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_ The Rachel Marsden affair _ Rachel speaks:

Posted by: Heat

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/real_life/article914989.ece

Text and the City
BEING dumped is never a pleasant experience.

But most spurned lovers at least get the news in person.

So spare a thought for Rachel Marsden, who only realised her fella had given her the elbow when she read it on website Wikipedia.

Jimmy “Jimbo” Wales is a co-founder of the web encyclopedia but took his pledge to provide up-to-date information too far when he used Wikipedia to axe his romance with Rachel, 33, – allegedly without telling her first.

Last week Jimmy, 41, posted this statement on his Wikipedia page: “I am no longer involved with Rachel Marsden.”

Rachel, a political commentator who lives in New York and had been seeing Jimmy for two months, was stunned.

She said: “The first I knew of it was when I started receiving emails on my Blackberry from people saying ‘have you seen Wikipedia? I think Jimmy’s just broken up with you.’ I don’t think I realised at first that he was actually ending the relationship.

“I tried to call him but he didn’t answer his phone. Hours later he got back to me on an online instant messaging service.

“I wrote, ‘I think we need to talk, is that right, you just dumped me on Wikipedia?’

And he replied, ‘Yeah, I want to end it, I hope that’s fine.’

“To follow a dumping on Wikipedia with an online instant message is unbelievable. So I followed it with an email calling him a slime bag and a sleaze. What kind of man does that?”

But Rachel didn’t stop there. She hit back at Jimmy’s public airing of their dirty laundry by airing HIS dirty laundry in public. She dug out a T-shirt and jumper her former lover had left at her home and put them up for sale on internet auction site eBay.

The accompanying message read: “Hi, my name is Rachel and my (now ex) boyfriend, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, just broke up with me via an announcement on Wikipedia.”

She said: “When Jimmy finished with me I was pretty hurt. I really liked this guy and thought the relationship had some longevity.

“However, the manner in which he dumped me suggests that maybe I am better off without him.

“It was all pretty embarrassing so I thought I would make the best of it by trying to have a laugh. After all, he was the one who made it public in the first place.”

The details of Jimmy and Rachel’s liaison offer a fascinating insight into the high-tech world of modern dating.

Rachel revealed that a hefty proportion of her two-month relationship with Florida-based Jimmy was conducted via the web.

She said: “Jimmy is obsessed with instant messaging services which allow you to chat ‘live’ online. On his insistence I ended up joining two.

“Jimmy also insisted I get a service called Skype which allows you to make phone calls over the internet and speak via webcam.

“I wasn’t sure at first as it all sounded kind of sleazy to me.

“But he insisted it was a good way to keep in touch because he was constantly travelling. In the end we talked every night.

“But as I suspected, inevitably there were times when he was lying naked in bed with the laptop and you can imagine what happened. He encouraged that kind of thing but I really wasn’t into it.”

However, Rachel said conducting a love affair online wasn’t all bad.

She said: “Really our first date was over Skype and it was actually really good.

“Sure you are speaking over a webcam but in many ways there are a lot fewer distractions than when you are on a normal date. And the first time we used the webcam we laughed till we cried.

“So in some senses I think the internet can be good for modern relationships, especially if it is long-distance.

“But Jimmy was just so obsessed with that stuff that it went too far.

“He wanted to be in contact all the time through technology and I personally don’t believe that can ever be a substitute for real face-to-face contact.

“I basically found I was dating a giant computer.

“Jimmy would continually be on this website called Twitter where you write one-sentence updates on what you are doing at that moment, even small things like ‘I’m making a sandwich’. I couldn’t understand it.

“Once his daughter called him because she was upset and he told her to instant-message him about it, which seemed very weird.

“He is a personable guy but it is like he is incapable of verbal communication.” But instant messages between the two leaked to a California weblog show that online loving could get Rachel cyber-sizzling.

When Jimmy wrote about South Korea’s broadband infrastructure, an excited Rachel replied: “When you talk about megabits and broadband you have no idea what it does to me. lol.”

Rachel and Jimmy’s relationship was never what you would call conventional. They got to know each other, more than two years ago, when Rachel threatened to sue Jimmy over her Wikipedia biography.

They corresponded over the issue then, months later, stumbled across each other again on Facebook.

