[okfn-discuss] If my reports are "free, libre, open", can someone else claim they wrote them?

[Chris Sakkas]

Hi Gene,

Good question. It's one that comes up quite often.

The short answer is that some FLO licences require attribution. For
example, CC Attribution requires credit to be given to the original author
and for the creator/distributor of the derivative work to take 'reasonable
steps' to identify that changes were made to the work. The original author
cannot dictate the exact language to be used, however.

However, the question was about a work in the public domain. The Creative
Commons Zero licence specifically renounces the author's moral rights
(which, despite their name, are legally enforceable), which would - I
believe - allow a plagiarist to claim that they are the creator of the work
without legal repercussions. Other public domain declarations might not.

However, plagiarism is forbidden by every reputable university and journal.
Copyright law will not punish a plagiarist, but he or she will potentially
suffer severe academic and social consequences - just as I would if I
submitted the public domain *On the Origin of Species *as my PhD thesis*, *even
though it would not be a violation of copyright law for me to do so.

Hope this helps,
Chris


*Chris Sakkas
**Admin of the FOSsil Bank wiki <http://fossilbank.wikidot.com/> and the Living
Libre blog <http://www.livinglibre.com> and Twitter
feed<https://twitter.com/#%21/living_libre>
.*


On 13 July 2013 20:20, Gene Shackman <eval_gene at yahoo.com> wrote:

> This is probably in some document, but can someone explain briefly? We
> wrote a number of reports about global social trends. If these reports were
> to be made free, libre, open (FLO), does that mean that another person, not
> connected with us, can pretty much publish them elsewhere and claim
> ownership or authorship of the reports?
>
> My colleagues and I wrote them, and I want to retain the claim of
> authorship. I don't want anyone else to claim them, since we put in the
> work to write them.
>
> For example, this webpage about copyleft explains the issue "The simplest
> way to make a program free software is to put it in the public domain,
> uncopyrighted. This allows people to share the program and their
> improvements, if they are so minded. But it also allows uncooperative
> people to convert the program into proprietary software. They can make
> changes, many or few, and distribute the result as a proprietary product.
> People who receive the program in that modified form do not have the
> freedom that the original author gave them; the middleman has stripped it
> away."
> http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/
>
> I'm happy if people share our reports. If they make a few changes, I'm
> okay with "This is a slightly modified version of "report name" by
> Shackman, Liu and Wang. If they make a lot of changes, I'd be okay with
> "This report is based on "report name" by Shackman, Liu and Wang, but is
> significantly revised".
>
> So what are my options?
>
> Gene
>
>
>
> Gene Shackman, Ph.D.
> The Global Social Change Research Project
> http://gsociology.icaap.org
> Free Resources for Methods in Evaluation and Social Research
> http://gsociology.icaap.org/methods
> ----------
> Applied Sociologist
> ----------
>
>
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