Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 December 23

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December 23

Copyrights on government works.

I was just wondering about something: what is the reason why many Commonwealth countries claim copyright on their works (although our article implies that laws are usually excluded), whereas the United States federal government and many other countries put most government works (with certain exceptions) under the public domain? Meaning: why the difference in copyright strategies? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 00:13, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

My guess is that in the USA, the government belongs to the people. Thus, anything created by the government belongs to the people. In Commonwealth countries, stemming as they do from the British Empire, the government is basically an agency of the Crown. Thus, anything produced by the government is produced by and for the Crown and remains (however technically) in its possession. — The Potato Hose 17:31, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Is that true even of stuff the Crown gives away? Like information about some subject? If so, why would they care about copyrights? The point of such info is to spread it around as far as possible. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:21, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Information is not copyrightable; the exact wording, typographical layout, and other elements of a published work are (or may be). Crown copyright prevents person X charging for material that the government makes freely available. It also allows the government to meet the publication costs of some "tradeable information" that would not necessarily be produced if it had to be made freely available (see this longish policy paper which is linked to from one of the pages the OP links to above). An example of this would be the Ordnance Survey which is self-funding (and that article touches on some of the pros and cons of this approach). You might compare the United States Geological Survey, which has a similar role as the OS, but whose works are in the public domain. Our article notes that "budget constraints have forced the USGS to rely on donations of time by civilian volunteers in an attempt to update its 7.5-minute topographic map series."

If one reads through the articles the OP links to above, it's clear that both strategies have the same primary effect: they stop those who produce potentially copyrightable material as part of their official government duties from attempting to claim personal copyright on that material. In the US, this is because statute law states "A “work of the United States Government” is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties"[1] and that "Copyright protection under this title [17 USC] is not available for any work of the United States Government"[2]. (Note that this provision applies only to domestic copyright; the US can and does assert copyright on US Government works published in other countries. [3]. In the UK (for example), statute law asserts that "Where a work is made by Her Majesty or by an officer or servant of the Crown in the course of his duties [...] Her Majesty is the first owner of any copyright in the work" [4]. In both cases, no individual can profit from the work they did on behalf of the state. Valiantis (talk) 04:22, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Let's suppose the queen issues a proclamation about visiting hours at Buckingham Palace. This announcement is in the form of a free pamphlet that is distributed various places. Further suppose that someone gets one of those pamphlets and produces a bunch of copies which he likewise distributes free to some locations that either didn't have the originals or ran out of them. What would be the problem with that? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:10, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

The problem with that is that it would be a breach of copyright. Whether in your (somewhat improbable) example anyone would enforce the copyright is a matter of speculation. Whether that is a good thing or not is beyond the scope of this reference desk which is not intended as a forum for debate. If someone wishes to post references to discussions by informed persons about the pros and cons of the state retaining copyright in works produced by the government, that's a different matter. I've posted one such document above. Valiantis (talk) 02:39, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

I'd also add that it may be of interest that although works of the federal government of the US are in the public domain, the works of many state governments are copyrighted [5]. A read through the Wikimedia Commons page on copyright laws in different countries reveals a whole range of different approaches to this issue. It's clearly not the case that the distinction is between Commonwealth countries and everywhere else. (Mexico for example has a 100 year copyright on government works [6]). Valiantis (talk) 03:07, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Geography / history question

Which geographical phenomenon was beneficial to mankind especially over a period of 350 years and continues to be an asset. Would appreciate any response.98.194.137.222 (talk) 02:58, 23 December 2013 (UTC)vsmurthy

Please do your own homework.

Welcome to Wikipedia. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misinterpretation, but it is our aim here not to do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn nearly as much as doing it yourself. Please attempt to solve the problem or answer the question yourself first. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, feel free to tell us where you are stuck and ask for help. If you need help grasping the concept of a problem, by all means let us know. --Jayron32 03:41, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Geez, they could be asking for anything. There's probably something listed in your textbook or class lectures which they are fishing for, and we can't guess at that, not having read the text or watched the lectures. StuRat (talk) 09:34, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

The discovery of Australia, as a useful place to dump convicts and other weirdoes after the rebellion of the 13 colonies.

The British Empire; the discovery of the hole in the ozone layer; global warming (if you believe in that); plate tectonic theory/ the mapping and measurement of fault lines/ early warning systems for earthquakes and tidal waves; weather satellites; oil exploration (biodiesel); the location of R'lyeh (doubtful that this is a benefit, other than, like Australia, normal people can take steps to avoid it); the fact that Father Christmas lives at the North Pole; hydroelectricity; commercial cultivation (eg. breadfruit, quinine, rubber, tea, marijuana) and including irrigation and terracing; the development of the marine chronometer (see also the Antikythera mechanism); the discovery of the location of the clitoris and G-spot. 86.183.79.28 (talk) 10:28, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

The discovery of vast reserves of the raw materials for plastics, and the consequent creation of the "credit card". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:15, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Cape Colony Parliament

Delegation of prominent Cape politicians to protest against the racist provisions of the draft South Africa Act.