Embarrassingly for Jimmy, his public spat with Rachel raised questions over whether his editing of her biog broke Wikipedia’s guiding principals – the site demands that all content should be written from a “neutral point of view”.

Rachel suspects that it was Jimmy’s fears that his involvement with her page would be seen as a conflict of interest that prompted him to dump her so abruptly.

She said: “He was paranoid about it coming out that we were dating. He never explained why he was so secretive so I can only speculate that he feared people would accuse him of a conflict of interests.

“Given his paranoia, however, it seems weird that he broke up with me in such a public way.”

Rachel says she will steer away from “techies” in future.

She said: “I will try to find someone who is comfortable talking face to face.

“I’ve had break-ups before that have been weird – but nothing like this.”

Posted by: Kato

The Sun: Rupert Murdoch's original baby and flagship enterprise.

There's certainly something fishy about the whole Marsden / Murdoch onslaught against Wales. All the Murdoch papers made a deal out of it. And it can't be just because she's a Fox reporter?

Posted by: Random832

Can someone explain to me, just why - if her understanding of the situation was that they still had a relationship - why she leaked those chat logs? Because at the time when the story first broke, my understanding was that she was dumping him

Posted by: dogbiscuit

QUOTE(Kato @ Fri 14th March 2008, 3:19pm) *

The Sun: Rupert Murdoch's original baby and flagship enterprise.

There's certainly something fishy about the whole Marsden / Murdoch onslaught against Wales. All the Murdoch papers made a deal out of it. And it can't be just because she's a Fox reporter?


Actually, this article, sleazy bits aside, is quite helpful for explaining why it did not add up. Basically there was no relationship to break up over aside from some rather dubious sounding web chats using various technologies. I go with the couple of comments:

QUOTE

Do not understand what the gripe is. Two months is hardly a relationship and online is even less of one.


and the more to the point, in true Sun Reader style:

QUOTE

He is minging luv, you can do way better

Posted by: Kato

QUOTE(Random832 @ Fri 14th March 2008, 3:31pm) *

Can someone explain to me, just why - if her understanding of the situation was that they still had a relationship - why she leaked those chat logs? Because at the time when the story first broke, my understanding was that she was dumping him

There was no real "relationship" - Jimbo didn't dump her on WP - - she leaked chat logs in a desperate attempt at publicity before Jimbo made any statements - and she's now getting spreads in international newspapers so it worked.

It's simply media manipulation to raise her profile. The Sun know that reciprocal game better than anyone else on the planet. They get readers, she gets a higher profile, we get a good story of Jimbo falling flat on his arse. Everyone's happy. (Except Jimbo. But as he unleashed the world's most powerful defamation machine against everyone else, who cares about him, eh? )

Posted by: jorge

QUOTE(Kato @ Fri 14th March 2008, 3:47pm) *

It's simply media manipulation to raise her profile. The Sun know that reciprocal game better than anyone else on the planet. They get readers, she gets a higher profile, we get a good story of Jimbo falling flat on his arse. Everyone's happy. (Except Jimbo. But as he unleashed the world's most powerful defamation machine against everyone else, who cares about him, eh? )

This whole thing may be a publicity stunt, but if it is, I'd guess both of them are in on it. Wales needed just this kind of comedic distraction to divert attention from the much more serious allegations that he has accepted bribes to fix articles and is basically running Wikipedia as some kind of protection racket.

Posted by: Random832

QUOTE(jorge @ Fri 14th March 2008, 4:03pm) *

This whole thing may be a publicity stunt, but if it is, I'd guess both of them are in on it. Wales needed just this kind of comedic distraction to divert attention from the much more serious allegations that he has accepted bribes to fix articles and is basically running Wikipedia as some kind of protection racket.

Those allegations didn't come out until after this, though... Unless you're suggesting they knew in advance that it would.

Posted by: Kato

<moderator note>thread moved to the News Worth Discussing forum from Articles

Posted by: Somey

QUOTE(Random832 @ Fri 14th March 2008, 10:17am) *
Those allegations didn't come out until after this, though... Unless you're suggesting they knew in advance that it would.

I'm not saying any of this is likely either, but it's always possible that the threat of the allegations being made public could have been received a while before the allegations were, in fact, made public. Why he would have chosen a sex scandal as a distraction technique is anyone's guess, but my own guess would be because sex scandals are a really, really effective distraction technique.

