Talk:1976 Lady Wigram Trophy

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This page has been copied from OldRacingCars.com without the permission of the copyright holder. The other links (to New Zealand Motorsport Archive and Canterbury Car Club) are entirely spurious as no information has been taken from those pages; it has all come from the OldRacingCars.com page. I have no objection to ORC being used as a source but copying an entire page in this way is not adding any value; it is just taking the micky. It cannot be defended as a reinterpretation of a set of facts as no reinterpretation has taken place and there is information on the ORC page that cannot be said to simply "facts" that can't be copyrighted. I would like this page to be removed. Allen Brown (talk) 16:16, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

'Stifle' has removed the COPYVIO from this page without adding anything to the discussion page to explain his reasoning. In the absence of that evidence, I have undone his change Allen Brown (talk) 12:43, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

To remind 'Stifle' and others on the exact rules, here is an extract (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ/Copyright):

Facts cannot be copyrighted. It is legal to read an encyclopedia article or other work, reformulate the concepts in your own words, and submit it to Wikipedia, although the structure, presentation, and phrasing of the information should be your own original creation. The United States Court of Appeals noted in Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service that factual compilations of information may be protected with respect to "selection and arrangement, so long as they are made independently by the compiler and entail a minimal degree of creativity," as "[t]he 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."[1] You can use the facts, but unless they are presented without creativity (such as an alphabetical phone directory), you may need to reorganize as well as restate them to avoid substantial similarity infringement. It can be helpful in this respect to utilize multiple sources, which can provide a greater selection of facts from which to draw. (With respect to paraphrasing works of fiction, see derivative works section below.)

So even if my website could be compared to a telephone directory - and I strongly maintain that it cannot - the lack of any reoganisation, restatement, creativity or multiple sources negates this as a reason. Allen Brown (talk) 15:05, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Per a spinoff of this conversation at User talk:VernoWhitney#1976 Rhodesian Grand Prix copyright issue, I'm of the opinion that at least the "DNS" rows in the table include creativity and should be removed for copyright issues. VernoWhitney (talk) 22:19, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

According to the judgement of Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service, an element of creativity is all that's required to protect the collection. If we are agreed that such an element exists, then it follows that the whole collection is protected and that the original contributor did indeed breach ORC's copyright. As such the page should be removed. If that contributor or another wants to create a new page in the future that uses the information on ORC's page in a way that does not breach copyright, then he's entitled to try. However, the original page should still be removed. I am deeply reluctant to involve lawyers on this. We are all grown ups and should be able to resolve this between us. Allen Brown (talk) 09:23, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I have found a quote by Wikpedia's founder that is relevant here. Remember that ORC is protected in the UK by The Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997 (http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1997/19973032.htm) and under European law by Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament. I have maintained that the comparison to Feist vs. Rural falls down on two points: firstly there is an element of originality and creativity in ORC that cannot reasonably be disputed and secondly ORC is published in the UK, not the US. On this second point, Jimmy Wales has said Wikipedia should respect the copyright law of other nations and specifically has said "Simply saying "Well, this is legal under US law, so let's do it" is not a very compelling argument" (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-August/027373.html). So even if Feist vs. Rural does apply (and I still maintain that it doesn't), it still "not a very compelling argument". Are we done here? Allen Brown (talk) 10:10, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

No. We're not done here. WP allows some leeway for works published outside the U.S., if they would have attracted copyright had they been published in the U.S., but currently do not attract U.S. copyright because there is currently no copyright treaty between the country of publication and the U.S. That I believe was the context of the remarks above by Jimmy Wales (which date all the way back to 2005, a very long time in WP terms).

But by and large in every other respect we follow U.S. copyright norms. This has been asserted particularly in areas where the U.S. has particular rules on originality and creativity. For example, we follow Bridgeman vs. Corel for reproductions of old-master paintings; we follow U.S. Copyright Office guidance on whether logos and marks pass the threshold of originality; and we follow Feist vs Rural for collections of facts.

The Foundation has gone out of its way, particularly w.r.t. cases based on Bridgeman vs. Corel where it was recently called out by the UK National Portrait Gallery, but also more generally, to stake itself to a line that it regards the U.S. position on creativity as correct, and in the interests of maximum creation and dissemination of information; explicitly rejecting narrower positions taken by some countries elsewhere in their laws (including the database directive, which has some quite aggressive academic opponents -- read for example James Boyle on the subject).

