Before October 2014, copyright law permitted use of a work for the purpose of criticism and review, but it did not allow quotation for other more general purposes. Now, however, the law allows the use of quotation more broadly. So, there are two exceptions to be aware of, one specifically for criticism and review and a more general exception for quotation. Both exceptions apply to all types of copyright material, such as books, music, films, etc.
Quoting is a copyright violation in every jurisdiction I know of, if it’s done en masse.
“en masse” is vague.
Wow, you know about a lot of different legal frameworks. How does copyright violation work in Tuvalu and Mauritius? I’ve always wondered.
-- general comments --
It’s trivial to see that your idea of quoting is incomplete because most instances of quoting you see aren’t copyright violations (like news, youtube commentary, academic papers, whatever).
However, you obviously care about copyright violations deeply, so I suggest you get in touch with google too; they are worse offenders.
Since you care about *COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT* and not *BEING CRITICISED* surely this blatant infringement of your copyright is a much larger priority. The probability of someone seeing material which is infringing your copyright is orders of magnitude larger on google than on a small random website.
---
Edit/update/mini-post-mortem: I made this post because of an emotional reaction to the post above it by @gjm, which I shouldn’t have done. Some points were fine, but I was sarcastic (“Wow, you …”) and treated @gjm’s ideas unfairly, e.g. by using language like “trivial” to make his ideas sound less reasonable than they might be (TBH IANAL so really it’s dishonest of me to act with such certainty). Those statements were socially calibrated (to some degree) to try and either upset/annoy gjm or impact stuff around social status. Since I’d woken up recently (like less than 30min before posting) and was emotional I should have known better than to post those bits (maybe I should have avoided posting at all). There’s also the last paragraph, “Since you care about …” part, which at best is an uncharitable interpretation and at worst is putting words in gjm’s mouth (which isn’t okay).
For those reasons I’d like to apologies to gjm for those parts. I feel it’d be dishonest to remove them so I’m adding this update instead.
Yep, “en masse” is vague, and what it turns out curi actually did—which is less drastic than what his use of the word “mirrored” and his past history with LW led me to assume—was not so very en masse as I feared. My apologies, again, for not checking.
I didn’t, of course, claim to know what happens in every jurisdiction; the point of my “in every jurisdiction I know of” was the reverse of what you’re taking it to be.
I don’t know anything much about the law in Tuvalu and Mauritius, but I believe they are both signatories to the Berne Convention, which means that their laws on copyright are probably similar to everyone else’s. The Berne Convention requires signatories to permit some quotation, and its test for what exceptions are OK doesn’t give a great deal of leeway to allow more (see e.g. https://www.keionline.org/copyright/berne-convention-exceptions-revisions), so the situation there is probably similar to that in the UK (which is where I happen to be and where the site you linked to is talking about).
The general rule about quoting in the UK is that you’re allowed to quote the minimum necessary (which is vague, but that’s not my fault, because the law is also vague). What I (wrongly) thought curi had done would not, I think, be regarded as the minimum necessary to achieve a reasonable goal. But, again, what he actually did is not what I guessed, and what he did is OK.
If someone sees something I wrote on Google and takes an interest in it, the most likely result is that they follow Google’s link and end up in the place where I originally wrote it, where they will see it in its original context. If someone sees something I wrote that curi has “mirrored” on his own site, the most likely result is that they see whatever curi has chosen to quote, along with his (frequently hostile) comments of which I may not even be aware since I am not a regular there, and comments from others there (again, likely hostile; again, of which I am not aware).
None of that means that curi shouldn’t be allowed to quote what I said (to whatever extent is required for reasonable criticism and review, etc.) but I hope it makes it clearer why I might be more annoyed by curi’s “mirroring” than Google’s.
(Thanks for the update; as it happens I didn’t see your comment until after you posted it. Not that there’s any reason why you need care, but I approve of how you handled that.)
I didn’t quote you en masse. I didn’t just dump all your posting history. I quoted some specific stuff related to my critical commentary. Did you even look?
I had not looked, at that point; I took “mirrored” to mean taking copies of whole discussions, which would imply copying other people’s writing en masse. I have looked, now. I agree that what you’ve put there so far is probably OK both legally and morally.
My apologies for being a bit twitchy on this point; I should maybe explain for the benefit of other readers that the last time curi came to LW, he did take a whole pile of discussion from the LW slack and copy it en masse to the publicly-visible internet, which is one reason why I thought it plausible he might have done the same this time.
Noted. (I take it “this one” means this post rather than requesting that I not acknowledge having read this comment.)
I don’t 100% promise to comply (e.g., if I see you saying something importantly false and no one else comments on it, I might do so) but I’ll leave your posts alone unless some need arises that trumps courtesy :-).
Since in connection with this you publicly slandered me over on your website, I will add that I consider your analysis there of my motives and purposes to be extremely wrong.
No. Quoting is not a copyright violation. And I won’t have a discussion with you without being able to mirror it. Goodbye and no discussion I guess?