Posted by: Heat

QUOTE(Random832 @ Fri 14th March 2008, 3:31pm) *

Can someone explain to me, just why - if her understanding of the situation was that they still had a relationship - why she leaked those chat logs? Because at the time when the story first broke, my understanding was that she was dumping him


Because she's insane. Marsden is not a rational person, particularly when it comes to relationships.

QUOTE(Somey @ Fri 14th March 2008, 6:48pm) *

QUOTE(Random832 @ Fri 14th March 2008, 10:17am) *
Those allegations didn't come out until after this, though... Unless you're suggesting they knew in advance that it would.

I'm not saying any of this is likely either, but it's always possible that the threat of the allegations being made public could have been received a while before the allegations were, in fact, made public. Why he would have chosen a sex scandal as a distraction technique is anyone's guess, but my own guess would be because sex scandals are a really, really effective distraction technique.


I don't think Jimbo's that clever - not that I think deliberately humiliating yourself and undermining your credibility among your followers is very clever either. The only way it would be deliberate is if Jimbo had some sort of deep psychological problem that made him secretly desire punishment and humiliation.

Even if that's the case

QUOTE
“But as I suspected, inevitably there were times when he was lying naked in bed with the laptop and you can imagine what happened. He encouraged that kind of thing but I really wasn’t into it.”


let's hope for our own sakes that Rachel lacks the technical savvy to record these webcam sessions and release them to a world that is not ready for the sight of Jimbo gratifying himself. Besides, Jimbo already uses Wikipedia to wank off publicly - that's more than enough.

Posted by: dogbiscuit

QUOTE(Heat @ Fri 14th March 2008, 10:17pm) *

let's hope for our own sakes that Rachel lacks the technical savvy to record these webcam sessions and release them to a world that is not ready for the sight of Jimbo gratifying himself. Besides, Jimbo already uses Wikipedia to wank off publicly - that's more than enough.


That article should be deleted for all our sakes. I made the mistake of looking at his Twitter site, and then that lead to Jimbo's photo-journal. I nearly said "I can't believe" again, but it tells a story of why such a shallow man would not have a problem with an encyclopedia that anyone can bugger up.

Posted by: jorge

QUOTE(Heat @ Fri 14th March 2008, 10:17pm) *

I don't think Jimbo's that clever - not that I think deliberately humiliating yourself and undermining your credibility among your followers is very clever either. The only way it would be deliberate is if Jimbo had some sort of deep psychological problem that made him secretly desire punishment and humiliation.

I don't think he needs a deep psychological problem, he just needs to be the sort of guy who likes telling everyone the intricate details of his sex life, which according to Danny Wool he is.

Posted by: Disillusioned Lackey

QUOTE(Kato @ Fri 14th March 2008, 9:47am) *

But as he unleashed the world's most powerful defamation machine against everyone else, who cares about him, eh?


WORD.

I don't think it bothers him all that much though. What probably irks him is that it brought all the "is Wales an embezzler" articles to page one of all the top U.S. rags his Hi-tech donors read.

Sex sells.

Normally, no one gives a damn if he buys his wife (what was it, Florence called it?) a gold plated washing machine.

But when he's doing the dirty with RM, and maybe paying for hookers on WP nickle, suddenly, they CARE.

Posted by: thekohser

It looks like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Upload&wpDestFile=Jimbowaleschatlog.png of human knowledge are http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jimmy_Wales&diff=next&oldid=323418232 on Wikipedia.

Posted by: Happy drinker

So people keep going on about BLP and the need to remove stuff from BLP articles, but when somebody does so, you complain? Is the suggestion that Jimbo is in some sense subhuman hence not entitled to the same rights as you would grant to others?

And I strongly suspect it was a copyvio.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

QUOTE(Happy drinker @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 3:23pm) *
So people keep going on about BLP and the need to remove stuff from BLP articles, but when somebody does so, you complain? Is the suggestion that Jimbo is in some sense subhuman hence not entitled to the same rights as you would grant to others?
Jimbo has waived his right to complain about his own Wikipedia article by his devil-may-care attitude toward other people's articles. If you go about setting up defamation engines, you really don't get to complain when that engine is turned on yourself.

