h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: THX 1138 - A851014
Author: Logan76 - U206256

I saw some information on THX 1138 in some other articles on George Lucas, but I love this film and thought it deserved its own entry, so I wrote this one. I think it's pretty good, but let me know what you think. Thanks!

Hi Logan 76. This article is very, very to this one http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/THX1138
Perhaps you could verify that you were the author of both articles?

I would be very disappointed to find that this researcher has cut'n'pasted someone else's material. Can we have confirmation that you own the copyright to these words?

That doesn't matter, because Wikipedia and h2g2 cannot have excusive copyright on the same article. The question is, how much is the same? In typefaces you only have to slant the 'l' a little bit, and it's no piracy anymore.

Anyway, the author should heavily re-formulate the entry, shorten it a little bit, and then it'll be much better.

Interesting topic.

And one of my favourite films. I liked it so much I bought the book... which I never even did with HHGTTG!

"The question is, how much is the same? In typefaces you only have to slant the 'l' a little bit, and it's no piracy anymore."

Yes it is. Copyright laws are quite specific. They don't depend on typefaces, but points of similarity. Have enough points of similarity and you're in breach.

If the author of the two articles is the same man/woman, then no, I don't think it breaches house rules (although I could be mistaken). Which is why I think we should give the researcher time to respond.

"Anyway, the author should heavily re-formulate the entry, shorten it a little bit, and then it'll be much better."

If by that you mean the researcher should write an original article, I couldn't agree more.

Hi Logan76,

As has already been said, we don't accept simple cutting-and-pasting of articles on h2g2 - everything you submit to the Guide must be your own work. Additionally, even if you do own the copyright to this material, we are looking for original, previously unpublished content or at the very least material where the copyright isn't shared with another party.

Now you've found this information, you can of course use it as the basis of your research into your own original entry on THX 1138, which, as you rightly note, would be a welcome addition to the Guide.

Jimster

Forgbit, maybe you misunderstood me: If you are a typedesigner, and create a new font, and another person changes one letter a bit, then the original creator can't sue him. In the USA at least. In Germany, e.g., he could.

'Copyright laws are quite specific' -- well, I think similarity is in the eye of the beholder. In this particular case, it's clear. But if after the re-editing no sentence is the same, but structure and some expressions? Then the moderators will have to make a difficult decision.

Hi Cefpret - you're absolutely right, I did misunderstand you. I thought you meant that if the typeface of an article is changed then the copyright is null. Doh!
Is that right? You can change the orientation of one letter and it's yours? Crazy.
I think if the main body of the article is original, but some of the structure is the same, then as long as all the owrds are different it would constitute an original body of work. Don't quote me on that though*!

*without permission, of course

Sorry for the confusion, folks. This article was previously published on another website. It has since been removed from that website and now appears exclusivly on h2g2.

Additionally, I want to make it clear that this article is completely my own creation. The entry was written solely by myself. No other individuals contributed to the creation of this entry, and no material was acquired from other pieces by other writers, with or without their knowledge.

Hope that clears everything up. Let me know if you think it's any good, or if it can be improved.

Thanks!
-Logan

I can still access it on the other website. Is this a delayed process?

Hi if you did write this then let me start by saying that this is a great start to H2G2. As I'm not an expert on the subject matter. However I notice that this just outlines the plot of the film. I would like to know how it was recieved when it was released. ALso I think it might be helpful if you mentioned the fact that this was refering to a film by George Lucas in the title.

I would also consider putting this into Guide ML. And putting a few subheaders it would make it a little easier to read.

But if this is your work then well done!!! this is a great start to h2g2. I hope it is because i'd like to see this in the edited guide.

If you go to the web site mentioned in post 2 and click on Talk Page, it may throw some light on the subject.

Stuart

This only tells me that there is some sort of inconsistency.

Ohps. I have to admit I'm not too sure what to do here. There could maybe be an innocent explanation. My first entry to PR was an artilce that I'd published on our university society website, admittedly that was a website that I owned the copywrite too as I was at that time active in the society and could easily have verifiyed from officaldom that this was the case. But if people had challenged me which they didn't, I may well have scuttled off to a corner and not come back..

However from what's gone on here I think we may well need to see that there is a plauseable explanation.

I understand it this way: Logan wrote it for Wikipedia. Then he decided to publish it on h2g2, too. Then he was told that this wouldn't work because of copyright issues. Then he deleted the entry on Wikipedia, but apparently Wikipedia was not prepared to accept that and left a big part of the article on their site, along with a comment that they were a little bit irritated about what's going on, which I can understand.

Now we have a difficult situation: Wikipedia doesn't want to delete it, and it's published there under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation Licence which makes it impossible to appear on h2g2, too.

Either Logan makes Wikipedia to delete it for good, or he sufficiently re-formulates his version on h2g2. Till then, the article must be hidden, I'm afraid.

The Wikipedia entry is still there.

I have to say, the h2g2 entry is far better. If Logan76 wrote both of them, then I know which one should be considered the definitive.

The current h2g2 entry is the old wikipedia article with the links stripped out and a couple of small changes. The current wikipedia entry is a tiny cut-down version of the original. I am in agreement generally though, it stands as a good article regardless of its history. I hope logan hasn't been put off. We could do with a few more like this...
Hope things go smoother next time...

Logan might not yet be aware that anything submitted, and indeed all postings, automatically become BBCi property (moral copyright). I think that's what the problem with wikipedia was. It was published under an open license (also known as copyleft), and then re-published on h2g2 which confers a BBC ownership. I don't think you can have both.
However, given that there are now two very different versions, instead of the one, is this still a problem>?

I'd suggest the following: Show it to h2g2's moderators again, and they shall decide. The the similarity is small enough for them, it's fine, otherwise Logan has to negotiate with Wikipedia or has to re-formulate his text for h2g2.

As I understand it the poster owns DUAL copywrite over anything they post on hootoo.. so the BBC can go away and post it elsewhere for profit.. but soo can they....