I find it instructive to compare the disputed table with eg the table at 2010_European_Grand_Prix#Race_2. It seems to me that the presentation and choice of columns is essentially identical -- this is simply the logical way to present the results of a motor car race. Therefore I do not see any distinctive originality in the arrangement of the disputed table, nor anything distinctive in the choice of information selected, so nothing that could be held to attract copyright under Feist. Jheald (talk) 15:34, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I've looked at some other race articles and the one you just linked to and I'd agree that most of the information and presentation is not creative. The only thing I'm seeing different here is the addition of selected drivers which did not show (DNS). VernoWhitney (talk) 15:58, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

@Jheald - I'm afraid I've lost track of what I've discussed on this page and what I've discussed elsewhere. You point about the columns is quite correct. I have deliberately chosen to use those columns and column headings to ensure that the race results of all series are consistent with each other so my readers can best understand them and best follow the history of a car across different series. I have adopted existing convention on this issue, which is normal even in creative works. My point about creativity was about the drivers included - so related to the rows not the columns. Speaking generally, not specifically about this race, my contributors and I have to make choices on whether to include just the first three known finishers (from a newspaper say), to include all other drivers mentioned in the text of the available reports on the race, to include all drivers on an entry list or even to include drivers that were involved in the series but were not present at that particular race. There is no convention to follow and many different opinions so I have had to use my judgement and therein lies the requisite element of originality and creativity to satisfy Feist vs Rural. I have invited people to look at the original sources to see how information has been used selectively. Allen Brown (talk) 16:18, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I concur with Jheald. Facts cannot be copyrighted and the USA does not recognize the sweat of the brow doctrine. Mr. Brown, this is a US website and is not bound by UK law. Stifle (talk) 08:20, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I have never claimed sweat of the brow, I have claimed creativity. Nobody seems willing to read what I have written in explanation. Allen Brown (talk) 14:44, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I cannot see where you have creativity, based on your arguments above. I cannot check your original site, because you have chosen to remove the results pages until this dispute is resolved.

The site as a whole is obviously creative, but that does not mean that every element contained within it is similarly protected. Facts, in themselves, cannot be copyrighted – only the expression of those facts (see Art. 9.2 TRIPS). That means that you would have to show that the elements copied from your site onto this one (as I understand it, a list of race times plus people who did not complete the race for whatever reason, listed from the fastest time to slower times) were somehow "original" in the copyright sense. I can't see how they can be, or your site itself would be breaching someone else's copyright in including them. Just as I don't think you are in breach of copyright for including them on your site, neither do I think WP is in breach of copyright for including them here.

You also mention Directive 96/9/EC, and this might be where the disagreement lies. For the benefit of U.S. readers, 96/9/EC regulates the copyright in databases and also creates a specific "database right" for databases which are not eligible for copyright. The distinction is important, because prima facie a database which is eligible for copyright in the European Union will also be eligible for copyright in th U.S., but the database right is something additional that doesn't extend to the U.S. Article 3 of the directive states that "databases which, by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents, constitute the author's own intellectual creation shall be protected as such by copyright". For the reasons above, I don't think oldracingcars.com meets this criterion, because it is simply a list of facts without personal selection. We might disagree on this, but at least let's get the law clear first.

To qualify for the database right, you have to show "that there has been qualitatively and/or quantitatively a substantial investment in either the obtaining, verification or presentation of the contents" (Art. 7, D96/9/EC). There is very little jurisprudence as to what qualifies as a "substantial investment" but, in any case, the database right is not enforceable in the United States.

As it stands (and please correct me if I'm wrong), it seems that oldracingcars.com has created a database in the UK based on publically available information which "it" has collated; it now seems to be trying to prevent other people from repeating that information, to the point of removing its database from public access. The current situation doesn't help anyone – it is now much harder to know who won a particular 1960s race than it was just a week ago – but I must dispute the idea that oldracingcars.com somehow owns the information that it used to place on its website. Mr Brown, is that what you are claiming, or am I misunderstanding you? Physchim62 (talk) 01:42, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

If I may enter into this discussion, for as an contributor to the German Wikipedia I just found one of my favourite source pages blocked for public access with a remark to copyright issues on the English Wikipedia. After some recherche I finally landed on this page and reading through all the discussion I have to say that to me this is a very sad story, in which at the moment I can only see loosers.