Posted by: Alison

QUOTE(Happy drinker @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 1:23pm) *

So people keep going on about BLP and the need to remove stuff from BLP articles, but when somebody does so, you complain? Is the suggestion that Jimbo is in some sense subhuman hence not entitled to the same rights as you would grant to others?

In the sense, maybe, that his chat-up lines are puerile in the extreme yak.gif yecch.gif

There are currently http://toolserver.org/~mzmcbride/cgi-bin/watcher.py?db=enwiki_p&titles=Jimmy+Wales watching Jimmy's BLP. Just how many do you think are watching the average Joe's (or Jo's? Melissa McEwan's BLP had http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Melissa_McEwan before being reverted). So yeah - he's superhuman, more like dry.gif
QUOTE(Happy drinker @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 1:23pm) *

And I strongly suspect it was a copyvio.

How so, if Rachel released it publicly, and it was her conversation, too?

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

QUOTE(Alison @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 7:46pm) *

QUOTE(Happy drinker @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 1:23pm) *

So people keep going on about BLP and the need to remove stuff from BLP articles, but when somebody does so, you complain? Is the suggestion that Jimbo is in some sense subhuman hence not entitled to the same rights as you would grant to others?

In the sense, maybe, that his chat-up lines are puerile in the extreme yak.gif yecch.gif

There are currently http://toolserver.org/~mzmcbride/cgi-bin/watcher.py?db=enwiki_p&titles=Jimmy+Wales watching Jimmy's BLP. Just how many do you think are watching the average Joe's (or Jo's? Melissa McEwan's BLP had http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Melissa_McEwan before being reverted). So yeah - he's superhuman, more like dry.gif
QUOTE(Happy drinker @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 1:23pm) *

And I strongly suspect it was a copyvio.

How so, if Rachel released it publicly, and it was her conversation, too?

Next mafia bosses will say wiretaps or at least text messages are copyvios, too. Everything that is imputed on a keyboard is not a creative work.

Posted by: thekohser

QUOTE(thekohser @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 11:39am) *

It looks like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Upload&wpDestFile=Jimbowaleschatlog.png of human knowledge are http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jimmy_Wales&diff=next&oldid=323418232 on Wikipedia.


Sharing this particular type of human knowledge is also a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wikipedian06#Blocked http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User%3AWikipedian06, even if you've been an editor since March 2006, with thousands of edits.

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(thekohser @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 6:49pm) *

QUOTE(thekohser @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 11:39am) *

It looks like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Upload&wpDestFile=Jimbowaleschatlog.png of human knowledge are http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jimmy_Wales&diff=next&oldid=323418232 on Wikipedia.


Sharing this particular type of human knowledge is also a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wikipedian06#Blocked http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User%3AWikipedian06.

Ah, yes. The encyclopedia that anybody can edit, so long as it's text-editing. smile.gif All of the arguments for why we can't just sprotect nearly everything, all apply just as well to images, too. If these arguments that IPs should be freeeeeeee are valid arguments, what happened?

Logic failed, apparently. unhappy.gif

Also, it appears that adding anything derogatory to Jimbo's BLP, no matter if well-sourced or not, is "trolling." And a BLP violation, too, if it's Jimbo.

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 5:56pm) *

Next mafia bosses will say wiretaps or at least text messages are copyvios, too. Everything that is imputed on a keyboard is not a creative work.

Actually it is. In the US, it is copyrighted the moment it is recorded by a medium like your hard disk. Reproducing it without permission exposes you to liability, unless you can show fair use. And in the U.S., printing somebody's email would probably violate the stored communications act (SCA), except for materials specifically named in a warrant.

What happens when one person prints an emailed conversation between two people? Hard to say. The states vary on the legality of voice-recording (in some states only one person has to know it's being done, in others, two). At the fed level, I think it would come down to the SCA, if the communication was over the phone lines, which it certainly would be in most cases.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 9:11pm) *

QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 5:56pm) *

Next mafia bosses will say wiretaps or at least text messages are copyvios, too. Everything that is imputed on a keyboard is not a creative work.

Actually it is. In the US, it is copyrighted the moment it is recorded by a medium like your hard disk. Reproducing it without permission exposes you to liability, unless you can show fair use. And in the U.S., printing somebody's email would probably violate the stored communications act (SCA), except for materials specifically named in a warrant.

