

What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions - yarapavan
http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2014/09/what-if-serious-scientific-answers-to-absurd-hypothetical-questions/

======
lutusp
This article verges on a copyright violation. It simply copies a large block
of Munroe's copyrighted content, without even a pretense of a satirical or
critical purpose, or as a review of the work (a few of the legitimate reasons
to copy copyrighted content). It's a straight-up copy, including copies of the
artwork, with no added material except quotation marks.

~~~
dalke
Quoting [http://xkcd.com/about/](http://xkcd.com/about/) :

> Can we print xkcd in our magazine/newspaper/other publication?

> If it's a not-for-profit publication, you need no permission -- just print
> them with attribution to xkcd.com. If it's a for-profit operation, I will
> probably give you permission if you email me to let me know. You can post
> xkcd in your blog (whether ad-supported or not) with no need to get my
> permission.

It's possible that "What if?" has different permissions than the thrice-weekly
xkcd, but there's no obvious reason it isn't the same. For example, the bottom
of What if? says "Copyright ©2012-14 xkcd", which is the same word used in the
permissions, and the permissions page is for "xkcd.com"

It appears that the linked-to site is not-for-profit, in which case the
license to copy has already been granted.

~~~
lutusp
> It's possible that "What if?" has different permissions than the thrice-
> weekly xkcd, but there's no obvious reason it isn't the same.

I can think of one obvious reason -- the fact that it's a book. Most
publishers won't publish works whose distribution they can't control, or that
are expected to be copied freely. Book retailers work by the same rules --
they won't carry a book that can be coped online without any copyright
limitations.

> It appears that the linked-to site is not-for-profit, in which case the
> license to copy has already been granted.

No, it doesn't work that way in the case of a book, and Mr. Munroe's remarks
about his Web site apply only to his Web site. Can a not-for-profit site post
a copy of a motion picture or some tracks from a commercial CD? The fact that
they're not-for-profit can't enter into it.

I just examined my copy of "What If?", and it has all the usual publisher
protections -- all rights reserved, contact us for information and permission
to copy select portions of this work, and so forth. The normal, strict
copyright protections. The book cannot be freely copied or excerpted without
one of the normal exceptions being true (critical review, satire, etc.), none
of which apply in this case.

One of two things is true. Either Houghton Mifflin expects to be able to
control the distribution of the book, or they don't. The fact that they
published the book strongly suggests the first case is true. Same for their
distributors and retail outlets.

~~~
dalke
I double-checked the material, and you are right. The text and images in
[http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2014/09/what-if-serious-
scie...](http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2014/09/what-if-serious-scientific-
answers-to-absurd-hypothetical-questions/) are different than at
[https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/) , so not covered by
the xkcd.com license.

More specifically, the original has text like "Each collision releases a burst
of gamma rays and scattered particles." while the quoted text on that site
uses the conditional mood "Each collision would release a burst of gamma rays
and scattered particles."

Also, the end in the original is "A careful reading of official Major League
Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests ..." while the blog uses "Major League Baseball
Rule 6.08( b) suggests ..."; and the order of the baseball fusion zone images
have been swapped.

Thus, this extensive quote did not come from xkcd.com and is not covered under
the automatic license grant for non-profit use. I agree that it is copyright
infringement and not covered under fair use - for what little that's worth. :)

(However, had the material on that blog been identical to xkcd.com then I
believe there would not be an infringement.)

Could you check to see if that matches the book? There's a small chance that
the blog cited something else; eg an older copy of the online page.

~~~
lutusp
> More specifically, the original has text like "Each collision releases a
> burst of gamma rays and scattered particles." while the quoted text on that
> site uses the conditional mood "Each collision would release a burst of
> gamma rays and scattered particles."

Check: the book contains the second form.

Also, the end in the original is "A careful reading of official Major League
Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests ..." while the blog uses "Major League Baseball
Rule 6.08( b) suggests ..."; and the order of the baseball fusion zone images
have been swapped.

Check: the book contains the second form.

To me, this suggests that the blog content was scanned out of the book and
converted to text using OCR (except the images). I am not saying this is so,
only that this is the appearance.

> (However, had the material on that blog been identical to xkcd.com then I
> believe there would not be an infringement.)

I agree, but before my initial post I had established that at least some of
the text came from the book (I spot-checked a few passages from my copy).
Again -- why would Houghton Mifflin release a book containing the content of a
bunch of Web pages that are free to copy? The publishing business is difficult
enough as things stand, even with fully protected content.

> Could you check to see if that matches the book?

I haven't compared the entire blog, but after the above comparisons I read
more content than I had earlier. The first few paragraphs are word-for-word in
correspondence with book. The graphics appear in the same order in both the
blog and book, and are identical.

Maybe the blog's author is confused, since the online content is free to copy.
Again, I doubt that a bricks and mortar publisher would be willing to publish
a book that has no copy protection.

I am particularly sensitive about this, because until the past few years
people would regularly scrape my Website's articles and either present them as
their own or wholesale copy with attribution but with no pretense of
commentary or other rationale. This is why there are hyperlinks, a feature of
the Web people seem to have forgotten.

Randall Munroe is in a unique and deserved position -- when people copy his
articles, they _want_ the origin to be known. I don't have that privilege. :)

~~~
dalke
On my side, I didn't consider that it might be copied from the book, given
that copying from the web site should be much easier than either OCR or
copy&paste from some e-book. Your first posting didn't mention that you had
spot-checked against the book, and I assumed that the infringement you were
talking about was from xkcd.com and not from the book.

Regarding a hypothetical Houghton Mifflin; I can conceive that Munroe is in a
special enough position as to make special demands. (This is, in fact, not
true - people on xkcd.com say that the e-books are DRM'ed.) I can also
conceive of a mixed situation, where the book contains additional material not
on the web site, and where only the new material was under a more restrictive
copyright.

(Another minor detail; the xkcd.com copyright license may be less restrictive
than most, but it not free. There is still copyright protection on it.)

I personally think the author doesn't much care about the matter. A review of
the other book reviews shows they are more like digests, with many long,
unmodified quotes and very little review or commentary.

~~~
lutusp
> Your first posting didn't mention that you had spot-checked against the
> book, and I assumed that the infringement you were talking about was from
> xkcd.com and not from the book.

Fair enough, I could have been more clear.

> Another minor detail; the xkcd.com copyright license may be less restrictive
> than most, but it not free.

That's an aspect of "free" and open-source that many people find confusing --
the person granting those permissions normally still wants control and fair
attribution.

> I personally think the author doesn't much care about the matter. A review
> of the other book reviews shows they are more like digests, with many long,
> unmodified quotes and very little review or commentary.

Yes, or maybe he realizes nothing can be done, that it's a sign of the times.
But I doubt that Houghton Mifflin's stockholders would go along if they were
fully aware of what it implies about paper-book copyrights.