Having done some research in the depths of certain niches of motorsport history, while I am with some of the opinions here, that facts can not be "owned", I can also feel with Allen Brown, that it needs a lot of work and maybe even some creativity to get detailed informations on such exotic events like this, and I can also feel with him, that it is very disappointing, if somebody simply comes around and just takes this content to transfer it to another place without any reflection or own contribution. But besides this more emotional aspect I think we should concentrate not so much on the 'property' issue of the data, but rather on some other aspects, why I am pleading to delete or at least substantially change the article. First of all, from what I am used from the German Wikipedia, to me it is not an "article" at all. It lacks basic requirements, for example in its text it is not even mentioned, that it is about a motorrace or on which track it took place. As a reader you have to bring with you all this background information already even to understand what it is all about. IMO this alone would be sufficient for a request for deletion, but perhaps the attitudes are a little different in the English Wikipedia.

So beyond that I have to question also, whether the subject does indeed meet the relevance criteria. Should Wikipedia really cover motorsport events of any level only because the availability of some data? The Lady Wigram Trophy and even more the Rhodesian GP, on which I read a similar discussion, were of very local character. Just read thorugh the list of participants to notice there is hardly a name known in the "outside world". So if this would be the standard level of relevance, then the Wikipedia would have to cover virtually any single race in the world, from each Swedish ice car race to every starter in the Baja California of 1969. To my understanding, as an encyclopaedia the Wikipedia can not be intended to cover everything and to replace all other publications. Quite the contrary, while Wikipedia forbids ist contributors to do primary research themselves that is actually what institutions like oldracingcars.com are specialized on. So they must be left enough space for existance and there must be found a reasonable division of areas of responsibility. Otherwise it will lead to further situations like the current one. Or to express it in a different way, what would be the consequence if the "article" would remain in its current state? As on oldracingcars.com research would go on the content would further develop and gradually change. At the same time, with no own reserach allowed, somebody on Wikipedia would have permanently to watch and transfer all the changes into the article, otherwise at least the more detailed bits of data would become more and more outdated. And also, with the contents of Wikipedia quite high in the search engines, this outdated contend would be spread quickly into the world, while at the same time fewer people would find the place where the more up-to-date information can be found. There are many examples of incidents like this, the contents of motorsport pages in the world are full of errors that have been spread by "blind" copying, sometimes to a degree, that the number of occurrence of wrong statements is taken as an indication that it must be correct by some Wikipedians. Probably many of the contributors here know what I am talking about.

Now to prevent this, I think it is an intelligent solution and probably also the intention in Wikipedia drawing itself a line of relevance, thus leaving enough space for both sides even to benefit from each other. If you may still argue, that the subject of the article itself meets the relevance critera - which I still strongly question - at least this can not lead down to details model designations and mention of non-participants, the correctness of which can not be verified. Many of this may be even down on interpretation by the publishers of the original sources - from my own experience you have to start with this in your research - and as indication hat I am probably right on this you can take the many question marks in the content of the mentioned article on the 1976 Rhodesian Grand Prix. But what information can the uninformed reader get from this? It does not indicate, that a certain driver did actually take part in the race, maybe he did, but maybe he had only placed an entry, the table does not give any useful information about that, it only brings the name in a vague connection with the event.