What happens when one person prints an emailed conversation between two people? Hard to say. The states vary on the legality of voice-recording (in some states only one person has to know it's being done, in others, two). At the fed level, I think it would come down to the SCA, if the communication was over the phone lines, which it certainly would be in most cases.


No it's not. Mere conversation is not property. Asking your girlfriend for a blowjob is not a creative work. Just like Freud saw everything as sex some people see everything as property.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 8:11pm) *
Actually it is. In the US, it is copyrighted the moment it is recorded by a medium like your hard disk. Reproducing it without permission exposes you to liability, unless you can show fair use. And in the U.S., printing somebody's email would probably violate the stored communications act (SCA), except for materials specifically named in a warrant.
Only if the material so recorded embodies something which can be the subject of a copyright. If there's no creative content, there's no copyright.

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 7:27pm) *

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 9:11pm) *

QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 5:56pm) *

Next mafia bosses will say wiretaps or at least text messages are copyvios, too. Everything that is imputed on a keyboard is not a creative work.

Actually it is. In the US, it is copyrighted the moment it is recorded by a medium like your hard disk. Reproducing it without permission exposes you to liability, unless you can show fair use. And in the U.S., printing somebody's email would probably violate the stored communications act (SCA), except for materials specifically named in a warrant.

What happens when one person prints an emailed conversation between two people? Hard to say. The states vary on the legality of voice-recording (in some states only one person has to know it's being done, in others, two). At the fed level, I think it would come down to the SCA, if the communication was over the phone lines, which it certainly would be in most cases.


No it's not. Mere conversation is not property. Asking your girlfriend for a blowjob is not a creative work. Just like Freud saw everything as sex some people see everything as property.

Voice conversation is not property, but as soon as any conversation is recorded in a fixed medium (such as an exchange of paper letters, or even in a tape recording), it is automatically copyrighted under US law, and then it IS property (the physical letters and tapes are property of the ordinary kind, and their content is intellectual property of the same kind as a novel or essay). Such stuff doesn't have to be judged to be "creative."

Which is good, or else the copyright laws would have to somehow attempt to define "creativity." And, except for my own stuff rolleyes.gif , that would cause a lot of difficulty, because some nameless people's letters, and other communications committed to media while being sent, are hackneyed and boring as hell. Imagine the courts having to decide IF they were creative enough to be copyrightable. blink.gif ermm.gif mellow.gif dry.gif sleep.gif

QUOTE(Kelly Martin @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 7:47pm) *

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 8:11pm) *
Actually it is. In the US, it is copyrighted the moment it is recorded by a medium like your hard disk. Reproducing it without permission exposes you to liability, unless you can show fair use. And in the U.S., printing somebody's email would probably violate the stored communications act (SCA), except for materials specifically named in a warrant.
Only if the material so recorded embodies something which can be the subject of a copyright. If there's no creative content, there's no copyright.

I recommend perusal of the WP article on copyright.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 9:51pm) *

QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 7:27pm) *

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 9:11pm) *

QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 5:56pm) *

Next mafia bosses will say wiretaps or at least text messages are copyvios, too. Everything that is imputed on a keyboard is not a creative work.

Actually it is. In the US, it is copyrighted the moment it is recorded by a medium like your hard disk. Reproducing it without permission exposes you to liability, unless you can show fair use. And in the U.S., printing somebody's email would probably violate the stored communications act (SCA), except for materials specifically named in a warrant.

What happens when one person prints an emailed conversation between two people? Hard to say. The states vary on the legality of voice-recording (in some states only one person has to know it's being done, in others, two). At the fed level, I think it would come down to the SCA, if the communication was over the phone lines, which it certainly would be in most cases.


No it's not. Mere conversation is not property. Asking your girlfriend for a blowjob is not a creative work. Just like Freud saw everything as sex some people see everything as property.

Voice conversation is not property, but as soon as any conversation is recorded in a fixed medium (such as an exchange of paper letters, or even in a tape recording), it is automatically copyrighted under US law, and then it IS property (the physical letters and tapes are property of the ordinary kind, and their content is intellectual property of the same kind as a novel or essay). Such stuff doesn't have to be judged to be "creative."

