hire), you can sell rights, you can make contractual agreements explicitly granting co-authorship or authorship (for example ghostwriting) even a publisher can be a co-author (see the article I gave you above).
 * The last bit is exactly correct, ultimately in case of dispute only a court can resolve it, that is the reason of the reply above, authorship/ownership must be claimed to be actionable. That is also important as I state above to defend the continued use of the licenses granted to Wikibooks. Only the owners of the rights can defend the work (Wikimedia/FSF will not/can not substitute the owner in case of violation).
 * That was the function the draft provided a way to reach mutual understanding on this subjects.
 * PS: I'm against copyright/intellectual property in general, but in a world of lemonades one must know how to squeeze a lemon.  --Panic (talk) 23:01, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I really don't think I am confusing the matter, but there is really no way to resolve our different interpretations of the situation. I understand that works for hire are a different matter, but they are not so much at issue in this situation.  If you'd like more context to what she wrote the relevant section of her book is available on google books here and these quotes were taken from pages 172-173. I am personally of the opinion that, as we all know contributing to wikibooks that we are creating a joint collaborative work, then as soon as someone leaves any non-trivial contribution they are to be considered an author.  But perhaps we should seek a wider community input and discuss it in the reading room? For the most part our discussion isn't very specific to this book.  I would gladly take my name down if the consensus is that I have the wrong idea of what it means to be an author. Thenub314 (talk) 00:06, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * In fact, I have taken my name down because I don't want to seem unnecessarily combative. Panic, I had misunderstood the statement "I will support and welcome any author that wishes to add himself to this page." to mean I was welcome to add it, and I had not realized I wouldn't be considered an author.  I certainly have not contributed "much or near as much as other authors".  So it is better to leave the situation as it was until (if ever) the situation becomes clarified.


 * I was using generalization to explain my point of view (that doesn't need to be the same as yours). Ultimately it comes to that, a personal assessment on how relevant ones contributions are in relation to the book, the necessity to claim rights over those contributions and so sign it, taking personal responsibility for them, it only becomes an issue when rights over the work are exerted, especially if there is money involved (hardly the case here).
 * I have made several contributions, in equal stand to the one you listed, to several works but never considered them as granting me author status over them. We aren't specifically talking in exerting any rights but only in claiming them. This was one of the reasons I chose this project to contribute to.
 * An erroneous or intentionally false claim if made is meaningless but actionable upon, a copyright violation.
 * One of the previous discussions we had involving several Wikibookains (but not the general community) was specifically about this type of author pages, claims were made that this format reinforces the license, for instance, I (and at least another Wikibookian) defended that the GFDL requires a clear agreement to it, that is not provided or guaranteed by the submit statement, especially outside of the Wikimedia project, in stand alone form, and recognized the technical limitations of the edit history to provide usable and reliable information. The CC-BY-SA 3.0 is more lax in that, even if it indicates that attributions should be performed as the authors requires, one reason why it was adopted was the removal of the necessity to include a verbose copy of thelicense. --Panic (talk) 01:36, 3 December 2010 (UTC)