In the Cape Colony which later became part of South Africa, there was the Cape Qualified Franchise in the 19th century which allowed Black and Coloured men to vote on a basically equal basis with White men, although voting rights for nonwhites were later restricted by a series of laws and later eliminated entirely after the Union of South Africa in the 20th century. However, I don't see it specifically mentioned in Parliament of the Cape of Good Hope whether any nonwhite candidates had been elected to the Cape parliament before the union occurred. Did that happen? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:34, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I found the attached photograph of non-white politicians from the Cape on a visit to London in 1909,[7] but it seems that none of them made it to the Cape parliament. I'll leave you to research further - typing their names individually into Google would be a good start. Alansplodge (talk) 11:07, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Metropolitan90, I don't think any were elected to the Parliament of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, but in fact an black candidate was elected in the first election to the Cape Provincial Council (which replaced the Parliament after the Union). Walter Rubusana won the seat of Tembuland. When he ran for re-election in 1914, however, he was opposed by another African candidate, John Tengo Jabavu, splitting the black vote and allowing a white candidate to take the seat. Rubusana was a Congregationalist minister, the founder of a Xhosa newspaper, President of the South African Native Convention, and a founder of the ANC. It turns out that we lack a Wikipedia article on him, an embarrassing omission (the French Wikipedia has one, despite him having very little to do with any French-speaking country) I intend to rectify when I have some time. There's a good biography of him here.[8] Neljack (talk) 11:07, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Russian nobility

What percentage of Russia was part of the Russian nobility (article doesn't say) at the eve of the Revolution? From the article and War and Peace, it seems like they were a significant number of nobles in the Russian Empire.--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 06:00, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Absolutism and Ruling Class : The Formation of the Russian Political Order by John P. LeDonne Fellow Harvard (p.22) gives a figure of 0.83% in 1816 - "a tiny proportion of the total population". Still looking for a later figure. Alansplodge (talk) 10:38, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Here we go... The Standard of Living and Revolutions in Russia, 1700-1917, by Boris Nikolaevich Mironov (p. 413) has a handy table showing the figures for 1913:-

Heriditary nobility: 1,249,000 or 1% of the total population

Personal nobility: 687,000 or 0.5% of the total

The total population was 128,864,000. Isn't the internet a wonderful thing? Twenty years ago, it might have taken weeks to find that information (if at all) instead of five minutes. Alansplodge (talk) 10:38, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Mosaic was released in 1993, and there was WAIS and Archie before that. Twenty years goes by fast when you're having fun... Tevildo (talk) 12:10, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

According to Internet in the United Kingdom, there were 150 British customers connected to the internet in 1993. Needless to say, I wasn't one of them! Alansplodge (talk) 13:37, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

That only refers to the public dial-in system. The net is older and hardwired from university to business to government offices. Many more nodes than that in the UK in 1993. 75.41.109.190 (talk) 16:09, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

See JANET. Marco polo (talk) 20:24, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

OK... but then we have to ask, what percent of all internet users in 1993 were members of the Russian nobility? Blueboar (talk) 21:05, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Ask here; they might know :-) Nyttend (talk) 21:16, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Or, if you're really desperate, you could ask here. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:24, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Hanover College, New York

Has anyone heard of a Hanover College in New York state? See section 43, near the bottom of page 1, of this document; a Presbyterian minister-in-training attended there in the early 19th century. I'm not sure whether it's a mistake for Hanover College in southeastern Indiana or a long-gone college in New York. Either print or online resources will be helpful. Nyttend (talk) 14:46, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I did a lot of searching online and found not a trace of a Hanover College in New York State. Usually there will be traces online even for defunct institutions in historical records. My best guess is that this minister actually attended Hamilton College (New York), which was founded as a Presbyterian seminary, and that the writer of the manuscript for your source mistakenly wrote "Hanover College" since that Indiana institution might have been more familiar to someone in neighboring Ohio. Sorry that I can offer only conjecture. Marco polo (talk) 15:48, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Marco polo — you've demonstrated that the situation is unclear. I'm expanding our substub on his house, and the ambiguous situation means that I'm simply going to leave out Maltby's education. Nyttend (talk) 17:48, 23 December 2013 (UTC)