Which is good, or else the copyright laws would have to somehow attempt to define "creativity." And, except for my own stuff rolleyes.gif , that would cause a lot of difficulty, because some nameless people's letters, and other communications committed to media while being sent, are hackneyed and boring as hell. Imagine the courts having to decide IF they were creative enough to be copyrightable. blink.gif ermm.gif mellow.gif dry.gif sleep.gif

QUOTE(Kelly Martin @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 7:47pm) *

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 8:11pm) *
Actually it is. In the US, it is copyrighted the moment it is recorded by a medium like your hard disk. Reproducing it without permission exposes you to liability, unless you can show fair use. And in the U.S., printing somebody's email would probably violate the stored communications act (SCA), except for materials specifically named in a warrant.
Only if the material so recorded embodies something which can be the subject of a copyright. If there's no creative content, there's no copyright.

I recommend perusal of the WP article on copyright.



Perhaps your problem is you have pursued the article. If you are talking about http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2701.html it does not create nor define property at all. It addresses privacy, not property. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 8:02pm) *

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 9:51pm) *

QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 7:27pm) *

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 9:11pm) *

QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 5:56pm) *

Next mafia bosses will say wiretaps or at least text messages are copyvios, too. Everything that is imputed on a keyboard is not a creative work.

Actually it is. In the US, it is copyrighted the moment it is recorded by a medium like your hard disk. Reproducing it without permission exposes you to liability, unless you can show fair use. And in the U.S., printing somebody's email would probably violate the stored communications act (SCA), except for materials specifically named in a warrant.

What happens when one person prints an emailed conversation between two people? Hard to say. The states vary on the legality of voice-recording (in some states only one person has to know it's being done, in others, two). At the fed level, I think it would come down to the SCA, if the communication was over the phone lines, which it certainly would be in most cases.


No it's not. Mere conversation is not property. Asking your girlfriend for a blowjob is not a creative work. Just like Freud saw everything as sex some people see everything as property.

Voice conversation is not property, but as soon as any conversation is recorded in a fixed medium (such as an exchange of paper letters, or even in a tape recording), it is automatically copyrighted under US law, and then it IS property (the physical letters and tapes are property of the ordinary kind, and their content is intellectual property of the same kind as a novel or essay). Such stuff doesn't have to be judged to be "creative."

Which is good, or else the copyright laws would have to somehow attempt to define "creativity." And, except for my own stuff rolleyes.gif , that would cause a lot of difficulty, because some nameless people's letters, and other communications committed to media while being sent, are hackneyed and boring as hell. Imagine the courts having to decide IF they were creative enough to be copyrightable. blink.gif ermm.gif mellow.gif dry.gif sleep.gif

QUOTE(Kelly Martin @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 7:47pm) *

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 8:11pm) *
Actually it is. In the US, it is copyrighted the moment it is recorded by a medium like your hard disk. Reproducing it without permission exposes you to liability, unless you can show fair use. And in the U.S., printing somebody's email would probably violate the stored communications act (SCA), except for materials specifically named in a warrant.
Only if the material so recorded embodies something which can be the subject of a copyright. If there's no creative content, there's no copyright.

I recommend perusal of the WP article on copyright.



Perhaps your problem is you have pursued the article. If you are talking about http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2701.html it does not create nor define property at all. It addresses privacy, not property. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Please look above. I'm not the person claiming that SCA only applies to material which "embodies something that can be the subject of a copyright". The two laws (copyright law and privacy law) have essentially nothing to do with each other.

In the US, there are essentially no barriers to need for "creativity" of copyright material which aren't routinely met by any "ordinary" communication, like a piece of mail. However banal. Perhaps the binary message of two lanterns in the Old North Church steeple, vs. one, would not make the definition, but any communication more complex, so long as it was recorded on a medium, would do it.

This has been tested. I wanted to publish "My Letters From J.D. Salinger: Boring as Hell". But I couldn't get legal liability insurance, so there they sit.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 8:51pm) *
I recommend perusal of the WP article on copyright.
I'd rather rely on my instruction in media law and intellectual property from back when I was in law school, combined with my own perusal of Title 17 of the United States Code, assorted rulings of assorted courts, the various treaties, Nimmer, and assorted other expert sources. A Wikipedia article (written, no doubt, by someone who learned "copywrite" law from either a business law textbook or one of those "guides to copyright for the author") isn't even worth looking at, in comparison.

The SCA has nothing to do with copyright law; it places privacy burdens on internet service providers. I don't think the SCA would apply to someone who is not an internet service provider, however, although I haven't read the full statute.

