Yesterday, 18 June 2010, I announced on BirdingAus a link to some photos I had taken of the Hooded Plover recently found at Noosa Heads, SE Qld. I have made the images available for public viewing for the enjoyment of birdwatchers in general and to provide an aid for those who plan to look for the bird themselves. I am sure many birdwatchers have seen this species elsewhere but I am also sure that many ‘local’ birdwatchers may not have had that pleasure yet. My other hope is that, by encouraging more birdwatchers to experience the birdwatching opportunities in the Noosa area specifically and the Sunshine Coast of SE Qld in general, more pressure may be placed on local authorities to recognise the value there is in preserving the natural resources of the area. As it is, a great deal of pressure is being placed on the area of the sighting of the Hooded Plover by human activity and this has the potential to cause a high degree of disruption to the well-being of the birds which use the sand areas of the Noosa River estuary. To the credit of the Sunshine Coast Regional Council they are taking steps to lessen that danger.
I receive no commercial (read monetary) gain from showing the Hooded Plover photos and the web pages which contain those images have no links of any commercial nature whatsoever. My photos are not for sale but I do, at times, allow the use of my photos for non-commercial and or community use. I do, of course, reserve the right to decide who I allow to use those images and where they may be used.
For a short time after the announcement of the link to the Hooded Plover photos a statement appeared on the Bird-O website stating that I had photographed the hooded Plover at Noosa on 17 June 2010. The statement was included as part of a so-called Trip Report and as part of what seemed to be a time-line. I did not ask anyone involved with the Bird-O website to include that information and I did not ask anyone at Bird-O to use my name in connection with their reporting of the presence of a Hooded Plover at Noosa Heads. I felt that using the statement containing my name but without any link to my photos was gratuitous in nature in that it did not provide any worthwhile information but was simply used as padding to make the ‘Trip Report’ appear more comprehensive and authoritative. In my opinion the use of my name in this manner could present me in a ‘self-seeking’ light in some people’s view so I have requested that the reference to myself be removed from the Bird-O website. That request has been complied with.
In responding to my request a moderator of the Bird-O website explained to me that they consider what appears on websites such as BirdingAus to be in the “public domain” and therefore they are entitled to make use of such information on their own website. Apparently they feel they do not need to pay the original author the courtesy of consultion before using the information originally provided by the original author in the original posting. If it is the case that what appears on BirdingAus, for example, is in the ‘public domain’ and is therefore considered to be available for use by any other party without request from or consultation with the original author then I am quite disturbed by that and I would therefore be very reluctant to post anything on any on-line forum in the future.
By way of a comparison and an example of how I think things should be done, I was approached by a moderator of Birdline Australia for permission to use a link to my Hooded Plover photos in connection with their entry for the Noosa Hooded Plover sighting. I appreciated the respect and courtesy contained in the request and, determining in my own mind the relevance and value to birdwatchers considering looking for the bird, I readily agreed to supply a suitable link.
I have no desire to totally prevent websites such as Bird-O from having access to and using information made available on BirdingAus, for example. However, in my case, when I post to BirdingAus I tailor that information for the list-members in a manner which I believe will suit the context of the list itself. If someone connected with websites such as Bird-O (for example) thinks that the information I have provided on another website is suitable for their own purposes I would like to be consulted first so that I can be satisfied that what is being used is relevant, accurate and of value to the potential readers. I have no desire to see my words or pictures or descriptions of my activities used simply in an attempt to ‘enhance’ the perceived value of a website I would not normally patronise.
I recognise that other people may have different opinions on this matter and that is their right. I simply ask that those people recognise that I have a right to my opinions also and that they respect that. If I am shown due respect and courtesy I am much more likely to respond positively to requests made of me.
Cheers
Bob Inglis Sandstone Point Qld Australia
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Hey Russell I reckon you got a tough job and you’re a volunteer to boot!!!!
I happen to agree with you, but that’s incidental; at the risk of embarassing you I have only admiration for you in taking on the almost impossible task of Moderator. I’ve worked for nigh on 30 years in a very challenging occupation (Australia’s various state correctional services for those wondering) at least I was well recompensed for working where every hairdresser and cab driver was an expert on how to deal with offenders, but you’re on. hiding to nothing and for free!
