Copyright Issues-Admins and people here longer than me your opinion is requested

[Beligaronia he/him]

Hello. I'm new to the wiki so i hope I'm not rehashing old ground.

Someone has added the full text of the Epigraphs to the wiki. Now to my mind this seems like we would be skating on thin ice legally if we reproduce whole sections of the books without permission. Thus I have tagged them for deletion (using a new tag that I just made) could I get some opinions please and hopefully an admin level ruling.

Thank you for your time.

Beligaronia

PS could someone enable #if statements or is that server intensive?

[Chaos he/him]

I'm not qualified to enable #if statements. If Ryan, our codemonkey, doesn't respond in this topic, go shoot him a PM (his username is Ryan).

You do bring up a good point. My layman's response (for am I certainly not a copyright lawyer) would be that if we were copying whole pages of the book or chapters, that would absolutely be copyright infringement. But the epigraphs are much smaller chunks.

Plus, it's really useful to have the full text of them in some place. If not the wiki, someone would already have posted them on a forum somewhere (and I'm sure they have). Of course, "because everyone else is doing it" is a really bad legal defense.

That'd be my stance on it, but I'd love to hear someone with more experience on the matter to have some input.

EDIT: I think I'll ask Peter (Brandon's assistant) about it.

[Eerongal he/him]

I dont think quotations from books from books infringe copyright, as long as you attribute it to the originating material.

besides, fair use states that you are allowed to copy works for educational purposes and not commercial. Cataloging a wiki of information is very much so educational.

Also, if push comes to shove, you're allowed to ask the author for permission to reproduce parts of his work for various purposes, and i have no doubt people here could get that pretty quickly and painlessly (as he wouldn't object to this most likely)

Edit: Also - im no copyright lawyer either.

[Chaos he/him]

I've tweeted Peter about it. We'll see what he says.

[Eerongal he/him]

I've tweeted Peter about it. We'll see what he says.

Yeah, even if there is legal issue here, i'm sure peter/brandon would find no problem with it.

[Chaos he/him]

It's true. Some authors have a problem with fan fiction for copyright reasons, but Brandon doesn't have problems with us doing things like that. This seems similar.

[mycoltbug]

Its on twg also...

[Eerongal he/him]

Its on twg also...

Yeah, but i think this is the first time the thought legal ramifications have been brought up, as opposed to someone just doing it. Though that does lend credence to the idea of peter/brandon not caring.

[mycoltbug]

Peter said the amount is fine.

[Chaos he/him]

Peter's response:

@17thshard The percentage falls under fair use limits.

So, we're good to go. Thank you so much, Beligaronia, for asking such a great question

[KChan she/her]

Great question, and great job to everyone who contributed to getting a fast answer. Thanks a lot! ^^

[Beligaronia he/him]

Thank you very much. I'll go remove the tags. Just for future reference what is the percentage above which the sky begins raining lawyers or is it just a be sensible and we won't mind kind of thing? Should we add a tag saying something along the lines of :

"The content of this page is the sole property of Brandon Sanderson reproduced here with kind permission. Please do not alter the text or reproduce the material without prior permission."

Just to be nice and give full credit etc. (Anyone with any background in legal bits feel free to rewrite this. Or tell me I'm wrong)

[mycoltbug]

That navigation thing you made Beligaronia is awesome looking! Thanks. 

[Beligaronia he/him]

Take a gander at this. Opinions requested (feel free to say you hate it.)

http://www.17thshard.com/wiki/Template:Copyright