Talk:Donald R. Davis (entomologist)

Copyright position

The Smithsonian Institution is the source of some of the used content. In their terms of use the institution states the following:

Smithsonian Content is identified as having “no known copyright restrictions” when the Smithsonian is unaware of any copyright restrictions on its use. This may mean that: (1) a copyright existed at one time but was not renewed, or the copyright may have expired, or the owner may have intentionally placed the Content into the public domain; or (2) the Content was never eligible for copyright protection because it was created by an employee of the United States as part of his or her official duties, or (3) there are no copyright markings or other indications on the Content to indicate that it was copyrighted or otherwise restricted; or (4) Smithsonian records do not indicate any evidence of copyright restrictions. These facts indicate that no evidence has been found to show that copyright restrictions apply.

Furthermore their Terms of Use state:

Permitted Uses
The Smithsonian welcomes you to make fair use of the Content as defined by copyright law. Information on United States copyright fair use law is available from the United States Copyright Office: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html.

The text used in the Wikipedia article for Donald R. Davis is fair use. Further proof for this is the fact that sections of the same source are used in other websites without being contested. Examples:

1. https://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/resshow/perry/bios/DavisDonald.htm
2. http://www.balticamerican.org/index.php/news/13-davis

In addition the Italian Wikipedia article on Donald R. Davis uses the same source from The Smithsonian Institution (albeit translated into Italian), without having been contested.
Mill 1 (talk) 21:56, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

No, I'm sorry, all of that is wrong, apparently based on fundamental misunderstanding of how this works. Our CC BY-SA 3.0 licence requires that all content be available for commercial re-use, which the Smithsonian page most specifically is not; we do not have any fair-use provision whatsoever for text, other than clearly-identified and clearly-attributed quotations. I've blanked the page and will list it at WP:CP for review (I've not asked for it to be speedily deleted because, based on his citations, he appears to be notable – though nowhere near as notable as the economist of the same name!). Please ask here if you have questions about any of this. Oh, and if Italian Wikipedia uses the same text then that too is a copyright violation. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:05, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, this was a copyright violation and I've removed it. Text on Wikipedia has to be available under the terms of CC-BY-SA or be in the public domain. If the Smithsonian Institution said that the text had no copyright restrictions then we could use the text, but they didn't say that with regard to this page, so that's not relevant. Fair use is not allowed for text on Wikipedia outside of short quotations in limited circumstances, copying an entire article is certainly not permitted. It isn't relevant whether other people have copied the text and got away with it either. Hut 8.5 20:44, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

@Hut 8.5: Thank you for your investigation and explanation. Mill 1 (talk) 22:01, 29 September 2018 (UTC)