Thank you for your contributions and more importantly your sheer, bloody persistance.
Cheers John Mc Victor Harbor (just ex Barossa Valley) Sent from my iPhone
On 19/06/2010, at 6:36 PM, “Russell Woodford” wrote:
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Bob raises some timely and very valid points in his post and your comments here are most interesting and informative Russell.
We can all learn from both posts for mine!
cheers
David Taylor Brisbane
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David Taylor Brisbane damasa@bigpond.net.au
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Hi Bob
Thanks for posting your comments. I feel I should reply to you and to the list members about this.
The matter of copyright and intellectual property is a complex one, and whilst I have studied some aspects of it I am neither an expert nor a law student.
As far as I understand it, material posted to Birding-Aus is NOT in the public domain. Just because it has been published does NOT make it so. Yes, it has been PUBLISHED, but the words and expressions are still the intellectual property of the AUTHOR. As Laurie Knight has pointed out earlier today, if anyone wants to cite someone else’s comments, that is fine, but the accepted protocol is to use quotation marks for direct quotation, and at least acknowledge the source whether using the author’s own words or not (Laurie Knight, 2010, 19 June) – yes, just like that. I’ve put the full reference at the bottom of this post – I’m in the habit of doing that because I’m a suffering uni student once more.
In academic terms, failing to acknowledge the source properly is called plagiarism. It is called the same thing in the publishing world, and because putting something onto the web is a form of publishing, I think that failing to acknowledge a source is definitely plagiarism. So, anyone is free to make reference to information in a Birding-aus posting, but the source SHOULD be properly acknowledged. There are lots of ways of doing that, but as Laurie points out, using the archive is probably the simplest, because it is a permanent record (as permanent as web-based things go, I guess). The archive URL (Internet “address”) is referred to as a “permalink” and is unique for every message.
Once someone has posted a comment, it is public, or published, and can then be cited and referred to – one of the reasons why we all need to be careful about any comments made about other people or organisations. But the words in the comment, and any data or information posted with it, are still the intellectual property of the author. Anyone can then refer to that posting, and as long as they acknowledge the source, there is no need to seek the author’s permission, no more than we would seek Tim Dolby’s permission to quote from his outstanding guide, “Where to See Birds in Victoria” (Dolby et al., 2009). In practice, we don’t need to use academic referencing when referring to another member’s posting because we can include the original in our reply.
Images posted online are an even more complex area. Many people are under the impression that an image published on a “public” page, such as a blog or Google Group, or Flickr, is freely available for anyone else to use. It is NOT. The Creative Commons Licensing system is one way that authors / photographers and so on give permission for LIMITED use of their material, and anyone who is interested in how this works should read about how organisations such as Flickr implement it. But unless an author / photographer specifically assigns a CCL to a “work” then it CANNOT be used by a third party. Of course, legislation is always playing catch-up with technology, and most of us have copied an image from a website for one use or another, because it is easy to do it. The fact that we have broken the law by copying several bird photos to our computer to study ID features probably doesn’t bother the copyright owner – but of course re-publishing them is another matter entirely. Providing a weblink to someone else’s image is usually considered acceptable, as long as it is clear who the owner is. Embedding someone else’s image in your own web page by using scripts or hyperlinks is certainly not acceptable.
So in summary: When you post a message to birding-aus you are publishing your comments Your comments are your own intellectual property Anyone who repeats or refers to your comments outside Birding-Aus should acknowledge their source If you post an image or map it can be linked to from another site, but not embedded in someone else’s site
Well, that’s a lot longer than tuppence worth, but there it is.
Russell
Russell Woodford Birding-Aus List Owner russell@birding-aus.org Geelong Victoria Australia http://www.birding-aus.org
REFERENCES
Dolby, T., Johns, P, & Symonds, S. (Editors) (2009). Where to see birds in Victoria. Crows Nest, N.S.W. : Jacana Books.
Knight, L. (2010, June 19). The netiquette of pointing to websites. Message posted to the Birding-Aus mailing list. Retrieved on 19 June 2010 from http://bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au/birding-aus/2010-06/msg00248.html
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