Quoting is a copyright violation in every jurisdiction I know of, if it’s done en masse. Evidence to the contrary, please?
here
https://www.copyrightuser.org/understand/exceptions/quotation/ - first link on google. there are more details about conditions there, and particularly what you’d have to show in order to prove infringement. Good luck ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
“en masse” is vague.
Wow, you know about a lot of different legal frameworks. How does copyright violation work in Tuvalu and Mauritius? I’ve always wondered.
-- general comments --
It’s trivial to see that your idea of quoting is incomplete because most instances of quoting you see aren’t copyright violations (like news, youtube commentary, academic papers, whatever).
However, you obviously care about copyright violations deeply, so I suggest you get in touch with google too; they are worse offenders.
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1fkfDXctehAJ:https://www.lesswrong.com/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au
Since you care about *COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT* and not *BEING CRITICISED* surely this blatant infringement of your copyright is a much larger priority. The probability of someone seeing material which is infringing your copyright is orders of magnitude larger on google than on a small random website.
---
Edit/update/mini-post-mortem: I made this post because of an emotional reaction to the post above it by @gjm, which I shouldn’t have done. Some points were fine, but I was sarcastic (“Wow, you …”) and treated @gjm’s ideas unfairly, e.g. by using language like “trivial” to make his ideas sound less reasonable than they might be (TBH IANAL so really it’s dishonest of me to act with such certainty). Those statements were socially calibrated (to some degree) to try and either upset/annoy gjm or impact stuff around social status. Since I’d woken up recently (like less than 30min before posting) and was emotional I should have known better than to post those bits (maybe I should have avoided posting at all). There’s also the last paragraph, “Since you care about …” part, which at best is an uncharitable interpretation and at worst is putting words in gjm’s mouth (which isn’t okay).
For those reasons I’d like to apologies to gjm for those parts. I feel it’d be dishonest to remove them so I’m adding this update instead.
Yep, “en masse” is vague, and what it turns out curi actually did—which is less drastic than what his use of the word “mirrored” and his past history with LW led me to assume—was not so very en masse as I feared. My apologies, again, for not checking.
I didn’t, of course, claim to know what happens in every jurisdiction; the point of my “in every jurisdiction I know of” was the reverse of what you’re taking it to be.
I don’t know anything much about the law in Tuvalu and Mauritius, but I believe they are both signatories to the Berne Convention, which means that their laws on copyright are probably similar to everyone else’s. The Berne Convention requires signatories to permit some quotation, and its test for what exceptions are OK doesn’t give a great deal of leeway to allow more (see e.g. https://www.keionline.org/copyright/berne-convention-exceptions-revisions), so the situation there is probably similar to that in the UK (which is where I happen to be and where the site you linked to is talking about).
The general rule about quoting in the UK is that you’re allowed to quote the minimum necessary (which is vague, but that’s not my fault, because the law is also vague). What I (wrongly) thought curi had done would not, I think, be regarded as the minimum necessary to achieve a reasonable goal. But, again, what he actually did is not what I guessed, and what he did is OK.
If someone sees something I wrote on Google and takes an interest in it, the most likely result is that they follow Google’s link and end up in the place where I originally wrote it, where they will see it in its original context. If someone sees something I wrote that curi has “mirrored” on his own site, the most likely result is that they see whatever curi has chosen to quote, along with his (frequently hostile) comments of which I may not even be aware since I am not a regular there, and comments from others there (again, likely hostile; again, of which I am not aware).
None of that means that curi shouldn’t be allowed to quote what I said (to whatever extent is required for reasonable criticism and review, etc.) but I hope it makes it clearer why I might be more annoyed by curi’s “mirroring” than Google’s.
(Thanks for the update; as it happens I didn’t see your comment until after you posted it. Not that there’s any reason why you need care, but I approve of how you handled that.)
I didn’t quote you en masse. I didn’t just dump all your posting history. I quoted some specific stuff related to my critical commentary. Did you even look?
I had not looked, at that point; I took “mirrored” to mean taking copies of whole discussions, which would imply copying other people’s writing en masse. I have looked, now. I agree that what you’ve put there so far is probably OK both legally and morally.
My apologies for being a bit twitchy on this point; I should maybe explain for the benefit of other readers that the last time curi came to LW, he did take a whole pile of discussion from the LW slack and copy it en masse to the publicly-visible internet, which is one reason why I thought it plausible he might have done the same this time.
gjm, going forward, I don’t want you to comment on my posts, including this one.
Noted. (I take it “this one” means this post rather than requesting that I not acknowledge having read this comment.)
I don’t 100% promise to comply (e.g., if I see you saying something importantly false and no one else comments on it, I might do so) but I’ll leave your posts alone unless some need arises that trumps courtesy :-).
Since in connection with this you publicly slandered me over on your website, I will add that I consider your analysis there of my motives and purposes to be extremely wrong.