So summing up, because of all this I see a strong condition to give that article a rightful existence would be to add at least the basic prerequisties of structure and content (for example a meaningful passage of explanatory text on the subject) and the elimination of the aformentioned irrelevant details. If nobody is regarding it valuable enough to invest in this work I plead for its elimination. -- Uechtel (talk) 21:42, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I am most grateful to Physchim62 and Uechtel for those thought-provoking contributions. Please excuse me not replying immediately as I am up to my ears in my "day job" but I'll be back to you as soon as I can. Physchim62's question about 'ownership' of results and Uechtel's proposal of a 'line of relevance' are very interesting and deserve a considered response. Allen Brown (talk) 11:27, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Let me first address Physchim62's comments. I agree that facts can't be copyrighted but we need to explore what is a fact and what is an assertion, an opinion or a deduction. For example, I read in this morning's Guardian that there are 18,042 prostitutes in England and Wales. This fact was credited the ACPO, the police officer's association. I would suggest that although ACPO are the experts in this subject, they can't possibly know how many prostitutes are in England and Wales so this has to be an estimate or a deduction or an assertion. The 'fact' is that ACPO say there are 18,042 prostitutes in the UK, not that that are 18,042 prostitutes in the UK. I can't believe I have got myself into the position of comparing prostitutes with racing drivers but bear with me on this. Some of the facts on the Rhodesian GP page on ORC (restored for your benefit at http://www.oldracingcars.com/results/result.php?RaceID=F76G) will have come from the race organisers and can be safely classified as facts. Specifically, the finishing position, entry number, laps completed, race time, retirement reason and winner's speed all fall into this category and I claim no ownership or copyright on those facts as they were once placed into the public domain by the race organisers and the fact that the results sheets have not yet been unearthed doesn't change that. However, OldRacingCars.com is all about old racing cars and the work we've done is to identify the cars. The organisers' results would have said - assuming they were typical of results in that period - that Roy Klomfass drove a Ralt-Ford. It is unlikely that they would have said it was a Ralt RT1 and we can be completely confident that they would not have said that it was chassis 10. Similarly it is possible but unlikely that the engine would have been identified as a BDA and exceedingly unlikely that the engine tuner was identified as Cosworth. These pieces of information are the deductions, assertions, or opinions of ORC's editors and contributors based on analysis of other information available to us. The 'Notes on the cars' give some idea of how we reach our conclusions. As such they are at least original and arguably creative. They do not belong to the same set of facts that came from the organisers and I would argue that they can be copyrighted. So it's not just about the selection of facts - information has also been added. I have tabulated all of them together to make life easier for my readers, which I now see was a mistake.

I understand the argument that, under US but not UK law, that the creative part of a copyrighted item can be removed to leave an uncopyrighted part. I don't believe that is what the law means but I understand that it is the firmly held view of Wikipedia. If you want to do that, I would argue that you need to reduce the information on the cars down to the form that would have come from the organisers, e.g. "Ralt RT1 [10] - Ford BDA Cosworth" reduces to "Ralt-Ford".

In the case of the Rhodesian GP but not in the case of the Lady Wigram Trophy, we have also chosen to add the names of Tunmer, Goddard, Ainscough and the three Domingo brothers because we have other reasons, specifically information in the Bulawayo Chronicle, to believe they were there. However, we don't know for sure because the organisers' results are not available to us. As such, that is a very deliberate selection decision; an opinion really. However, this does not apply to the Lady Wigram Trophy where all runners are known.

Turning to Uechtel's post, I agree with what you say about ownership and about the emotion involved. My (temporary) removal of ORC's race results is a classic example of throwing one's toys out of the pram but the more practical reason is that when the results return they need to be reformatted so I can maximise the protection of the parts of the information that are most valuable to me.

Your comment about a line of relevance and the practical issue of updating this page is very interesting and I would invite the motor racing project group to comment on this. Presumably that group have decided which series count as 'notable' and which ones don't. The Tasman series would be notable but this ended in 1975 so the 1976 Lady Wigram race (a Tasman race from 1964 to 1975) may fall below their threshold. The Rhodesian GP was entirely national and would presumably fall well below their threshold. The purpose of ORC is to be used as a source so if the motor sport group wanted to use ORC's results of notable races as the basis of new pages, I would be happy to support that and would be willing to provide the results in a form suitable for putting onto a Wiki page. However, I would leave chassis identities out of that (and probably models of car too) as the vast majority of Wiki race results I have seen take the form 'Ralt-Ford' not 'Ralt RT1-Ford'.

So may I make a suggestion? Can we remove the car model names (e.g. 'RT1') and chassis identities (e.g. '[10]') from the race results to bring them in line with Wikipedia's de facto standards for race results (and also to remove the part of the information that I am most concerned about); and then mark both pages with {{Notability}} so the motor racing project can decide whether they deserve to remain? Allen Brown (talk) 12:10, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

In reverse order; tagging them as having questionable notability seems perfectly reasonable. If you in fact believe that they are not notable, i.e. they do not meet the requirements under the general notability guideline and/or the events-specific guideline, then feel free to nominate them for deletion as outlined at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion.

Your distinction between facts, opinions, and deductions is noted, but you seem to be under the impression the deductions pass the threshold into being creative. Opinions are likely creative, and would have to be quoted or otherwise restricted under our non-free content criteria. Deductions, however, are not necessarily creative if somebody else with access to the same information could reach the same conclusion. For example, we don't know what the age of the Earth is; it has been deduced from other evidence, but that does not mean that it is creative. VernoWhitney (talk) 13:46, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

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