Posted by: Cla68

QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 3rd November 2009, 1:49am) *

QUOTE(thekohser @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 11:39am) *

It looks like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Upload&wpDestFile=Jimbowaleschatlog.png of human knowledge are http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jimmy_Wales&diff=next&oldid=323418232 on Wikipedia.


Sharing this particular type of human knowledge is also a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wikipedian06#Blocked http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User%3AWikipedian06, even if you've been an editor since March 2006, with thousands of edits.


That edit remained almost 14 hours before SV, perhaps after reading about it here, went and reverted it. The article was even semi-protected at the time. I wonder how anyone can still claim that the current system adequately protects BLPs?

Posted by: thekohser

QUOTE

I already strongly support the introduction of Flagged Revs to the English Wikipedia as soon as possible. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:52, 3 November 2009 (UTC)


Posted by: CharlotteWebb

QUOTE

*yawn* I heartily endorse this product or event. Ok, cut… --Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:52, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Posted by: thekohser

QUOTE(CharlotteWebb @ Tue 3rd November 2009, 11:09am) *

QUOTE

*yawn* I heartily endorse this product or event. Ok, cut… --Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:52, 3 November 2009 (UTC)



Thank you for capturing what I was getting at, in a comedic way, Charlotte. Well done.

I was thinking of adding "What more do you trolls want from me?", but your approach was more vivid.

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 7:27pm) *

No it's not. Mere conversation is not property. Asking your girlfriend for a blowjob is not a creative work.


Which only proves you don't know my girlfriend. unsure.gif

Posted by: Happy drinker

QUOTE(Alison @ Tue 3rd November 2009, 1:46am) *

QUOTE(Happy drinker @ Mon 2nd November 2009, 1:23pm) *

And I strongly suspect it was a copyvio.

How so, if Rachel released it publicly, and it was her conversation, too?

If I produce something clever and original, and someone else intersperses it with their material, I still own the copyright to what I did. If the other party chooses to put their part into the public domain, that's their business, but they cannot include my work with theirs unless I agree.

Or don't you think Jimbo can say clever, original things?

Or considering where I'm writing, maybe I shouldn't have said that! smile.gif


QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 3rd November 2009, 2:49am) *

Sharing this particular type of human knowledge is also a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wikipedian06#Blocked http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User%3AWikipedian06, even if you've been an editor since March 2006, with thousands of edits.

I still don't understand people's idea of a BLP policy. So it's all right to put in anything you like into a BLP, whether or not it's harmful to the BLP subject, and (now I come to think of it) with no proof it's genuine?

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(Happy drinker @ Tue 3rd November 2009, 1:32pm) *

I still don't understand people's idea of a BLP policy. So it's all right to put in anything you like into a BLP, whether or not it's harmful to the BLP subject, and (now I come to think of it) with no proof it's genuine?

That is the present WP BLP policy, yes. See, for example, Mel Gibson DUI incident. California has actually since criminalized the sale of such info about celebrities. However, this sort of thing does not apply to WP itself, else there would would be a long and similar article about Carolyn Doran's DUI arrests and use of WMF credit card to get out of jail (she had a BLP before all that happened, now deleted by WMF lackeys). And similar embarassing information would be printed about Jimbo Wales, who, after all, was not just having a sex-chat, but one related to him getting a WP BLP "fixed" for some semi-notable female he was, erm, more or less in bed with.

Posted by: Somey

QUOTE(Happy drinker @ Tue 3rd November 2009, 2:32pm) *
I still don't understand people's idea of a BLP policy. So it's all right to put in anything you like into a BLP, whether or not it's harmful to the BLP subject, and (now I come to think of it) with no proof it's genuine?

The thing you have to recognize (though I think it's clear that you won't) is that there's something fundamentally unfair about a publication that gives everyone in the world some degree of control over content about a living subject, with near-complete anonymity no less, but denies any degree of control to the subject, the one most affected. The current policy would be much closer to being adequate if one or both of those imbalances were addressed, particularly the latter. In fact, if the latter imbalance is addressed, the current policy might even be excessive, even though it does currently allow for the kind of irresponsible editing you describe.

