Wikiquote:Votes for deletion/Benny & Joon

--Cato 21:49, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Benny & Joon
Copyvio of the film's IMDb page. —LrdChaos (talk) 15:10, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Vote closes: 16:00, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete, per nom. This may be recreated if someone is willing to properly format a page with quotes from the film. ~ UDScott 15:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * No vote, but IMDB doesn't own the rights to the quotes that are posted on its pages, as those quotes are posted by IMDB subscribers, in much the same way we make our entries here. In fact, if anything, IMDB shouldn't be copied because it is rife with duplication and errors. BD2412 T 15:33, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * There is a copyright which subsists in a creative arrangement of other people's material, so copying a selection of quotes from another source is an infringement of copyright even if the quotes themselves are not. Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 16:06, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, but there is no creative arrangement. Contributors to IMDB add quotes to their entries in in no particular order (much like one of our entries would be if there was no one policing them). Hence their occasional errors frequent duplications. BD2412 T 19:03, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Regardless of the order in which quotes are listed, the choice of which quotes are displayed is definitely a creative one. I'm not sure if there have been any cases where the copyright status of a quote compendium has come up, but I imagine there's a very good argument to be made that if I went out and started printing a quote book whose content was nothing more than all the quotes listed in the latest Bartlett's, no matter how I rearranged them, I would be infringing on the creative choices of which quotes were presented. The same principle applies to IMDb's quote pages; whether the quote pages themselves infringe on the film's rights owner's copyright is none of our concern, but copying IMDb's pages wholesale is an infringement on any copyright they have for the creative choice of quotes.
 * I'd take a look at the Wikipedia page for Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service, which deals with the case of one company copying wholesale the information in a phone book produced by another. The case primarily dealt with how to define what constitutes a "creative" choice that is covered by copyright law. The end result is this:
 * The compilation author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the collected data so that they may be used effectively by readers. These choices as to selection and arrangement, so long as they are made independently by the compiler and entail a minimal degree of creativity, are sufficiently original that Congress may protect such compilations through the copyright laws.
 * Since the IMDb pages aren't generated algorithmically, but are instead chosen according to user's preference, they definitely rise to a level where copyright protection applies.
 * Furthermore, some of the quotes that end up on IMDb quote pages are so incorrect that themselves can be considered original creative works and therefore achieve their own copyright-protected status (small errors likely can be considered "derivative works", where copyright gets complicated between the original rights holder and the holder of the copyright to the derivation). Since copyright law makes no hard and fast rules about how substantial something needs to be in order to be protected, if these are protected then we'd be infringing on 100% of this new work, which works against a fair use claim (per 17 USC 107(3)), though the work itself likely has little-to-no market value for 17 USC 107(4).
 * In any case, I don't really the wholesale copying of IMDb pages, including errors, duplications, and formatting, to be anywhere near a borderline case for fair use. —LrdChaos (talk) 19:28, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not a fair use claim at all. IMDb simply has no entitlement to copyright protection for those materials. IMDb is not the "compiler"; the quotes are randomly added by IMDb users. There is no "selection and arrangement" at all. It's as though I attempted to assert copyright protection for the arrangement of coins thrown by passers-by in a fountain on my property. As for the incorrect quotes: first, no creativity goes into errors made in an attempt at slavish copying, so there is no creative contribution to protect; second, if there was, the copyright would not be held by IMDb, but by the individual who posted the incorrect quote; and third, we shouldn't be including those here anyway because they are incorrect in the first instance. I'm not suggesting that we should make a point of wholesale copying the text of quote pages from IMDb, just pointing out that in my opinion (as an intellectual property lawyer) IMDb has no claim to copyright protection for those quotes in the first place. Cheers! BD2412 T 20:18, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, IMDb does at least three things that could be interpreted as selection and arrangement. First, they now impose a particular style through the use of their form-based quote addition. (Before this was implemented, their editors would review and manually reformat quotes submitted from users.) Second, they do not slavishly add every submission, although I believe they do accept most submissions. (I know this from personal experience, and I suspect their acceptance ratio is less than what my experience suggests, as IMHO I am better than average at ensuring I'm adding useful and accurate quotes to their database.) Third, for TV shows at least, they have begun to reallocate quotes from the main page to individual episodes. Although merely selecting the correct episode is no copyrightable action, any selection and arrangment done while moving these quotes around may be. I would point out to everyone that as much as I push the notion of avoiding this kind of "presentation copyright", BD2412 obviously is far better positioned to argue this issue professionally. But I stand by my belief that Wikiquote, with its existing copyvio problems that are uncomfortably visible to the Wikimedia Foundation, should take every opportunity to discourage editors from merely copying and pasting material. Intellectual property suits don't need to have guaranteed merit to be filed, and I think the Foundation is quite leery of exposing itself even to shaky suits that involve a project they've actively discussed spinning off or shutting down. IMDb may not be very likely to come after us, given the derivative nature of their own content. (Of course, that didn't stop Xeroc PARC-copier Apple from going after Microsoft in the '80s, or Novell-licensor SCO from going after IBM et al in the '00s, or… well, you get the point.). But Wikiquote is lagging in instilling a culture of copyright-avoidance, so I think it's a very good idea to keep the philosophy simple. By the way, while the argument that IMDb isn't a compiler isn't quite true, as I've pointed out above, it is absolutely true for Wikiquote, as there is literally no one who has the "authority" to enforce a style or arrangement here. Unlike IMDb, the users are the ones who decide even these issues here. The Wikimedia philosophy is that each contribution (addition, deletion, revision, formatting, arrangement) entitles the contributor to as much of a copyright on that action as is allowed by law, and that credits are recorded by the edit histories and user contribution pages. I'm sure that throws a serious monkey wrench into conventional interpretations of copyright law. Layman though I am, I feel confident that no intellectual-property professional can authoritatively say how these things will develop over the next decade or so. Therefore, caution is not inappropriate. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:19, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, I can't disagree with that. After all, the Wikimedia mission is not to test copyright law, but to build an encyclopedia, a dictionary, a book of quotes, etc. BD2412 T 23:00, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete. - InvisibleSun 18:38, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete but what are IMDB's copyright rules? Are postings made under GFDL or similar?  If so, we can copy anything provided we give due acknowledgement.--Poetlister 12:40, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * IMDb has fee-based licensing for portions of its content. Its licensing FAQ doesn't specifically mention quotes, but they also don't suggest that anything they have can be used under any free license, nor would it seem to fit their business model. We could always ask, of course. But as BD2412 points out near the very top of this discussion, and as many of us have said before, the best reason not to use IMDb material is that it is atrociously inaccurate. One practice I've recommended in the past is to use IMDb's material as a starting point to save typing, then watch a DVD or telecast of the original work to fix (or sometimes completely rewrite) and order the quotes, chopping out a lot of junk that isn't especially quoteworthy, adding any missing but interesting quotes, and reformatting everything to Wikiquote standards. The combination of these operations should remove any claim IMDb has on the material (you can't copyright typing, and the order of IMDb quotes is never accurate except by accident on rare occasions). ~ Jeff Q (talk) 16:18, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I should do that - I have this movie. I'll make my wife watch it with me - she doesn't care for it so much, but she'll endure. ;-) BD2412 T 21:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete due to unreliability of source and poor quality of many quotes.--Cato 20:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. If BD2412 (or anyone else) creates a replacement page per the copyvio instructions, move that into place. If not, Wikiquote can wait for a proper article. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:20, 20 October 2007 (UTC)