To some extent, the current policy recognizes that living individuals should have some right not to be publicly pilloried by anonymous online goons in the absence of, as you say, "proof"; that is to say, it does allow for the removal of unsourced negative material. However, it doesn't address the fundamental unfairness of Wikipedia's having many of these articles in the first place, in cases of so-called "marginal notability" and the subject's desire for privacy. Until it does, the BLP policy is mostly window-dressing - though I'll admit that even window-dressing helps in some cases, or is at least better than nothing.

This is putting aside the fact that any relevance to actual BLP issues goes out the window when we're dealing with the Jimmy Wales (T-H-L-K-D) article, for reasons that should be obvious.

Posted by: thekohser

QUOTE(Happy drinker @ Tue 3rd November 2009, 3:32pm) *

I still don't understand people's idea of a BLP policy. So it's all right to put in anything you like into a BLP, whether or not it's harmful to the BLP subject, and (now I come to think of it) with no proof it's genuine?


I know this is difficult for you to comprehend, Drinker, but I'll oblige.

My idea of "a BLP policy" is to start with a Board of Trustees that includes accomplished luminaries from the real world of reference publishing and knowledge management. From there, I would hope that similarly credentialed WMF staff would follow. And from this foundation (small "f") would soon emanate a set of BLP policies that are ethical, responsible, adept, and adroit.

It's not really our responsibility to come up with "a BLP policy" if the very management and caretaker team of Wikipedia are so unfamiliar with the concept of http://www.wikipediareview.com/Ethical_accountability.

Posted by: MZMcBride

Does Wikipedia Review have a policy (or guideline) regarding reviving ancient threads? (I realize there are no rules regarding being off-topic.)

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

QUOTE(MZMcBride @ Wed 4th November 2009, 6:30am) *

Does Wikipedia Review have a policy (or guideline) regarding reviving ancient threads? (I realize there are no rules regarding being off-topic.)


No, not an outright rule, but this is mostly because it is fun to say "thread necromancy" in the course of discouraging the practice.

Posted by: thekohser

QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Wed 4th November 2009, 10:37am) *

QUOTE(MZMcBride @ Wed 4th November 2009, 6:30am) *

Does Wikipedia Review have a policy (or guideline) regarding reviving ancient threads? (I realize there are no rules regarding being off-topic.)


No, not an outright rule, but this is mostly because it is fun to say "thread necromancy" in the course of discouraging the practice.


Sorry, but I thought "Why start a new thread when this one says, 'Embarassing (sic) details about life dating Jimbo'"?

Which is exactly the subject matter of the recent editing dispute.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

QUOTE(thekohser @ Wed 4th November 2009, 11:32am) *

QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Wed 4th November 2009, 10:37am) *

QUOTE(MZMcBride @ Wed 4th November 2009, 6:30am) *

Does Wikipedia Review have a policy (or guideline) regarding reviving ancient threads? (I realize there are no rules regarding being off-topic.)


No, not an outright rule, but this is mostly because it is fun to say "thread necromancy" in the course of discouraging the practice.


Sorry, but I thought "Why start a new thread when this one says, 'Embarassing (sic) details about life dating Jimbo'"?

Which is exactly the subject matter of the recent editing dispute.


I never had any problem with your revisiting this thread. I just like to say "thread necromancy," really.

Posted by: SB_Johnny

QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Wed 4th November 2009, 11:37am) *

QUOTE(MZMcBride @ Wed 4th November 2009, 6:30am) *

Does Wikipedia Review have a policy (or guideline) regarding reviving ancient threads? (I realize there are no rules regarding being off-topic.)

No, not an outright rule, but this is mostly because it is fun to say "thread necromancy" in the course of discouraging the practice.

Have another whack, Beady.

Back to the topic though: did anyone actually buy Jimbo's dirty clothes? I've never understood that part of the story (which I was reminded of in a post on another topic), but then I've never understood ebay in general. ermm.gif

Posted by: Detective

QUOTE(SB_Johnny @ Mon 5th September 2011, 12:47am) *

Back to the topic though: did anyone actually buy Jimbo's dirty clothes? I've never understood that part of the story (which I was reminded of in a post on another topic), but then I've never understood ebay in general. ermm.gif

I don't think Rachel was actually trying to sell them. She was merely ensuring that the story would be even more lurid so would get even more publicity and embarrass Jimbo yet further. She's a good enough journalist to know what amuses other journalists.